Arriving in Palolem, Canacona at night didn't do the place justice. With all the shops shut on its singular main road it didn't seem particularly alluring and I began to ponder if the beauty of Palolem and been embellished some what.

Thankfully, come sunrise we walked for a mere two minutes before stepping out onto the palm fringed beach, with glittering clean sand and lots of vibrant beach umbrellas littering the shore - it looked like paradise after our stamina sapping city hopping! As coconuts thudded to the floor sporadically around us we ogled the brightly coloured beach shacks that nestled themselves in the apron of sand that was hugging the sea - it looked just like the pictures we had seen.

I have merged the first two days of our stay here as we have basically just had lazy days with random activities injected every now and then; on the first day we literally did nothing but soak up the sun like solar panels to recharge our batteries and drink cold, alcoholic beverages to recharge our zeal for life.

Palolem beach also offers a wide variety of beach restaurants and cafes that are just begging to be sampled. Also, on the main road, behind the row of beach houses, there are an eclectic mix of shops that sell brazenly fake items for ludicrously low prices - Chelsea was very happy.

Strangely, there seem to be a lot of Israeli and Russian people holidaying here - the Russian people are easy to spot as they all have a tattoo of a wolf somewhere on their bodies. Chelsea befriended a girl from Israel called Stahv (which means autumn) who was very friendly and accompanied us on a few of our excursions as she was travelling on her own - she spoke excellent English but she had a strange French accent to accompany it.

On the second day of our stay we got up very early, our room doesn't have curtains so we pretty much wake up with the sun, and dawdled down to the beach via a narrow sand path that was house brick red.

With a handsome sunrise peeping over the palm trees to our left we decided to hire some kayaks and take to the water for an explore. The water got very dark very quickly and didn't offer good visibility, realising that I was an inch above the water in my racer blue kayak I began to get slightly pessimistic as the shore line began to shrink to a ribbon of yellow over the waves behind us.

Just as grave thoughts of killer squid and the Jaws theme tune entered my head a dorsal fin popped up some fifty yards to our left, then another, and another! Excitement flooded me at once as I realised that they weren't murderous sharks but a school of dolphins (I later learned that they were humped dolphins - no snickering please).

Racing after them in an unflattering way we eventually managed to catch up with them. They rudely weren't interested in us at all, though they didn't seem to mind our presence. They were very close to us and kept constantly coming to the surface to blast their lungs volume into the air. It was very peaceful out on the water, watching them slide around us with the sun tickling our necks - unfortunately our hours lease was up far too quickly and we had to paddle back to shore.

In the evening we settled down in a saucy bar called, The Art Resort, and hit their cocktail happy hour bloody hard. Several watermelon daiquiris later (I was anyone's) Chelsea decided to order a 'Milkybar chipati smothered in Nutella'. When the waiter described it to her she physically slapped her own forehead and said, quote: 'Oh my God, you have just described my life!' Myself and the waiter exchanged a fleeting, puzzled look regarding what that statement actually meant before he whisked off to bring Chelsea her chocolate covered life. Now, obviously Chelsea was expecting something spectacular (hence the violent forehead slap and ambiguous slur) and what she got was extremely memorable. On seeing her dessert and then her reaction I burst out laughing, nearly spilling my virile daiquiri! It was literally the size of a Tesco value fish finger with a spittly bit of Nutella draped over it. Poor Chelsea looked distraught and following her singular mouthful of dessert we staggered back to our hotel.