We said goodbye to our parents for the last time as we headed through security preparing ourselves for the 9 hour flight to Mumbai! The flight was good and we arrived to a sweaty airport at 12.30am local time. We were faced with a 4 hour wait then for our internal flight to Goa where we are going to spend our first week. The wait was helped by with food and a FAT sweaty Texan who took us under his wing for a while whilst we dined in the airport waiting area. He taught us that Indians are unaware of what a queue is, which we had already realised on our arrival thanks to the scrum to get onto the airport bus.
The flight to Goa was short and sweet, and it was clear that delerium and fatigue were kicking in as we laughed at an indian attempting to put headphones on for 10 minutes before snapping them...
On arrival to Goa (airport felt like Santa's intercontinental grotto) we had been promised a prompt pickup and a lovely 1 and a half hour drive through some mountains...we were promised. Firstly,our driver was late. Secondly the drive could have been lovely if our driver wasn't a Rally driver in disguise! We were weaving in and out of buses, pedestrians, bikes and straying cows in their abundance. At this time we had nearly been up 21 hours... Chat was minimal for that hour and a half journey as you could probably imagine, although the scenery was incredible.
We arrived at our accomodation located right next to Patnem Beach around 8 am and we had to wait till 11 for our room. The heat was starting to pick up and all we wanted was shower... Grimy was a royal understatment. We will put up pics of the Vasta's Secret Garden resort soon. I think the one word to described it is BASIC. We are optimistic though as the owners are lovely and we are already starting to speak to various aging neighbouring hippies. I would recommend this place to anyone backpacking.
After a well earned shower we head for the beach. It is a minutes walk away through a small market highstreet and is beautiful. It is made even more incredible by the fact that people do not clutter the beach. It is ridden with bars and drinks are cheap (60p a beer) so we plan to make use of this throughout the week.
We got our tan on for the day and returned back in the evening. The food is delicious and those that know me should be shocked when I say I would recommend a vegetarian dish! Better than any indian in the uk I have been to, and only £2.50. In the evening as well, the beach was ridden with tables of people eating under the stars and candle light. Emily was particularly fond of the unbelievably friendly stray dogs which were all around us. It looked incredible, so we made the most of it and the cheap beer and stayed a while before heading home.
I am writing this from bed on our first morning. Our sleep was aided by the alcohol I feel. However the noise throughout the night is...let's just say varient. We heard ( I say we, emily sleeps like a log) 10 different types of birds, dogs, stuff crawling on our roof and every mode of transport which posseses a horn, we heard, inc trains!! It wasn't helped by the fact we were held hostage by mosquitoes in our net, and I needed the toilet all night, which is in a seperate building! Saying that, we feel rather refreshed today! Anyway I have nothing to add other than I will be coming back here in the future. Imagine a beautiful beach, with minimal people, incredible food and drink that's cheap cheap cheap... The accomodation is good for what we are paying.

We are going to visit a beach which is supposed to be one of the best in india today. Watch this space. Photos will be up soon...