---

---

Relaxing in Goa

After such a hectic schedule it was really nice to have a few days on the beach in one of the Worlds most beautiful beach resorts. The room and hotel were great and even the locals were much friendlier, as were there just before the start of the season it was much quieter than we thought it was going to be so at some points we had the entire beach to ourselves, with the occasional small Indian child asking us if were married.

After exploring the quiet town of Colva during the day and generally getting sunburn, we went to a restaurant on the beach to watch the sunset, which we almost did until it started to pour it down monsoon style so we decided to havea few Indian beers instead and enjoy the restaurants friendly service as well as the great combo of 80's pop and Indian hip-hop.

Half-board

We didn't realise until the next morning that there'd been a mistake and we'd been put down as half-board so we spent the majority of the day jus enjoing the beach and buying some jewellery and a book (guess who bought which item... ahem) and then enjoyed another spicy curry for free at the hotel restaurant, Paul even managed to squeze in a Premiership game much to his myrth.

With our Goan break coming to a close the realisation of our final mammoth train journey to Kerala suddenly kicked in, although as soon as we had our seats confirmed and found again that there was free food on the train for the whole journey we suddenly became relieved at the thought of not hearing anyone walk past the carriage shouting "chai! chai!" "coffai!" "omelette!" "cutlet!" "bonny bonny!" all night long. (By the way we think Bonny is water but it also could have been lemon curd, yum)

Trivandrum and "Namaste"

We arrived in Trivandrum early morning, with just the 12 hours to kill until we had to be at the airport for our flight to Singapore so we spent the day scoping out the local zoo and park and just generally trying to survive our last day in India on 900 rupees (about a tenner). As we were leaving thousands of people had gathered the streets for what it seemed was another festival of some description (this one only ten days long, theyve gotta have a few days rest before Diwali or the next random festival) although as we got the taxi to the airport we realised that they had pretty much lined the whole way to the airport, leading Paul to believe it was actually Kerala coming out in force to see us off, "Girl with red nose" and "Avoids stampedes" as we were known locally.

By the time we got to the aiport Paul had realised he had been mis-pronouncing the Indian word for "goodbye" the whole trip, much to his chagrin, so we relaxed at the airport, unrested and slightly dirty, ready for our 14 hour journey to Beijing. "Namaste India, and a Merry Diwali to you all..."

PS We'll add the photos of Goa by Friday. xx

---