Hello!

We have retreated back to the safety of the beautiful Palolem after several stressful bus and train rides. We traveled south to Kerela and visited Cochin and Ernakulam, then went off on a 7 hour bus ride to the village of Kumily, by the Periyar wildlife sanctuary. We had a lovely elephant ride and watched both a Kathakali dance and a demonstration of the Keralan martial art 'Kalari'. We got the same bus back to Ernakulam, stayed another night then caught the train back to Goa. The busses were insane, going toward hairpin bends at about 50mph, then braking hard and going round them on what felt like 2 wheels. These busses have useful solid metal handrails at the back of each seat so you can either hang on for dear life when cornering, or as I did several times, crack your head on when braking. There was also a small child in the front seat (why the front seat?!) of the bus who occasionally threw up out of the window and the rest of the bus had to hurriedly close the shutters before they were splattered as there is no glass! You'll all be horrified to hear I was gotten once when my reactions were just not fast enough.

Sweety the dog was very excited to see us back. The man who ran the resteraunt died on New Years Eve and it will remain closed until Tuesday we think, so we have been going other places for food. Yesterday a few of us went to Patnam beach and Sweety followed us, causing trouble with all the other dogs on the way and the way back. She was sensible enough to fall asleep at Patnam, but not brave enough to come in a rickshaw with Kinga and me back home!

I guess that the photos will slow down now we're back in Palolem and you've all seem the photos from here, so sorry about that, we're just not ready to leave just yet!