Hello from the curry stuffed travellers!

We're currently in Mumbai airport about to board the plane to Thailand so it's a big farewell to India. We can't believe our India and Nepal leg of the trip is over already! Time flies......you know how it goes! Just a 'quick' update on the past 10 days. We flew to Goa on the south-west coast and it was like arriving in another country! We left the noise, the craziness, the melting heat and the traffic of northern India behind and only had golden beaches, palm trees and relaxation to look forward to. Goa lived up to our expectations. It's a small area consisting of lots of beautiful beachside villages. We spent a couple of days in a tiny place called Agonda, where we were literally the only ones on the beach, and another few days in a place called Palolem, which was a bit livelier. We were lucky with the weather and the sun shone non-stop. The 35c heat was a welcomed relief from the 'oven of the north' - Rajasthan!!

We did a little bit of sightseeing after this and headed north to the capital of Goa, Panaji. Goa is predominantly Catholic so Panaji and neighbouring Old Goa were full of churches. The Portuguese ruled here for nearly 200 years so you could definitely get a European feel about the place. We treated ourselves to some Portuguese style food which was a nice change.

Our next adventure involved one of the dodgiest bus trips we've had so far. Passing out trucks coming up to blind corners is a national pastime in India!! The only defence tactic was to try and close our eyes and fall asleep, although I couldn't manage this as I was sure we'd be found turned upsidedown on the side of the road with kids stealing the petrol from the fuel tank!! (As we had seen on many occasions in Nepal!) Ger nodded off with not a care in the world apart from which type of curry he would have in Mumbai!

13 hours later we made it safe and sound to Mumbai, or Bombay as the locals still call it. Mumbai is the biggest city in India and it's the most economically successful. If you have ever spoken to an Indian person in a call centre then they were most likely speaking to you from Mumbai. The massive gap between rich and poor is really evident here also. 55% of the population live in slums, in tightly packed areas. One of these is only 1.7sq km and yet 1 million people live there. At the other end of the scale some of India's wealthiest people live here including all the famous Bollywood stars. There are loads of modern pubs and cafes where a drink costs more than the average daily wage in India.

There aren't too many temples or forts to see in Mumbai, although we did take a trip to an island one day so see a temple carved into the side of a mountain. We mostly spent our time enjoying the cafes and taking in the atmosphere and buzz of an Indian city for the last time.

Tourism in India, and particularly Mumbai, has been majorly affected by the terrorist attacks which took place here in November last year. One of the places which was attacked by gunmen was Leopold's Cafe, the most popular hangout for all tourists who visit Mumbai. Amazingly this place opened up the very next day after the attacks, to show it's defiance I suppose. Business hasn't been affected thankfully and it was packed day and night with people from all over when we were there. It was really strange to see bullet holes in the windows and the walls all around us but it didn't seem to stop anybody enjoying the beer and the banter. I got offered a part as an extra in a Bollywood movie outside the cafe today!! Turned it down of course as it's not high profile enough for me.......well actually it was for tomorrow and I'll be in Bangkok!

We'll be sad to leave India as we've experienced some amazing things here. It's been tough work at times but overall the highlights have more than compensated for the frustrations along the way. Every day here is an interesting day, and we can never say that we were bored! Meeting all types of people has been one of the best things about this country - the random rickshaw drivers, the street stall salesmen, the lovely Indian family that fed us Indian desserts on a train, playing cricket with kids by the Ganges, the friendly recovering alcoholic that sat next to us in a cafe, we'll remember them all!! We won't miss being photographed by random people though, that got very annoying after a while. Indian food was a whole adventure in itself and as Stu in Scotland kindly pointed out.....'we'll be a couple of Easter eggs on legs' coming home after eating curries every night!! Cheers!!

We've almost caught up with sporting events again thanks to Ger's beloved ESPN channel in every hotel and we were lucky enough to catch Man U winning the league the other night, a real treat! Looking forward to seeing them become the champions of Europe on Wednesday night. Ger was actually pricing Barca jerseys in a Nike store today!! He didn't splash out luckily.

The delights of Bangkok and South East Asia are all ahead of us. We'll let you know how we get on!
Take care,
Love Linda and Ger xxx