Blogs from Goa, India, Asia

So, on Saturday night, after a delicious veggie biryani and raitha, eight of us set out for an evening at the night market, stopping off en route to buy some alcohol. Since security is tight, we had to finished the drinks before entering. I could easily have spent a fortune on Aladdin pants and accessories, but chose to spend wisely at the bar, instead. We spent a good few hours drinking, chatting and laughing (and checking the footie to see Liverpool spanking Newcastle!), then, in the early hours, Adolfo negotiated with a taxi driver to take eight of us back for 300 Rupees. The lads headed on to check out a bar named Curly's and us girls got out at the guest house. I pottered around in my room for a while, then decided to crash. ... read more

Walking around in the heat the day before at the spice farm really did us in. We decided that we would go easy today because we knew we wanted to be ready to see Mumbai (Bombay) the next day. I woke up with a slight fever and was feeling crappy. Since the doctor opened at 8am, I figured I ought to check in with him. We went down to the first floor and after filling out the appropriate forms, he saw me. Diagnosis was ear infection and general dehydration of the sinuses. He suggested a course of nebulizer treatments and that I begin the antibiotic I brought and Tylenol every 6 hours until my temperature went back to normal. Thus, I spent almost all of the time in Goa in bed or reading. Valerie kept me ... read more

We decided to forego our first Indian train ride from Kerala to Goa and flew with P. from Portugal (honestly, I don’t know what protocol is when using people’s names, and I didn’t ask him for permission, so I’ll just call him “P.”) after we’d found a good deal in a flight. We’ve had plenty of interesting train rides since then… Back in Portugal, P. works for a charitable Christian organization and was visiting (inspecting?) a children’s home in Goa for which he’d procured funds some years ago and took us along with him, assuring us that he’d help us find a hotel room after the visit. What began as just a free ride from the airport turned into a wonderful visit when we were greeted by the smiling faces of 32 children, fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, ... read more

J: Mumbai is huge. Twice the size of London and with people absolutely everywhere. It felt like every space large enough to occupy a person contained one. We had two days in Mumbai so we walked around the city and took in local cricket matches at Maiden Oval, admired Mumbai harbour from athe Gateway of India and had lunch at the famous Leopald's. We sneaked into the regal Taj Palace hotel for a look around and watched the sun go down over Chowpatty Beach. An endearing quality of Mumbai was that the most impressive architecture was found not in museums or private residences, but in public service buildings. The Post Office and Mumbai University were both very grand and the main train terminal, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, was spectacular. Mumbai to Goa was twelve hours by train ... read more

Blog 8th - 21st February Kollam - Alleppey - Kochi - Palolem Bewildered Backwater Boating and Palolem Party People Kollam is not a place you want to spend much time, but it was a great base for us to board our 8 hour ferry to Alleppey to explore the Keralan backwaters. Unsure what to expect from the journey we bagged prime seats on the top deck of the ferry full of excitement, bags of bananas and cashews to keep spirits high, and ignored the sewage stink of the river. The ferry passed through such contrasting parts of the backwaters, from large expanses of lake to smaller channels, it was a real eye opener as to how the Keralan people live on the banks of the network of rivers that act as highways for 75km. We passed ... read more