Goa

After another epic overnight train, this time sharing with two random and noisy Indian boys who were sleeping above us and who seemed to take forever to go to sleep, and in a room with no doors just curtains with Velcro fasteners - we finally arrived in Goa.

We were taken to our hotel in Candolim, however when we got there it was like a ghost town! The actual hostel we were supposed to stay in had been abandoned months before, so we were sent to another one round the corner; the owners of which were called John and Janet.

We spent one night here but decided to leave as there was literally nobody around. All the shops were boarded up as if there was a storm set to come, and most of the restaurants were either still being built or deserted.

The next day we moved north to Baga - a livelier place with young people that seemed to get busier each day. It is a typical touristy beach town with the same hagglers you expect everywhere, but the people were much more friendly and most of them had a sense of humour. One man was trying to sell me and Natalie some dresses and was throwing out phrases like 'lovely jubbly' because he knew we were English. He was very entertaining; it was almost as if haggling was a game to him; he soon realised that we were not girls that would easily back down but just keep laughing at us for driving a hard bargain.

The first two days in Baga were spent exploring the town and chilling by the pool in our hotel. We travelled to Anjuna beach to meet Michael in the evening and spent the nights watching the sun set and enjoying the full moon which lit up the entire beach. The sea was literally at the door of this bar we were at called 'Shore Bar'. It was so nice to meet more people. We made friends with a French guy called Karl who was visiting from Paris; his parents owned a house in Goa. Also, a guy called Dave who had spent two years teaching science in Africa but was originally from Florida. We spent both nights just sat around talking about everything and anything, and joined some hippies who were sat round a guitar singing everything from Bob Marley to Ben E King, as well as some of their own weird and wonderful songs all about life.

The second night we actually had a lock in and didn't end up getting home till 7.30 the next morning. After a few nights in Anjuna we definitely felt like real travellers - it was so much fun!

Yesterday our plan was to hire a bike, as it seems to be the easiest was to get around over here, and head for Old Goa. We set off at around 11am after some weird guy finally gave us a bike, we had been trying to haggle for about half an hour. Natalie was driving, the sun was shining, and we had plenty of water, a map, and nothing before us but an open road.

I know what you're thinking, it sounds like something cliché out of a movie, but let me just stop you there! After finally finding our way and driving for about half an hour we were nearly in Panji when…we got busted by the traffic police, I was told to get in the back of the police car and was escorted to the station, while Natalie had to follow the police in convoy! They were detaining the bike as it did not have a proper license!

We both had visions of Bridget Jones Diary in our head and were sure we were in big trouble. It turns out the guy was just after some quick cash and that the bike was not licensed to hire. We filled out some forms and took the officers number in case the owner caused us any problems and were told to inform him that his bike had been taken. After we left the station and went into Panji we were like, did that just happen? It was so surreal! We were so relieved that we were in the clear and just burst out laughing at how random our day had been.

We spent some time in Old Goa looking around the cathedrals and saw the body of Francis Xavier, a saint who was buried in a glass box inside the church, it was very strange!

After a somewhat interesting day we went for dinner at a place called Rock Café about half an hour away. We met two English girls, Sophie and Betty and had a few drinks, warning them not to hire bikes, and laughing about the day!

The following day we stayed in Baga. Natalie got badgered into buying some dresses from some tiny local woman, who made her feel so sorry for her, but they were cheap and very nice, so all is ok on that front. It is so hard to say not to people especially when they rely on tourists to live, there are just so many people here with so little!

Last night we met up with the girls again, had drinks, met some random guys from the American Navy and went to explore the famous TITOs. There were crowds of men everywhere as men are not allowed into clubs without a female partner. We had people us left, right and centre asking us to get them in, we felt so sorry for them!

TITOs was very cheesy and was full of local people falling about all over the place. We didn't stay very long, just long enough to feel like we were in some dodgy club somewhere in Europe that randomly had a buckaroo in the corner which we steered well clear of!

Goa has been really nice, and a good place for meeting other travellers. I am not sure we would come back here but we are definitely glad we spent some time here to re-charge our batteries before flying out tomorrow.

We fly at 8.30am to Colombo in Sri Lanka and spend a day there before heading to Bangkok for our next part of the journey.

It feels like we have been away for so long, but we are enjoying ourselves a lot more now and feel much more settled, especially now armed with our lonely planets!