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Published: April 24th 2007
Well hello there my english countrymen! I do believe it has been quite sometime since we last wrote in the travelblog but we have been very busy partying at the big chill, sunbathing, swimming, watching movies and getting drunk! I think the last place where we left off was in crazy Calungute! So, after Calungute we headed for Palolem where we stayed here for ten days! What lazy bums we are! Here, we didn't really do much but lounged around on the beach and at night we always seemed to head for the same place a 'hip' and 'trendy' 24 hour bar called 'Cafe Del Mar'. Little did we know that this enjoyable little place would cause us so many problems!
We met lots of people in Palolem including Tom, Sam and Jack who we are meeting in kerala. Tom and Sam are fomr Lancaster and the Lake Diustrict while Jack is from York and has a jam factory! We also met lovely Rachel, a primary school teacher on her holidays who was very good fun and a punk rocker called Dan. We love Dan lots! He is really cool and spends half the year in england and half the year in Goa. We also thank him for introducing us to Dan's special cocktail (honey bee brandy, port, sprite, lemon juice and mint, it tastes like pimms and is very nice!) and masala papads! At the moment he is in Mumbai working on some tv adverts! We wish him good luck!
On the second night of our stay at Cafe Del Mar we ran into a spot of trouble. We left our bags with our groovy (but drunken friend) Dan! We didnt come back for sometime so he handed our bags into the bar. The next morning we went on a big hunt for our bags, Dan didn't know what he had done with them (he was too drunk to remember) so we did some detective work and asked around visiting people's huts and waking them up at a ridiculous time in the morning. We headed to the bar in the morning but they just gave us a dismissive "no your bags are not here". Later in the day Dan bumped into the manager of the bar and the manager suspiciously said to him "i'm sorting it". So in the evening, after we had cancelled our cards, we headed to the bar and again asked for our bags. One of the barmen was being very defensive saying we havent stolen your bags etc they were just left on the beach excuses excuses etc etc. After a long explanation he handed us our bags and said "everything is in thier apart from the cameras". So we got everything back all the money, the cards etc apart from the one thing which we wanted most our cameras with our beloved photographs on.
We have been to the police station but the police have caused us nothing but more hassle. we need a statement to get some insurance but have been to two police station and we still havent got a police statement. I had been told alot about Indian police and that they are very corrupt and I can now believe it. The first police station we went to was in palolem. Here they talked about us in Hindi, answerred phone calls whilst dealing with us, messed with thier annoying ringtones and then ased for "baksheesh" (a bribe) fior the statements they then told us to come back another day but assured us that they were "doing the best they can to help us". So we went back another day and said to us that we "refused thier statements" and they then asked for another bribe. Out of principle and stubborness we didn't get a statement as we didn't give them a bribe. Also we had very little money because our cards had been cancelled and we had borrowed money of numerous people. We have been to the police station in Arambol and they were useless and were walking around in thier underpants (not a nice sight!). our friend Zillo went (don't ask me why he's called Zillo i really don't know!) to the police as he had his wallet stolen and they said to him tat they were "too hot and too busy" to write a statement yet they were clearly doing nothing!
Sorry for that little moan and rant but it does expalin as to why we have been in Goa for so long! It has been a learning experience though and it was amusing with the police! So here we are in Arambol (for the second time). We travelled up here for the Big Chill festival and met some friends from Bangalore and also met some new interns. there was a big group of us so it was all good fun! the location for the big chill ws amazing. it was set on a very lovely beach in some palm trees. There were three stages; a main stage, a chill out stage and a dance stage. They had a wide range of acts; the headliners were Coldcut and a dance artist called Tom Middleton. They also had lots of chill out artists, DJ's mixing some popular tunes and Indian music which was really good fun to dance too. It was a really good location because if you got too hot you could just walk into the sea and go for a little swim to cool down! However, the music stopped at 10pm on the dot (because of the music ban) which was a bit early for us! We were not deterred though and headed back to Arambol for more partying and a camp fire. The sea in Arambol is very cool at night. if you go for a swim there is phosperous visible and its all luminious!!!!!!
So after the big chill our friends all gradually left us; the interns went back to Bangalore, Kirsty and Erin ventured north, kevin and steve went up north and our friends who we are meeting in kerala went off to hampi so poor tara and alice have been left on our own for the past week! I think i can say that we have had the laziest week ever. we have spent most of the week on the sun loungers. we have both become sunworshippers (i blame jam-factory jack who is sun obsessed!) and basically been lounging about on the beach for the last week. However, we have been entertained by numerous things! Firslty, we play the game of spot the whitey which always makes us chuckle! it's a clear sign that these people are new and are usually english (thanks dan for introducing that little game to us!) we also laugh at the indian men playing around in the water like little boys and laugh at them in their "we love goa vests" (very classy!). It's also good fun to talk to the cute little sellers who are always friendly and chatty. Although they can be annoying (especially little Ramesh who stuffs cashew nuts in your mough!) they are sweet and always happy and smiley! As we havent been with a big group we have also managed to read alot these last couple of days and emersed ourselves into lots of novels. At night, instead of drinking and partying we have frequently headed down to a restaurant on the beach where they show movies. we have seen quite a collection of movies now including; The Aviator, catch me if you can, 50 first dates, austin powers, the departed, fight club and many more. We settled in there quite well and our film requests were even shown!
so as you can tell we have had a very hard week while all you guys have been at university and work! today we have a long 15 hour train journey ahead of us to kerala and we arent even guaranteed a seat! argh! we are meeting some friends there who have been waiting for quite some time for us. we have been unable to set off though because we have been waiting for our bank cards to be delivered (and this is the reason why we have been lazy bums!). We are meeting sam, tom and jack who we met in palolem and jacks sister and boyfriend, laura and zillo. i dont think they have been too bothered waiting for us though as they have been chilling out at a spa for the past couple of days having massages (really that isnt the life of a traveller is it?????). After kerala we are heading back to Bangalore for another week of teaching and partying before we head to thailand. We are bringing tom and sam back with us as they want to have a go at volunteering.
Hope you guys all all ok in england and enjoying yourselves. it may be a while before we write again (perhaps even thailand!). I'm afraid there are no pictures up but we are going to invest in a cheap camera shortly.
lots of love tara and alice xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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tigerflirt
non-member comment
hard life
the hot busy police must have been undercover!