It was so nice this week not to do much more than relax on the beach, in the glorious sunshine, eat and drink until our heart's content. Being in Goa felt like paradise, especially in comparison from the continuous hustle and bustle of North India.

All the restaurants and shops in Palolem were excepting old currency until the 24th November (the day we leave) which meant our week would be relatively pain free with regards to paying for things. Just what we needed! We managed to pay our driver, Khan, back what we owed him via a friend we had in Delhi. We transferred the money into his English account and he transferred the money to Khan via his Indian account. Job done!

We spent the next few days tanning our still very pale bodies in the sun (using only factor 50- safety first), drinking cocktails from 11am some days, and splashing out on lovely meals. As the hotel we were staying in didn't provide breakfast, the hotel said we could eat breakfast out every morning, then provide the receipts to be reimbursed by the tourist company at the end of our trip. This was a real novelty to eat outside the hotel, I couldn't wait for pancakes and toasties every morning! Reading the history on Goa, we found that it was colonised by Portugal in the 1500's. There are still many Portuguese living and working there which we felt gave Goa more of a relaxed western vibe.

One morning we hired Kayaks each and paddled out to an island. In the distance we saw the distinctive fins of humped dolphins (yes that is genuinely their name) and paddled ferociously to the other side of the beach to make it in time to see them up close. Unfortunately they heard us coming and kept their distance, but it was amazing all the same. At one point, when we stopped paddling and just waited silently, bobbing on the water surface and waiting for the dolphins to come up for air, it felt a tad eerie. We knew they were beneath us somewhere but we couldn't see into the dark blue sea that surrounded us. What else is down there with them, we thought!

One night, whilst making the most of happy hour at 'The Art Resort', my favourite restaurant on Palolem beach, we met a lovely couple - Tom and Gig. They were so friendly and such a laugh. We spent most the night chatting to them. Before we knew it, they had adopted us for the week, referring to us as 'The kids'. There were lots of English tourists dotted about Palolem, which weirdly was actually quite comforting for us.

The next morning, we had organised an early boat trip to watch the dolphins swimming at sunrise. It was a stunning morning and we managed to get a glimpse of lots of dolphins, and some very close up too. After, we did some fishing. An Israeli girl we had met called Stav (which means Autumn) joined us on the trip, and although both myself and Stav started off not even wanting to bother with the fishing, before we knew it, we were competing for the largest catch of the day! I genuinely really enjoyed the fishing part, which we topped off my my catch of a large white snapper. Unfortunately, we didn't get to keep or cook the fish we caught, which would have been awesome, but I didn't fancy gutting the thing and Matts a complete wimp so I couldn't bank on him getting to get the job done.

I had researched a Cookery class on TripAdvisor and came across Rahul's cooking school. It was on the pricey side but I had wanted to learn some traditional Indian cooking since arriving so after bartering him down, we decided to go ahead with it. The 3 hour class was amazing, we both loved it! The dishes we cooked from scratch included: Chicken Masala, Mushroom Pahadi (my personal fav), Egg plant Chapata, Chapatti and Jeera Rice. I have to say, the meal he taught us to cook was by far the best tasting meal we've had since we've arrived in india. The Cookery class was well worth the money and I left a very positive review on TripAdvisor!

There were lots of little shops all around the Palolem Main Street, selling boho and hippie style clothing and jewellery. I was really keen to buy some rings, but they were a tad expensive and you can never be sure of their authenticity here as not all the shops are registered. I decided to check around a few places over a few days to compare prices.

Somehow, Matthew managed to get sun stroke (again), even though he hadn't burnt during the day. I was woken in the early morning of one night, by him shivering, yet to touch he was boiling! I gave him some paracetamol and he tried with great difficulty to sleep it off. He was very weak and aching all the next day, I guess we underestimated the strength of the sun.

My absolute favourite activity of the week was hiring a Moped and driving along the coast of Canacona. We drove in the gorgeous sunshine surrounded by hundreds of towering palm trees. The first beach we managed to actually find as not surprisingly, the beaches were not well sign posted, was Agonda beach. This was as long as Palolem beach but much less touristy. We had breakfast on the beach and got talking to a local who worked there. He told us that Agonda was protected by National Trust from being developed for tourism as it is where turtles go to lay their eggs before they hatch. Tourism and busy areas can turn the turtles away. Unfortunately, we were a month too early to see my bucket list wish of seeing these turtles lay their eggs on the beach.

We hopped back onto the mopeds and we were off again! This time to Cola beach. It took ages to find, we eventually found the tiny blue sign covered by overgrown trees and we drove down a dusty, narrow dirt track. The track was bumpy as hell with a sheer drop to the left of us the entire time. I hoped to God Matt knew what he was doing! The track to the beach was so long and windy that after 15 mins we started to wonder if we had actually taken a wrong turn... and then we saw the beautiful blue ocean. Still alive and in one piece, we arrived at Cola beach. This was a stunning beach, almost untouched by tourism. There was also a natural blue lagoon which you could swim in. We walked the length of the beach to find only a handful of other tourists. After an hour or so if chilling, just listening to the waves and feeling the midday sun, we decided to drive back to Agonda.

We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at Agonda, sitting on a veranda and watching the gorgeous bold sunset. After dinner we drove back to Palolem but unfortunately by this time it had got dark. Driving in the dark on a moped in India where animals think they own the road was quite an experience!

For the rest of our stay in Goa, we enjoyed relaxing on the beach and meeting new people, locals and tourists. Goa was by far my favourite place in india to date. However, on trying to check out on our last day, the tourist company had not paid our hotel bill so the hotel were demanding we pay £300! We spent the whole day trying to contact the tourist company as we couldn't afford to re-pay for a hotel we had already paid them for. We ended up leaving before the hotel bill had been paid by the company which was very stressful! It was a massive shame as Goa had been an amazing place to visit for us but the end had been tainted by this issue.

We had to leave by 15.00 on our final day as our train from Goa was leaving at 17.00 for our next and final destination in India, Mumbai. Unfortunately, our train was delayed by 4 hours, so we had to wait again with very little cash on us. The money problem had at this point reached Goa, and we were again unable to draw money out of the banks. Luckily, we had been organised and accumulated snacks for the train journey throughout our stay.

We got talking to a bunch of other tourists whilst waiting on the platform. It's amazing how tourists stick together even though you might all be from different countries. We got chatting to people from Brazil, Spain and the Ukraine. Everyone was saying how stressful their stay in india had been. One thing we realised with india is you just need to go with the flow and massively adjust your expectations. Travelling india is not always a holiday. It's a very chaotic place, it's hard work to do or achieve the simplest of things. It will push you to your limits but then pull you back again. We've been through such a rollercoaster of emotions already. The demonetisation has just been another challenge to tackle, one which unfortunately has been very hard for everyone.

We also met a couple from the UK, they were on the same train as us but we're going 1st class. Once the train finally arrived, we tried to blag it with them in their first class cabin all to themselves, but embarrassingly we were demoted back to 2nd class. It was worth a shot! The nice thing about 2nd class sleeper was that we had a curtain each and a western toilet... it's the small things in life!