Day 4
Alarms on for 6.30 to leave, I woke a little bit before that. Good job too, uncle terry and dad had already loaded the rickshaws! They weren’t stopping in that hole any longer haha!

Dad said he was sleeping with a corpse bride last night, uncle terry got all tangled up in his mossy net so it was just losing on his face and body - thats gunna do a hell of a lot to prevent those mosquitos haha! He’s funny ai!

We were up and on he road by 7am. The beauty of that we would beat the traffic in the rows. Before the rat race woke up.
After Kumta it was pretty quiet though, lots of grass land and forestry. Good really because we wanted to get to goa tohave at least half a day on the beach chilling out.
A few hills and windy roads; crazy as usual with lorries overtaking buses, five on the back of a moped and traffic coming towards you on your side of the road. It’s about standard these days. They’re all in a rush on the roads but when it comes to doing anything else they’re practically in reverse, they need a rocket up their arse most of the time.
We passed over the check point border to Goa about 10am, nobody at the check point mind so not sure what these borders are al about. They just man them when they please.
We stopped to fill up a few passed us on the way there, Ross had the hotels he had been looking at so he was in front.
On the way a huge marquet monkey bounced his way across the road in between the two of our Tuk Tuks and sat on the tree next to the road, he wasn’t a bad looking chap but I wasn’t stopping to find out if he was shy or not.
We got to Palolem, just as I remember. The small hippy beach resort with no main roads and the buildings and huts are built around the palm trees, so you either have one going through your bedroom or your nose touches it when you sit on the toilet at the beach bars.
Eventually at 11am after a few U turns on very small roads, going down a few dirt tracks fitting the shaws through a very narrow gap of two concrete posts we made it. We stopped at ‘Club Palolem’. Very nice, battered them down a litre for our rooms so 4000 ruppees for the two rooms wasn’t too bad.
We immediately got changed and went to the beach. All intentions to get a boat and go out on the sea but our bellies came first we were so hungry as we didn’t have much last night nor had we had breakfast.
Soon after filling our bellies it was time for a much needed dip in the sea and it was cold! It was so refreshing!
A game of ball in the sea and a well deserved nap on the beach was just what was needed, dad caught some flies, Ross and uncle terry got burnt - naughty!
We went for a walk across the beach and then to do some shopping. We can’t not have our cheap cheap Indian tourist clothes!
Bumped into another kiwi team, their gear box had gone and the local mechanic is inundated with rickshaws lining up to be fixed so they were told it would be 3 days. Not sure how they’re gunna get about that one.
Back to the room to do a bit of laundry and get changed for the midway party at Neptune’s. Ross was super red! I can tell the difference between him and the white towel now.
We got going to the party it was like I was having a night out on the town with the girls, they all had their indian skirts on bloody brilliant!
We had dinner on the beach by candle light, couldn’t see a bloody thing. It all tasted good though!
Then the trek Ross took us on to get to the Neptunes bar. Over some rocks to a dead end. We had to detour and go up a very dark gully to try and find our way there. What a nightmare! All the bars in palolem and they chose that one with only expensive tuborg beer. Not good!
It was nice to see everyone, a lot of people didn’t make it to the party but some were going off road and in land. One Dutch team got forced off the road 5km outside of palolem, they ended up in hospital with lots of stitches. Their tuk tuk looks like it’s finished to drive unfortunately.
We left around 10.30pm, a tuk tuk for a ride home would be handy. You’d think there would be one available but think again. This is India! We had to walk home the long way around the mountains.
I’m pretty sure we will be one of few teams to get up and go in the morning! A lot were smashed ...or high.
120km covered today