Hello All,

The last time we wrote we were in Varanasi and that seems like a long time ago! From Varanasi we got a train to Mumbai which took 26 lovely long hours, but was air conditioned and so Holly and I both slept, pretty much, through the entire journey.

We got into Mumbai in the afternoon and it was baking hot, again about 42 degrees I think, and hopped into a taxi which took us straight to our hotel 'The Salvation Army'. Now, before I go any further, I would like to point out that by law there is no way in hell that that place should have been allowed to refer to any part of their establishment as a 'salvation'. The hotel was the cheapest in Mumbai but still cost us R225 each, which is about 3.50p. While this may not seem pricey to you, we were horrified at the cost. The price included no pillows, no bed sheets, no running water, no friendly staff, no lighting. It did have however, a bucket of water for showering, a toilet that resembled that of 'trainspotting', a hard boiled egg for breakfast, bed bugs and little pigeons that flew past my head in the night giving me a nice breeze. Lovely. We spent 4 days in there and remarkably left with no major health issues.

We loved Mumbai and it made a pleasent change from the hideousness we experienced in the rest of India. We have both decided that to come back here with a bloke would be totally different, but being two girls alone it can be really tiresome. The people never leave us alone and we got hassled constantly. But Mumbai was different. They had seen white people before and weren't totally disgusted by us as we walked past. We met two lovely girls in our dorm called Dorrie and Ruth and one morning as we were leaving our hotel we were approached by a man who asked us if we wanted to be extras in a bollywood movie. We agreed to meet the following morning.

The next day we all got up and got picked up in a mini bus full of other gringos who (as white people) are more willing to wear clothes that the Indian women wouldn't and are therefore highly sought after for movies. We arrived at the hotel which was beautiful and all had our hair and makeup done, as well as given some rather special looking clothes for us to wear on set. We spent the whole day there, till late and they fed and watered us and then gave us R500 for our time! We had a laugh - mainly at the stupid 'staring lady' who thought she could shout at us, and then didn't understand why we laughed at her...

The following day we got the train down to Goa (nicely paid for by our acting roles), and arrived at Palolem beach in the dark at 11pm. The girls (Dorrie and Ruth) had booked us into a beach hut so we just went for dinner and then went to sleep. Sleeping all day on a train is tiring work, you see.

From then, the 2nd of May, until now, I have very little left to report. We have done absolutely nothing at all, really. And it's been bloody lovely.

Here are some things we did do;

We moved house, three times. From the Nest to Cafe Del Sol and then to Flavia's. Flavia's is where we are at now and I suspect we are just staying in her spare room. It's really nice, but a little off the beach because monsoon is coming so all the beach huts have been taken down and you have to move into concrete huts.

When we lived at Cafe Del Sol we had two dogs, Holly and James. James, you will see in the photos, got drawn on by magic marker pen and now has rather suspect hair. Holly had a little puppy called Ariana and we taught her to swim in the sea. She was really cute but one day went missing and apparently an Indian man stole her.

I made friends with an English man named Thaannjo and he and I played frisbee and had a 3 legged race. Holly played cricket.

We booked a trip to ride on some elephants except when we arrive to the island (by boat) the boat man looked shocked when we asked where the elephants were. Apparently we had simply booked a trip to 'elephant island'. There was nothing to ride. We got the boat home.

We read books. Lots and lots of lovely books.

But mainly, we have done nothing. We just go for breakfast in the morning and then lie on the beach all day, in and out of the sea. In the evening we go for supper and then see our friends or watch films at our old house. That's about it, and it's lovely.

On Monday we fly from Goa to Delhi. On Tuesday we fly from Delhi to Bangkok and then finally, on Wednesday we fly from Bangkok to Vietnam! We are so excited. From there we will go to Loas and then Cambodia before flying down to Ko Samui to meet Holly's mam. We have a vague plan to go from there to Ko Phan gnan and then to Ko Tao. All of which have been nicely lined up for ease of travel.

Anyway, better dash but we will write soon and we are thinking of you all! We were just saying today how these 2 months in India have absolutely flown by. Can't believe we are leaving soon.

Lots of Love

xxx