Palolem Beach

After dropping Chris off at the airport, Tim and I picked up Carol and Emily from Jackie's Day n' Nite, and we all headed down south to Palolem beach, full of anticipation (it's supposed to be lovely).
Tim had to drive the loan car the whole way (I was not confident enough to drive in India!), but we found that the traffic wasn't too bad at all... being a Sunday, and it was a very scenic drive with lots of beautiful buildings etc.

Me and Emily in the back seat, listening to the Rolling Stones.

A Goan girl out the front of a little church in Mapusa.

Indian guys in the back of a well decorated truck... horn OK please!

When we arrived, there was much oohh-ing and aahh-ing coming from the backseat as Emily and I pressed our noses to the window... "look at the beach! look at the shops! look at the restaurants!". I think we all knew that we were going to stay longer than our pre-arranged 2.5 days.

The great thing about arriving somewhere on the edge of the season in India (and this is particularly true for Goa), is that it's much less hectic, generally cheaper but you can still get a good sense of the "vibe" of the place.

For Palolem beach that meant: fisherman pulling in their nets and fishing boats; Indian women in their saris wading in the water; little kids playing cricket; dogs defending their territory; and people congregating in the beach front restaurants.

Palolem is a lovely beach, and we all had a very relaxing time there. :)

Me, Emily and Carol on Palolem beach.
Tim modeling my new scarves.
The inviting ocean...
The beach dogs were very freindly and very territorial.
Everyone's got to have a cheesy photo like this...
Sunset, walking back to our hut on the beach.

Looking back at Palolem beach from the point.

One morning, we felt like a bit of pampering, and so we headed down to the Intercontinental Hotel to see how the other half lived... very, very well it would seem. Carol, Emily, Tim and I sat pool-side with a cold drink in our hands admiring the grounds. Our bill for two cocktails and two sodas (plus a bottle of mineral water) came to over 1,000 rupees!! Not for those on a budget, clearly.

Tim and Carol (his mum), pool side, at the Intercontinental.

Emily and I (foreground), with Carol (background), at the Intercontinental... darling.

Vagator

Chris, Traci and I finally arrived in Goa at about 5pm having spent several lifetimes sitting on a day train from Mumbai.
It was a dangerous train ride, sitting opposite us was India's Wobblyest Headed Man, and we were convinced that at any moment his head would finally succeed in doing what it had been trying to do for all of its 45 odd years - Detach its self from its body. For what reason it wanted to do this we were unsure, but it could only have been driven by evil. None of us wanted to be there to find out.

We left the train station and headed straight to Vagator beach, famous as a party spot since the sixties.
The village itself has a very Portuguese feel; little chapels everywhere, and large hacienda style houses made of red stone with sprawling verandas. The beach is beautiful, ringed by palm trees, and surrounded by a small cliff, on top of which is a club (one of the many).

An old portugese colonial house

During the high season the place would be absolutely heaving; people everywhere, all night parties in the clubs and impromptu raves on the beaches (only problem with this being the music: Psy Trance and other similar crap).
We were arriving at the very tail end of the season, and everything was already starting to wind down or close up shop completely. Not that we were going to let this stop us.

Little Vagator beach

First things being first, we headed straight out for a beer at the nine bar which, despite the crap trance, was an excellent club. Sat on top of a cliff with great views of the sunset, walls made of large red stone blocks that seem so popular here, a sand dance floor and tasteful decor (not a UV glow spider web in sight). I was bloody impressed... I could see that it was going to be a good week :)
All the little things that pissed us off about the Thai party scene were not a problem in Goa. There was hardly any litter, and there wasn't that unfinished feel to everything (like buildings with half a wall missing, even though they have been there 10 years, stuff like that). Anyone who has been to both places will know what I mean, all three of us had the same feeling.

The view from the 9 Bar, Little Vagator

Friends on the beach

"Fu*k Koh Pha Ngang" was uttered more than a few times.


The only problem was that the season was finishing. Restaurants, Guest Houses, Bars and Clubs were starting to shut for the season, all the good DJ's had gone home.

We spent a couple of days kicking around, drinking beers on the beach and generally winding down (for Chris a much to short get away from work, and for us, leaving India with out actually leaving it).

And then we wound right back up again...

Fear and Loathing..... Papadam Style.

We had run out of beer one night, some time around 11. The nine bar was closed. What were we to do?
Walk to Anjuna we thought... It's not that far, next town south along the beach. There's beer there for sure.
In the end we only got about a tenth of the way.

While climbing down to little Vagator beach we bumped into a bunch of Indian guys hanging out on the porch of their flash hotel room:
"Hi, Hello, where are you going?" asked one of them,
"Just off to get some beer" I said.
"Beer? No everything is closed" the guy replied "We have beer, come, sit, we will get some more.... we will send for the boy" (a phrase we would come to hear a lot)

Although hesitant at first, we thought why not? and he clearly did have beer :)

And so we met Suria, a rich Indian industrialist who was in Goa to party for a couple of weeks, but had no one to party with.
As soon as we sat down the other Indian guys left, they had basically been keeping Suria company, and we were the shift change!

Suria put us all to shame. Although he was ten years older than the oldest of our group he had been partying for eight days when we met him, and showed no signs of slowing down..... no wonder those other Indian guys slipped off so quick after we arrived!

We spent the next four days hanging around with him in his plush hotel room overlooking the beach. He would not accept a single rupee for anything, despite our protests, but we came to realise that this is perhaps the norm for him - being absolutely loaded meant that he basically bought what ever he wanted, and he wanted some party mates for a few days, so who were we to ruin his holiday!

I remember little of those four days.
I'm pretty sure we had a good time though, and all the photographic evidence certainly suggests we did.

Chris and Jemeela, who was staying at our guesthouse

Mumbai Madness

Our train ground to a halt in Mumbai, and we were quite relieved to find that it was several degrees cooler than Rajasthan, but unfortunately we were both still suffering from Delhi belly. We argued with the touts about which dingy shite hole was better to stay in than the other ad-nausium, until we spotted a German girl who had found a cheap and comparably clean shite hole further up the road. So having finally found a place to spend a minimal amount of time in, we had a day to have a look around Mumbai and get our bearings before our mate Chris arrived from Japan.

Amazingly, in the space of just a day and a half, Tim and I were asked several times if we wanted to be paid for doing a couple of hours work. Tim was asked if he wanted to be in a TV commercial (not sure what for), and I was asked if I wanted to be in a Bollywood movie wedding scene and be a model for something or other. It would have been an awesome experience, but because we had to pick Chris up from the airport we had to turn them all down... we would have made some rupees from it too! Damn it. Next time we're back in Mumbai, we'll have to get an agent darling.

The whole picking-Chris-up-from-the-airport thing was a fiasco from the beginning. We should have realised this when the first taxi we caught to Mumbai airport overheated and broke down about a third of the way there. After transferring to another taxi we were on our way again (even though we had to fight to keep to the already agreed price), and in the end, Chris' plane was on time and he was is good spirits.
That is until we were allocated the most useless taxi driver this side of the Arabian Sea to take us from the airport to Colaba (the main tourist area). He had no idea where he was going and didn't speak any English... but at least he stopped and asked directions from other taxi drivers. Annoyingly, he would only drive further 800m before stopping to ask another taxi driver for more directions. At least the cab hadn't broken down.
After the taxi ride taking an extra hour and a half longer than it was supposed to due to us stopping all the bloody time, the unthinkable happened... we broke down... in the middle of a major intersection. We had to get out and push the damn taxi to a "safer" spot... still in the middle of the intersection, but somewhat out of the way. What better introduction to India can you get?

After finally arriving back at our flea bitten palace, Tim and Chris went out for a celebratory beer... Tim came back 4,000 rupees poorer and completely shite faced at three in the morning... telling me all about his eventful night. It started with warm beer (with 8% strength) at one bar, included some horrifically expensive drinks at the Taj Hotel (with the most attentive minion in the men's toilets imaginable... apparently he did everything but shake 'it' for them), and finished with a taxi driver tricking them into going into the depths of hell for more warm beer in the middle of nowhere. I'm sorry I missed it. :)

As a major Indian city, Mumbai is better than most (read: Delhi)... she has a really vibrant pulse with a rich street life and the local people are entertaining, whilst the faded Victorian architecture is beautiful and surrounded by tropical greenery... but as Chris was only with us for a week, we booked a day train to Goa the next day.

(mental note: 12 hour day trains suck arse.)

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Yep, we have finally made it.
India.
The land of music and film that's so cheesy its almost stilton.
The land where everyone's head is attached very, very loosely.
The land where every fart is like a box of chocolates (you never know what you're going to get, but in this heat there is every chance it will be brown and runny).
India.

I have been wanting to come to this place for years and years, but it just seemed to get put off again and again.
This trip was supposed to be six to ten months traveling India, with a few weeks stop over in Thailand.
That stop over turned into six months in South East Asia and China.
India was put off again.
But we are finally here... and is it a let down after such a build up I hear you say?

Pigs arse is it! We love it.

There is one thing that is less than perfect though, the heat. Due to us arriving 5 months later than we expected to we are here for the middle of the Indian summer.
There's a phrase to describe people who travel India during the summer; "Mad Dogs and Englishmen". There is something in that phrase... not sure what exactly, but something.
Something along the lines of "ITS TOO BLOODY HOT YOU DICK HEAD".

We at FlashPackers are made of somewhat sterner stuff however, and aren't about to let a little bit of heat stop us. Are we?
Besides, were from Adelaide, it gets pretty bloody hot there too. Mid forties during the summer some times, so surely we can handle an Indian summer. Can't we?

The plan is to head out of Delhi for Mumbai and the coastal south beyond, stopping off along the way in the Rajasthani desert for a quick taste of Bundi
(a small place, rarely visited because it is old, dry and well past its glory days - when its wet though, its apparently glorious).



Should be doable.

When it gets too hot we can always retreat to the comforting, welcoming arms of a icey cold beer, just like back home on the farm..........
Except most of India has a pretty serious religious exception to beer (which is about as far from FlashPackerism as you can get).
(Nice name for a pub that, "The Welcoming Arms", must remember that one)

Ok, no beer, that's still doable. We can always find a pool somewhere surely?
Nope. Not much of a chance there. Not many pools - unless you count "pools" with more turd than water as a pool.

And there's no bloody beaches - its a bloody desert mate.



Even hot and dry, Bundi was beautiful. Unfortunately, with the temperature in the shade hovering around 49 degrees, lack of beer, pools or beaches, even us FlashPackers were not able to fully enjoy it. We spent a few nights in a beautiful old Haveli (old house) and had to move on for Mumbai.

At night the old palace is lit up. This is the view from our Haveli roof

The same view during the day

The gateway to the old quater of the town. It was all pretty old if you ask me!

Too hot for cows

Thank you, Come again.