India the story so far...

Aside from Al's ranting at the place there have been many delightful aspects to our time here, formost the Food has mostly been brilliant, certainly many more good experiences then bad. Even the plane food was better than edible! Secondly the architecture in some parts has been stunning, and fantastic artworks and very colourful. The people are helpful but they always expect a little piece of our western fortune for their trouble, and some blaitently are just out to scam you!

We arrived into Mumbai late at night back on the 5th of march having lost a day on the flight! A bit disorientated, we weren't quite on alert for the madness of Mumbai! We has wisely booked a hotel in advance... but the taxi driver having no clue where it was tried to off-load us in a backstreet slum overcome with rabid packs of dogs! After a few words he drove us round for another hour before he found it, and then the cheek to ask for a tip, which was "learn your bloody job!"

The next day we spent our time enjoying all Mumbai had to offer.... this meant swiftly going to train station trying to get away from it! As we had a day to kill before heading to Goa, we opted to test out the winerys in Nasik (about 4hrs on atrain away). We had to travel in sterage as all the premium tickets were booked up in advance. This was an experience in itself, the 'air conditioning' meant they had attached a whole bunch of fans to the roof, and the slightly cramped conditions became more crazy and bunched in the more stations we stopped at. On top of that the pollution coming in from the outskirts of Mumbai was enough to make chain smoking seem healthy! Some pretty unsavoury sights of people scavaging through landfil and the slums they live in, pretty nasty. Highlight of the journey was Al beeing wee'd on by a small child!

Nasik was a small town with main form of transport being the Fut fut that we squeezed into with our rucksacks. We headed out to test the best (and only) of the Indians wine production. Sula wines won't be getting any reccomendations any time soon, but may be a good substitute when the world runs out of oil! Enough said we stuck to beer after that, and discovered some brilliant cheese served in a big pot fried in butter and spinach, delicious.

Due some relaxation time we took the over night train to Goa from Mumbai, which wasn't too bad, a damn sight better then sterage! After figuring out where in Goa we actually were we headed to the capital Panji (where we were supposed to be). It's a nice town and not to many european tourists, to take its charm away, yet! From here it was easy to explore around other parts of Goa such as the spice plantations and the old town. Highlight had to be the party boats that do evening tours of the river, and everybody gets up and dances reguardless of how bad they are none of that British shyness. It was the best comedy I've ever seen! For some reason Al and I were treated like celebraties, everyone wanting a picture with us, can't understand why! Probaly think we're Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise!

After that we found the beach in Candolim, a great spot outside the beer guzzlers with their Manchester United pub! We were pretty set for the next few nights swimming, watching beautiful sunsets, and some great food in the beachy reataurants. We then found an even more relaxing spot further up the coast in Mandrem, where we only saw the strange hippy types meditating on the beach with their heads in the sand... thats prettty much it!

We've left the beach now and are in the process of exploring the northern pastures of India, will update soon, Hazel x