Goa - 14th Feb to 20th Feb (...tbc)

Hi everyone, thanks for all your emails and messages. We hope you are as entertained by the blog as we are by the random comments we are receiving!!

So we headed back temporarily to Delhi to catch a quick 2 ½ hour flight to Goa. The flight was good (GoAir), no delays. We arrived in Goa and had a hairy 20 minutes or so wondering if our hotel transfer was actually going to show. There seemed to be loads of people with name cards but worryingly none with our names. Having paid for our transfer and hotel for the week in advance and in cash you can imagine why we were a tad nervous! Panic over, he arrived.

Straight away we noticed a couple of pretty significant differences between northern India and Goa. The first was obviously the heat but the second was the significant reduction in the use of car horns blasting every couple of seconds. It was about 1 ½ hours drive to our hotel and I think our driver only used his horm every 3 or 4 minutes or so rather than every second so a fairly relaxing experience compared to some of the car journeys we had endured over the past week or so. We chose a resort in South Goa (Palolem) rather than north as according to the guide book south Goa is much more relaxed and less hectic than the north. Party animals indeed!

We arrived at our hotel and checked in to our "cottage on the beach". It is more of a tin / concrete hut painted yellow about 100 feet or so away from the beach, still close enough to hear the waves in the morning. We were not expecting too much (given the cost) and were not disappointed. The "cottage" is fairly basic, just a couple of beds and a dresser but it does have its own "shower room", unlike some of the tents which the resort also offers.

Our hut is fairly comfortable but Dan didn't get much sleep the first night because of the mosquitoes buzzing in his ears all night. I on the other hand slept really well but woke up the next morning to find that the little b*****s had been chomping on my arm all night! We decided to hang our mosquito net over the bed (sacrificing the use of the overhead fan), but it was well worth it to get a decent nights sleep without being eaten alive. In a rather strange way its is good to be using the net as I imagined it might be one of those things we carry all the way round the world and not once.

Next morning was off to the beach to spend the day lazing on a sun bed and doing absolutely nothing. The beach itself is really quite pretty with lots of accommodation/restaurants to choose from. All of the buildings here have to be temporary and prove this by being taken down periodically. This gives the whole place a bit of a ramshackle feel which has a certain charm and means that there's no big hotels - just huts of various descriptions.

The guide book said that Palolem beach was lovely 10 years or so ago but was now past its best and over crowded. We were pleasantly surprised by how pretty it is and it is certainly not overcrowded, in fact, its fairly quiet - definitely not Bournemouth on a sunny day! I guess we are just catching the tail end of the peak season and it was probably heaving in December and January but its not now - we are quite happy here.

Probably the strangest thing about the beach is that you share it was a bunch of cows (and quite a few howling stray dogs!). They (the cows) don't much mind where they lie down so long as its in your umbrella shade and you lay in the sun and fry. They don't mind how they scratch their heads either, this is usually on the corner of your sun lounger, while you try not to get drooled on. And yes, you've guessed it, they don't mind where they poo. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be that much on the beach but it can be pretty unpleasant when they decide to dump their load 6 feet or so from your head!

There are a lot of locals on the beach trying to sell you their wares which includes, amongst other things sarongs, jewellery, newspapers, boat trips, fresh fruit, pedicures and ear cleaning. No, that last one is not a typo! We did buy some fresh pineapple which was delicious. We ate about half of it and the other half was stolen from our table by a big stinking cow who polished it off, bag and all!! All part of the Goan experience I guess - if a ½ tonne sacred cow decides it wants to share your shade and your lunch, what can you do?!

The food in our beach-side restaurant is pretty good so we eat there most nights. Last night a huge lizard (10cms long!) made a guest appearance at our table. It was just under the lip of the table on my side and I touched it with my leg which made me and it jump and it scurried round to Dan's side of the table. Five minutes or so later is was back round my side of the table. I pushed my chair back out of the way but I could see it looking at me and I was convinced it was giving me the evil eye. Seconds later it backed up onto the top of the table, wiggled its little head at me then took a run and jump and tried to land on me. Needless to say I let out a bit of a scream, jumped up and gave our fellow dinners something to giggle at! I nearly had heart failure, Dan found it all very amusing!

More time on the beach over the past few days (we reckon its low to mid 30's with a gentle breeze - bet your jealous now!!) and we have also managed a stroll up to the far end to see what was there. More of the same really but nice to explore. We have seen some beautiful sunsets here and are now just really chilling out and making the most of the down time.

We have now been in Goa for 6 nights which means tonight should be our last before we head south to Kerala to see the tea plantations and backwaters, then up the east coast to Chennai to catch our flight to Thailand - well that was the original plan anyway. We spent a good few hours yesterday on-line (well Dan did whilst I read my book!) trying to get trains to take us to our next destination. We tried a few different alternatives but could not get a train for the life of us so eventually we gave up and have booked a cheap flight from Goa straight to Chennai which means another 8 days here on the beach. We also managed to extend our stay in the same resort for the extra 8 days at a much better rate that should more than covers the cost of our flight - lesson learned about booking through agents! I have to say I am not too disappointed with the outcome.

So, I guess there wont be too much to update on for the next week but we are looking forward to compiling our Top 10 memorable Indian experiences list - I think you can all guess what number 1 will be!!!

Take care and keep the hilarious messages coming!

Lots of love,

Sue & Dan xx