Hello Everyone

Sorry it has been a while since we have last blogged - we have been busy enjoying the sea, sand and sunshine of Goa!

We flew down to Goa last Saturday via Mumbai with PJ in tow, our pensioner who has since become our travelling companion who we have been with on and off since Jaipur after picking him up at the train station! Real name is Peter Jack and he is 66 and decided to come to India for a month and has since discovered that he hates it and if I hadn't of helped him use the internet to book a flight down to Goa he would have abandoned ship weeks ago and headed back home to Devon!

We will soon be leaving our companion as we fly out to Mumbai tomorrow were we will be staying with an Indian family so should be totally new experience for us both.

We have been in Anjuna for the last week. Goa is completely different to anything we have previously seen in India and is literally like being in a new country. Palm trees are everywhere and everything is very lush and green with barely any poverty and animals at all compared to what we have seen! Very chilled out here, lots of traveller around including a large amount of westerners who obviously arrived here about 30 years ago and never left. We have discovered what Santa does when it is not Christmas as we discovered him on the beach on our first day, red g string in tow with a massive grey beard enjoying the sunshine! Staying ina lovely place, with a slightly nuts landlady but it is cheap (only 400 rps) so thats the most important thing! Alot of the places were very expensive so Joe had to have a good old barter to get a cheap place to stay.

Hired a scooter for three days to get around the rest of Goa as everything is actually really close any easy to get to. After Joe riding it for about 30 mintues we had our first crash and fell off the bike when he attempted to do a u turn, which evidently is not as easy as it look! Luckily, neither of us were injured - I managed to jump off the back in time before it fell on Joe. But the only injury was a scraped hand (Joes!). After trying to recover from this we then realised that we had a massive scratch down the side of it, and considering hiring a bike was easier then stay in a hotel (Joe - Can we rent a bike? Guy - How many days? Joe - Three Guy - 200 rps a day Joe - 150 rps Guy - Agreed, can you drive it? Joe - No Guy - Heres the keys) and the damage was the only thing they mentioned we would have to pay for. After me fretting, we got PJ involved who found a black marker pen and sat out in the sun and fixed this for us! We are now hoping that if we take it back now (its dark) they won't notice the coloured in mark and all will be well!

After this, we were fine with driving and have since spent the last few days out in Arambol and Mandrem which is very beautiful and its so easy to get around and we didn't get lost! Been able to see more of Goa has been a definate plus side of the scooter despite the early dramas!

Will blog soon as time running out

Lots of love

Joe and Rachel xxxxxxx