Destination:
India –
Palolem in Southern Goa – till the cows come home…
So, we leave Cairo flying Egypt
Air to Mumbai and then Spice Jet (Indian not too bad low cost carrier) to Goa. We arrive in India on the 24th of
October, and in the evening we get to Anjuna Beach. At the
airport we can already feel the humidity creating havoc with our bodies, after
2 months of very dry heat in Greece and 3 months in the Middle East. Let’s sweat it out my darlings!
We find a pretty decent hotel in Anjuna
but after a couple of days, we (mostly me) still don’t feel it’s really our
place. So, after 2 days, we decide to
go back to Palolem. A bit afraid
Palolem changed a lot after seven years, but we take the plunge and a taxi
there. Palolem is still the same… what a relief! A nice
green bay, surrounded by coconut trees and beach huts, the hotels are still REALLY
basic but the restaurants are even better than we remember… it’s almost
impossible to have a bad meal over here. Still only two “main streets”, with a
few shops and restaurants and a lot of beach bars and huts along the beach.
On the first evening we hear
fireworks and Paul goes out to see what’s going on, and we find out it’s some
sort of pre-Diwali (festival of lights) special night. So he
“crashes” a family home behind our hotel to check it out and in “return”, they
give us some lovely sweets, pretty auspicious arrival, I suppose. So, after 2 nights at the hotel, we decide we
want to stay here for probably a month or two and go hunting for a better place. We find a nice little apartment, 1 bed, 1
bath, living room and self-contained kitchen, A/C, cable TV, and wired for the internet. We hire a scooter for the month and we're ready to go!!!
OK, Goa is a
lot like Bahia, where we live in the Northeast of Brazil. We’ve been here for over a month now and
writing anything just gets harder and harder. It’s just all so lazy and lovely, day-becomes-night-becomes-day
and it’s just the way it is. So, let’s
say it’s a HUGE effort to get something down for the blog. Anyway, having a great time in Palolem, made
some lovely friends, all much younger than us as usual. The food’s just fabulous and we are really
enjoying everything. We also go for
lots of walks on the beach and I’m doing ashtanga yoga sessions almost everyday
on the beach with our new friends. Sometimes, when we gather up some courage,
we go to see other beaches around (Agonda, Turtle Beach, Patnem, Khola, etc…) all
very nice and mostly deserted. The greenery,
long winding rivers and lakes also contribute to making this region one of the
most amazing tropical places on earth.
Before I finish this sudden writing fit, I have to ask Paul to tell you
guys about his cow-fighting episode? Did
I mention there are cows everywhere and they rule the roads? And that they are placid? Yeah, right, watch this space for Paul’s
cow-fighting episode. Olé!
Taking the Cow
by the horns…
We arrive at the
descent for Khola Beach (a lovely half hour scooter ride through lush tropical
forest) and park the scooters anxious to check out the beach which has a lovely
river which forms a little pool on the edge of the beach. Anyway, as we head down the track we come
across the normal half a dozen cows, no drama, they’re everywhere and are
really tranquil, no problem! Yeah
right!! Well as we get going, Paul must have startled a baby cow with its
mother in the group and the mother lowered her head and just charged him!! We were all stunned and just stood there
while Paul wrestled the cow by hanging onto her horns!!! She charged him again and then Paul gets a
big stick and bangs it against the ground making a lot noise and mama cow backs
off. Pretty scary at the time but we
all laughed about it later.
Just to finish
off for today, yeah, in case you are wondering, we decided to stay here for
another month!
