Goa

Hello everyone. Let me quickly update you with what has been happening with us: In Kerala, we went on a boat trip to the lovely backwaters. It was very chilled and very green. We got to see some local "cottage industries" such as villagers making string from coconut husks, and the production of lime powder which is used for loads of things which I have forgotten. We also got to see some local fruits and spices growing like pomello, papaya, pepper, cinnamon ect. All very good. We also saw a giant iguana running away from our group by escaping up a tree! I also saw a snake in the water devouring a freshly caught fish. I did'nt get a picture though.

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We did our train trip to Goa last night leaving at 2:45pm and arriving at 5am this morning. A slight problem occurred before our departure as when I went to check the passenger list on the side of the train, I discovered that our name was not listed. Our designated seats in our designated carraige had someone elses name on them! After a bit of confusion from a lot of passengers in the same situation, we discovered that we were looking at the previous days passenger list. They had not stuck the new one on yet. Another lesson learn't. Check the date!

The sleeper train was a lot of fun. On the way I chatted to a group of local Kerala lads who were going to Goa for a week. The sleeping arrangements were sorted out with our neighbours as they wanted one of our bunks. We were more than happy to swap. There was plenty of food and drink on the train with numerous sellers wandering up and down the aisle selling everything you could ever need for a 14 hour train journey. I even had a cup of chai!!! I didn't really get that much sleep though. The neighbors wanted the beds set up at 8:30pm, but I suppose I only slept on and off between 11:30pm and 3:45am. I kept waking up in the night because I was cold!!!! Tip for next time is to wear my fleece!!! After arriving at Goa and leaving the train and making our way out of the station, we joined the taxi que and made arrangements for a taxi to take us to Benaulim beach. We had been unsure of which beach to go to beforehand and had Benaulim down as a possibility, but when we arrived at the taxi que and saw loads of hippy looking people and 24 hour ravers heading to other destinations except Benaulim, our final destination was decided. We wanted to spend our beach time in peace, not surrounded by cannabis smoke and strobe lights.....

As it was still dark when we arrived at Benaulim and most sensible people were still sleeping, we hung around on the beach until around 8am, watching the sun rise before going to find some accommodation.

A young guy from one of the beach huts arrived just after 6am and began setting things up for the day. He offered us the use of a couple of his chairs and checked every now and then that we were ok. I must admit that to start with I couldn't really understand him and we declined the use of his chairs as we thought that this would then lead us to having to spend money at his restaurant. We later realised that this wasn't the case though and that he was just being friendly. He also pointed us in the direction of a place to stay for about what he thought would be around 500 Rupees, but later, after putting our things in the room, we decided that it was too expensive as they wanted 800 rupees per night. We later decided that as we had only put our bags in the room before heading to the beach that we would leave. We snuck back into the room just after midday and removed our things, left the key in the door and left quickly for another place that we had found. On the way out someone spotted us from afar and began to shout something at us. But we didn't stop and just quickened our pace and left. Our new accomodation was a serious downgrade to a beachside coconut shack costing 250 Rupees a night. Much more suitable. The air conditioning was the holes in the sides lol. And we also had the beginnings of a hornets nest on the ceiling. The hornets nest was later moved by my cutting the top from a 2 litre water bottle and putting the nest into it. The bottle ended up on a pile of other discarded bottles. Was the change in accomodation the right choice?? Only time will tell.

We are not planning on doing much in Benaulim. Just chilling on the beach, swimming in the warm sea, eating cheap food and drinking cheap alcohol for the next 3 or 4 days ;-) Our next stop will be Mumbai and we will hopefully be sorting out the train ticket this afternoon.