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Published: February 3rd 2007
After waiting at the train station for six hours we finally got on our 40+ hour train journey to Goa for some much needed R and R. The train trip was an adventure all in itself. The way the trains are set up is that there theres 6-8 people a section. Needless to say it's alot of hours to spend with compele strangers! Id say there was no lack of entertainment.
One of our bunk mates was a retired Croation security guard living in India for the past 10 years (under the raidar) smoking as much as he can so he dies young (no joke). He introduced us to his spiritual guide named OSHO and forced us to read many pages of his book. He sang songs and spun a little chain to cure my illness pretty much the entire trip. His friend he was travelling with is from South America and has been living in India for over 6 years as well. Hes much more low key! The third and fourth were Indian men from Dehli that were travelling to Pune (poona) to take an advanced course on acupuncture. They run a clinic in Dehli doing all sorts of treatments. The did acupuncture on the train a couple times (with the same needles...eww) to cure the cough of the South American. It was a very interesting couple days.
The last night on the train I spent laying awake freaked out of my mind after I woke up to the man above me looking down at me and playing with my hair!!! It was so creepy!I told him to stop, but because I was soo sick I did fall asleep a couple more times and woke up to the same thing! Very uncomfortable!
We FINALLY got off the train and right away you could see we were somewhere completely different. All the buildings have Portuguese archetechture and the air was very hot and humid! We took a bus to a beach called Palolem. As my first tropical experience I have to say Im pretty much in heaven. We are staying in a little hut on the beach! The first thing we did was walk to the little row of stores and buy bathing suits! And the sencond thing we did was went swimming! It was so amazing. After having a stressfull day of sun tanning and swimming we ate dinner and watched the sunset with our 2 crazy friends from the train. Apparently football is really big here and there are 3 matches on tonight. Everyone crowds into this cafe on the beach to watch and ive heard it gets pretty crazy! We will head there after this!
I think we could spend the rest of our trip here but we both want to see so much more. I think 2 weeks on the beach will give us a good eough tan to head back up north to the cold weather. And 2 weeks also seems like enough time to want to take another marathon train journey!
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Laura
non-member comment
Wow
Hey Danica and Julian! Wow it sounds like your trip has been pretty intense so far. I love reading about what you are doing, it all seems so sureal. It must be such a culture shock, but maybe you're used to the crazyness now! Have fun on the beach and do nothing but sun tan and swim in the ocean. Take care! - Laura