Feb 2006

Currently at Goa airport, waiting to board our flight to Bombay before Navsari. Photos will be up over the next few days, as there are HEAPS from the last week or so.

All is good
Nick

Ha Bloody Ha... the Kingfisher strikes back with avengence !!

In Panjim now, much harder finding a Cybercafe in this place than in Touristville central, the beaches.
Spent last evening in the company of the Fijian-Indian-Kiwi blokes and 2 UK-Indian girls from Leicester on Vagator beach, along from Anjuna. Somehow ended up at a place called Prim Rose, for some food, altho the lads were strictly on the liquid refreshments. Come kick-off Chelsea vs Liverpool, a mob of Fans arrived to watch the game upstairs on large screen, so we joined in. Boring Game, but it ended in 90min or so, if you didn't catch it Chelsea won 2-0 and take away the League title. Anyway, Nick found the club associated with Prim Rose and it was superbly organised with seating, dancefloor and psychedelic lighting... just very few punters, so Baskin and Robbins icecream seemed a wiser choice. Shared a taxi back to Calangute with the UK girls only to find the power was off, and the boys at Shalom had already started on the bottle of Smirnoff for the night, so popped over to enjoy the moonset until power was restored.

Superb morning today, went for nice last walk along the beach before all the sun loungers get full of people and also got a 'Real coffee' from the Kaya Cafe... just along from our accomodation. It is owned by a Japanese woman and her Goan husband.. good freshly ground coffee, with a fantastic breakfast of fresh fruit (papaya, pineapple, strawberries and banana) with this terracotta pottle of fresh yoghurt, as well as eggs and toast on a plate made from leaves. Amazing presentation and undeniably the best breakfast I had in Goa.

Found Nick relishing in the after-effects of Kingfisher, and after a 'refreshing' beetroot juice he almost caused the rickshaw driver to have a panic attack as he puked red-purple on the side of the road. He is blaming the chicken toasted sandwiches from Room Service, but I never saw any of that or carrots either !!

Staying in Panjim on AB Road, there is no C or D.. we asked!. Went for a stroll and Nick picked himself up to do some shopping. Tis a good moto to buy now as you may not see it again. Have got a Family Supply of humungous cashew nuts, fingers crossed NZ MAF will let us in the country with them, or will be crazily eating them by the Amnesty box.

Just spent an hour on a 'Sunset Cruise'. Very popular with at least 4 Operators and plenty of 'tourists' mostly Indians from other places, but also a few white and other colours too. Very corny Entertainment director, who loved the sound of his own voice rather too much and seemed to be almost swallowing the microphone.

OK, so our Southern Indian adventure is almost over, just another Domestic flight and it has plenty to compete with and then the train ride homeward.

Ciao for now.
Maya

Goa in a nutshell.
Ate too much
Drank too much
Currently paying the price....

Solid evening last night. Started with a cruise over to a different beach called Vagator to hook up with the indo-kiwi dudes and the english girls from earlier. AWESOME beach.. think cliffops, coconut palms and bamboo shacks. Not crowded at all, probably coz most of the beachgoers were happily smoking it up in the beach-shacks.

As a result I'm having a bit of a rough one today. Tender stomach and all, lets just say the rickshaw had to make an emergency stop this morning. Could be a real rough hangover or the street-side feed we bought at 5am.... We've sussed that Drunken Samosas here are the equivalent of Drunken Pies back home!

Spending the night in the Goa state capital of Panchim at a relatively nice hotel. Yes, air conditioning and hot water 24/7. Qutie a nice city... it even has footpaths and i havnt seen a cow on the road all day! Heaps of catholic churches and the likes around because of the Portugese influence. Had a wee shop-up and then boarded for a 'Sunset Cruise' in the harbour.

Cruise was a bit of a joke. Was a bit apprehensive; boarding a sketchy boat while nursing a vulnerable stomach... but that was soon all turned around by our MC for the evening and the ridiculous on-cruise setup. Fast-talking, american-accented indian dude introducing each part of the on-stage 'entertainment', followed by the 'DJ' going nuts on one of those synthesiser keyboards (the ones every 10 year old had) while some local fools tried folkdancing. It was SO cheesy, but the rest of the boat (mostly non-Goan indians) were lapping it up! Cameras out and all. Great for a laugh.

Some more of Panchim, a bit of Air Deccan to Bombay and a train ride back to Navsari tomorrow will bring Tour 1.0 to an end.

Awesome, am not risking dinner tonight as spewing beeroot-red stomach juices out of the rickshaw (in an attempt to cure the hangover I thought I'd try some healthy fruit juice...bad call) isnt my fondest memory of the adventure so far!

laters
Nick

Hey everyone

Having an amazing time in Goa, not hard to see why it's the tourist capital of India. This place is massive, littered with cool beaches and has a party scene too.

Choka with people, no shortage of bods on the beaches and in the shops. A mixutre of paisty white and crimson red Poms - they're about as much fun as a hard boilled egg. At any one time there've got be anywhere between 10 000 - 20 000 of them in Goa.

Had a couple of MEAN nights out with another planned to start in a few hours. Bumped into some other indo-kiwis in a bar called 'Mambos' and have been hitting it with them. Last night we went to this surreal clifftop club called 'Club Cabana'. Interesting cover charge policy (or just no admission for guys that arent couples...wheres the fun in that?) here, but we got in sweet as were accompanied by a couple of english chicks that I had met the night before. 500 rupees (not even 20 bucks NZ!) later you're at this poolside bar, next to a mansion / club. Seriously, thought I was in Hollywood! Went to find Cameron Diaz but to no avail.... Oh, OPEN bar nonetheless, the cover charge includes all the drinks you can handle. Needless to say it was a wicked night.

Had a mission 2 hour bus ride to Anjuna beach (its only 15km away)where we had lunch with the indo-kiwi dudes. I went to a midnight market before meeting up with them again that night. Got a henna tattoo as well, will try and post up a picture. Maya made a return visit to 'Shalom' and I'm thinking dinner there's gotta be done again.

Umm... what else? Eating delicious seafood on the beach, still drinking Kingfisher. It's still bloody hot, high 30's I'd say. Swimming, but the water's luke-warm so its not exactly refreshing!

Another full day in Goa tomorrow; may be going deep-sea fishing with the kiwi dudes on a boat they've hired. If not I'm hoping to go on this waterfall tour where you get to see sweet monkeys plus check out this 'Saint Francis Xaviar" guy's corpse. Legend has it he was a Portugese catholic missionary who died in the 1500's but his body doesnt decompose. Currently residing in a glass coffin at a church in Goa. How out-of-it is that!

Luvin It!
Nick

Ciao guys and gals,

Well, was a beautiful start to the day, wandered down to Calangute Beach early and was rewarded with seeing the fishing boats coming in and the nets being emptied of crabs, fish etc. Found a quiet spot and guess what you do not get any hassles if you are sitting and meditating. In fact you hear people walking towards you and then around your 'space'. The whole personal space thing took on a new dimension, considering how crowded everything else is.

Nick became human around 10am after a big night out with some 'new friends' that he made in Club Paradiso.......Indian Kiwis no less and they are friends of Ashwins from Auckland and the UK.

After some blog picture uploading, we decided to check out some local transport to Anjuna (the party beach). It is always helpful when someone tells you that to get there, you have to go to Mapusa first and change buses. Well, what a trip... the local scenery is great, heaps of tall coconut palms and something strange was with every cow in a paddock there was a white Heron type bird nearby. Hmm, maybe the cow stirs up the bugs for the bird.. nature is full of symbiotic relationships.

Buses.. Ha Ha, getting off the first was OK, but the next one was madly filling up. Needless to say the 'polite foreigners' stood back and let the locals on..... only to have the last 2 people standing on the last step, just enough for the door to close. Yes actually these ones have doors that close, unlike some others. So, we waited for the next bus which duly arrived, unloaded and reversed into its space. Sweet, seats all around... but then another bus arrived and we were told that the one we were comfortable in wasn't leaving for another hour but the latest arrival was loading up and departing ASAP. So we hoofed it over to the new bus, and were invited to sit in the the compartment with the Driver. Funny actually the bus is like 1/4 Bus driver compartment and 3/4 passengers. In the driver space there is all mention of Religious pictures (Jesus, Buddha), garlands, decorations etc. The roads these buses go along and the way they are driven you can appreciate why the driver needs as much religion on his side as possible.

Anjuna Beach... finally and we even managed to meet up with Nicks New Friends, with whom we went to Sunset Cafe for Beers and some food. Great seats looking out over the water. Could feel myself changing colour as the beer kicked in. Following being fed and watered, chilled out on some Sunset Beach loungers that the incoming tide was lapping at... Nice !!!
Yes.. there were even Cows on the beach.. how perfectly typical for here.
Decided to actually try the water and it was WET and SALTY !! Lots of floating vegetation (seaweed and sticks) and some serious sudden sand bars on the way out. The beaches here are quite steep so there is only about 10m-15m from the high tide to low tide mark. Anyway the water was ...... tepid !!, yes like a cool bath.. not as refreshing as the water was at Narrowneck before I left. So ended up doing the plunge thing, in for a few minutes then out to lie in the sun and then in again just to be wet. Hmmm, got rickshaw back to Calangute.

Picked up Train tickets for the 7th, so hopefully our third and last Domestic carrier will be on-time into Mumbai, so we can get our 1935 train to Navsari.

Nick en route to some Beach Party somewhere... I done my share of partying in beach shacks, sand getting everywhere and losing keys, shoes etc !!
Probably need to check out some goodies tomorrow, heaps of silver jewellery, leather sandals and embroidered cloths around.

Let all things happen as they will.

Cheers
Maya