Today was Christmas day and it was nothing like Christmas at all!! In fact instead of Christmas dinner we had a curry!! We arrived here in a place called Arambol (which is northern Goa), two days ago after travelling up with a girl we met in Gokarna called Alyssa.It took around 4 hours to get here by train, taxi and then a bus.When we finally arrived, Alyssa had a friend already staying here so we left our bags with then whilst we set about looking for accommodation, we didn't know if we'd find anything as everyone we had met travelling said Goa will be rammed for Christmas, but after about an hour we found a fantastic little beach hut for 350rps a night!! Which for this time of year and where we are is really good and it's right on the beach again! Yipeeeeee!!

It'sreally touristy here, it's like I kinda imagined Goa would be with a lot of foreigners here for Christmas, it's the total opposite from where we were two days ago in Gokarna.There is basically a long road that runs down from the village about 1km away and all along the road which leads to the beach; it is lined with all sorts of beach shacks, restaurants and accommodation.The beach is nice though and at night the restaurants take all their tables and put them on the beach for dinner.So on our first night here we met up again with Alyssa and her friend Allison and had a meal at one of the places on the beach, we had a fresh tuna and a hammerhead shark between us, (the shark was so nice... I've never had Hammerhead before).After we had eaten we went back to our beach shack and we discovered that 2 huts down from us our friends that we shared the house boat with in Alleppey, (Alex and Fern) were staying!!! Coincidence or what!!

So yesterday we all met up and decided to go to Anjuna market which is a bit famous market in this area, its huge and they sell everything there! We were planning on going back there today to celebrate Christmas so whilst we were there we tried looking for accommodation but we found it all to be far too expensive and not as nice as where we are already staying, so we decided to just stay where we are until we catch our night train to Mumbai tomorrow night!We really haven't done too much whist being in Goa apart from chilling on the beach and eating and drinking, although whist we were on the beach today a snake came out of the sea and decided to climb up the sun loungers next to us!! Of course I saved the day by diving on it, grabbing it behind the head in a Steve Irwin (RIP) style and releasing it back to the sea!! Lol

Last night and tonight we went to a beach party around a camp fire....basically a few people light a beach fire and start playing the bongo and guitar around the fire, it's actually quite nice, but then you get a load of weirdo hippy wannbe's who get up and start doing this strange hippy/tribal/blowing in the wind kind of dance...and they close their eyes like they are being possessed or something!! I couldn't help but laugh, its flippin hilarious, I really don't have a clue what planet some people are on a times, but it's funny for us 'normal' people to watch! Anyway off to bed now as were leaving bout mid day tomorrow to get to the train station for our night train! Love you all Merry Xmas....nanite xx

Hi all, it's Laura! I do apologise but I have to make an amendment to this particular post... Rich wrote it whilst I was asleep and I've only just read about the snake bit... and what a load of poo that is!! In fact, far from wrestling the snake, Rich was the first person on the whole beach to climb onto his sunbed to get away from it! He even made me approach it to take the pics!!! Hahaa! Bless him! he wont be pleased I've stolen his thunder but never mind! Love you all and hope you had a fab Christmas and New Year! Loads n loads love, Laura and Steve Irwin (as if!!!). xxx