Goa was completely different from the India we had travelled - it was relaxed, quiet and easy going - just what the doctor ordered :) We got to Vagator - our first stop on a bus where the conductor was literally hanging off the side because it was so full. We had decided to go to Vagator for the well thought out reason that the name "sounded cool" and we weren't disappointed. We spent a couple of nights chilling out on the beach and exploring the rocks where James was confronted by an "ear cleaner" who insisted he could see stones in his ears. Before he knew what the random guy was doing coming towards him with a needle, James thought quick and pushed the little old man to the ground. After he realised that probably wasn't the nicest thing to do to a pensioner he agreed to let the man pull handfuls of little stones out of one of his ears (which we later realised was a complete scam) then insisted on a payment of 250 rupees per stone. James reluctantly agreed to pay him the next day when he had the money on him...... we left that night.

We spent a night in Panjim (Capital of Goa) on our way down to Palolem Beach where we stayed in a beach hut literally a few seconds walk to the Arabian Sea. We totally fell in love with the place and only had one minor incident when James got bitten by an ant and seemed to lose more blood than he would have if he'd been in a street fight.

Most of our days there were spentswimming in the sea - I never seemed to tire of making James scream like a little girl by throwing crabs at him. I tried to conquer my total inability to swim without looking like a drowning dog by having swimming races. These proved to be slightly unhelpful though because by the time I managed to swim quite far out my feeble arms were too tired to make it back and I had to practically allow myself to be swept back to shore by the waves. Smooth!

Each night in Palolem we went to a different restaurant along the beach and tasted some of the most amazing seafood i've ever had. Still, the laid-back Goan attitude to food preparation got quite frustrating at times - it genuinely wouldn't have been a shock to see the chef take a stroll down to the sea with a fishing rod after taking our order!

We had initially planned for Palolem to be a chance to chill out from the chaos of the previous few weeks and James even suggested daily morning jogs along the beach...that was until we discovered Cafe del Mar, a 24hour bar where even the toilet attendant became worthly of legendary status by the end of our stay. On our first trip there James spent the night chatting to some Swedish people and the Canadians (Phoebe and Gregg) and I befriended some guys (Jet, Mylon, Suki and Ed) from England who turned out to be probably the most generous people we've met on our travels. By the end of the week we didn't want to leave, just as well really because the day we had planned to go there was a big bus strike and we were stuck in Palolem, darn it! A couple days later we tried to leave again and made it as far as the nearest village but the crappy Indian bus services kicked us in the face again and we were forced to return to Palolem beach at 10pm having checked out of our hut early that morning. Luckily for us our English buddies were true gentlemen and without question Mylon gave us the key to his hut and we left our bags there and headed out for some cheeky cocktails with them all... before one final farewell to cafe del mar :(

The next day we managed to take an overnight bus to Mangalore leaving behind some truely amazing people but gaining some awesome memories of our time on the beach with them and we will definitely keep in touch.

Jo