Dinner with friends

We met Vinitha and Benson for dinner on Saturday evening (8/5) at a beautiful resort near Lighthouse Beach in Kovalam.  We met at the Uday Samudra Beach Resort.   We walked through the resort and out onto the beach.  There was a wonderful breeze.  Then we went back into the restaurant.  We sat down around 6:45 or 7 and there was no one else in there.  Indians tend to eat a little later.  More people arrived around 8 or after.

The restaurant had a nice menu.  We ordered some garlic butter prawns and some kerala spiced chicken for starters.  I filled up on the prawns and just ordered some steamed rice for my meal.  They were so worried about me and had the waiter bring some yoghurt to eat with my rice.  I actually really liked it.  

Vinitha was quick to tell me that they were Christians and I was so thrilled to tell her that we were too.  In India, that typically means Catholic.  We discussed our services and they had never even heard of Protestants.  She was shocked to hear about a community church with worship and a message and not all of the creeds, prayers, readings and rituals associated with the Catholic Church.


Vinitha and Benson have a love marriage and it was quite difficult to convince their families to let them marry.  They met at university and it was 8 years before they were married.  Benson works in network engineering for a US company.  Their English is very good and they said that their children mostly speak English and they speak it better than any of the Indian languages.  Their children learn Malayalam and Hindi. 

Sunday evening (8/6), Marshall's coworker Anoop and his wife, Sindhu, Pillai drove to our home to pick us up and take us to dinner.  This was the first time we have ridden in the car with anyone other than Shaji. Anoop is one of the founders and investors in the company and he has lived and traveled all over the world. He drove a Toyota Fortuner which is basically mostly a Four Runner in the states. They took us to a beautiful resort on the coast just south of Kovalam.  The waves were huge and the resort sits up on a cliff.

The Niraamaya Retreats Surya Samudra resort has a beautiful setting.  It has a beautiful infinity pool.  The rooms are in small individual buildings.  They offer yoga classes on a platform overlooking the cliffs and ocean.

Marshall and I may book a night here for our final days in the area.  It seems really remote and tranquil.

The restaurant was open-air.  Anoop had hoped that we would arrive in time to watch the sunset but our full day up to Ponmudi kept us from getting there that early.

Anoop and Marshall both ordered Kingfisher beer.  The menu had many options for foreigners.  Anoop ordered beef, Sindhu ordered a mozzarella spinach sandwich and I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich.  Marshall was the only one who ordered an Indian meal.




I really enjoyed talking to Sindhu.  She works for an American company based in Florida.  They also have an office in Carmel, IN.  She helps companies minimize insurance costs but utilizing tele-health and monitoring health on a regular basis.  She actually works on the same campus as GenPro in the Technopark but a different building.

They were both very kind and easy to talk to.  They brought us some Indian sweets and some Glenlivet.  

We enjoyed our evening!


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