Dear All,
Dan and I have set up camp at Arambol beach, Goa. May stay indefinitely….tempted at least.
Goa is a very small state on the Western Coast of India, below Mumbai. We arrived at one of the bigger, resort style beaches centrally and decided that definitely wasn’t what we were looking for. Met some other travellers who suggested Arambol. For us, it’s the perfect combination of beautiful beach, few shops and restaurants and a some other travellers to chat to.
Were staying in a beach hut made of bamboo, wood and the walls are some kind of reed. Theres a double bed and mozzie net, porch and a small bathroom with cold water. The cold water comes from a black tank so its not that cold, but because of the heat its refreshing anyway. The best part about our hut is that its ON the beach, takes 30 seconds to get to the water. I’m laying on our bed looking out the window at the ocean now, its perfect.
There are plenty of tourists around however majority of the tourists are Russian (never expected that), there are also plenty of hippies wandering around smoking…cigarettes of course. There’s a huge notice board in town offering everything from yoga lessons to “awareness” classes (not sure what that actually is) to herbal medicine. Dan and I have stuck to good old fashioned relaxing on the beach.
We have breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which is the nextdoor hut that has no windows so we look straight onto the beach with the breeze. Dans been having eggs on toast and fresh pineapple juice and I’ve been having fruit salad (watermelon, madarin, pawpaw, pineapple, banana and strawberry) with yoghurt and honey. From brekkie we set up on the beach under and umbrella and lay in the sun, swim, lay in the sun and then swim. It’s been hardwork.
Although there are a decent number of tourists, there are still plenty of locals going about everyday activities. We watched the fisherman hauling in huge nets today, we think they were herring. There were also huge sea eagles hovering above catching the strays. There’s been more than sea eagles though, there are beautiful green birds in the tree behind us, a squirrel that pops its head in our hut each morning, the friendly stray dog that sleeps on our porch, huge black and red butterflies, beautiful kingfisher birds and we’ve been watching the dophins! Dan spotted them from the shore on the first day and ever since we’ve watched them jumping around.
Goa was owned by the Portugese till the 1960’s so there are a large number of Christians which means for us Christmas celebrations and they eat BEEF!!! Majority of India is Hindu and therefore the cow is sacred and most definitely not eaten. However in Goa they don’t have a problem with beef. We found an amazing restaurant that serves great steak, roast potatoes and apple pie! So although dan lost a little weight in hopsital, I’m sure he wont have any trouble replacing it.
Not just the beef, but Goa is renowned for its seafood. Along the streets there are fisherman that work with the restaurants. Tonight dan and I choose a 3kg Red Snapper that was grilled and served with chips and salad. It was amazing fish with crispy skin and very very tasty and fresh. So we definitely wont be losing weight.
Havn’t spent all our days lounging on the beach though, on Tuesday we hired a scooter and drover inland past massive abandoned portugese buildings and little villages to the train station to buy train tickets (we leave from Hampi on the 27th December and then onto Bangalore late on the 1st January). The next day we took the scooter 25km down the coast to Anjuna, where there is a weekly market. We didn’t know exactly where it was but once we saw the stream of traffic it was easy to work out, it was the hugest market I have ever seen. There were the usual tshirts, saris, cotton pants, spices, flashy jewellery and other bits and pieces, but there were also some really nice stalls selling hand made goods. The morning was hot and sticky at the market so we took our little scooter to beach and spent the rest of the arvo in the sun (:
We have one more week here in our hut at Arambol, so we will be here for Christmas. Were still in discussions whether it will be steak or lobster (they don’t do surf & turf in India) for Christmas lunch.
Hope all is well, love always jess xox
P.S We wish all our family and friends a safe Merry Christmas and that Santa brings you all many presents. love always jess and dan xoxo
