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Published: March 4th 2008
The first thing you notice when you land in Goa is the humidity. We landed at around 3.30-4pm and walked out onto the tarmac and instantly felt sticky! Possibly one of the most humid places I've been. The airport was tiny and fast and we were out into the madness of taxi drivers within 20 minutes. Haggling hard we still felt we might be paying a bit much for the one and a half hour drive down to South Goa and Palolem, but we just wanted to be at the beach! Amazingly deprived of one nights sleep we were still going strong - even Rob! The taxi ride started fairly normally, bit crazy but hey its still India. After a little while I became 100% convinced that this man wanted us and him dead in the most spectacular car accident he could muster! On rural little roads he was veering round huge trucks and tankers on blind corners and hills. Once back on the right side of the road a bus would pass at breakneck speeds where we'd been a few seconds previously. To make it slightly worse he stopped halfway through the drive, asked if we wanted some drugs and
then after our refusal he went and took some hash before continuing the drive. Amazingly, in one peice, we arrived in Palolem and made a beeline for the beach. Stepping out onto the sand we got blown away. It has to be the most idyllic beach I've ever seen, pretty much the perfect beach. Turquoise seas lapping up against the golden sand with unbroken bushy palms sticking out diagonally towards the sea. Beneath them little beach shacks, bars and restuarants. Fishing boats were scattered around as local men drew in the days catch whilst rubbing shoulders with crispy sunburned westerners! Basically all tiredness disappeared and we walked up the beach and headed for one of the gatherings of huts. Little wooden buildings on stilts right on the beach. As in 20 steps to the sea. We managed to charm the owner 'Prince' who is now known to us as 'Princey Vincey' and has a fondness for 'Party Party', and got a nice hut and an extra matress thrown in for 400R a night. So a little under 2 pounds each. Ridiculous! We all dumped our stuff, dug through our bags and changed into swim stuff and ran into the sea.
Warmest sea ever, calm enough to relax and wavey enough to still be fun. We were all kind of in a daze floating in the warm waters watching the sun set not quite able to believe that we were sat in the exact spot we'd been idolysing on goodle images months previously! After a shower we went for a walk along the beach in search of some of the famous goan sea food. We found a nice place abtly named 'paradise' and sunk into the chairs facing the sea. It was happy hour every hour apparently so we got the cocktails in while the man brought our a huge tray of freshly caught sea food. I settled on a king fish which was fantastic! After dinner and feeling very full we headed for a lively looking bar called 'cafe del mar' where it was 40p for a beer. We sat chatting and feeling very very far from India (and Rob very very far from Camberley!) until eventually we walked back along the sand and collapsed for a well deserved sleep.
I was up a little after Katie at 10ish and grabbed a scrambled egg on toast (I'm so predicatable)
before attempting to join her at sunbathing. Rob got up and we both decided we'd much rather go and explore some rocks and find crabs and stuff. After a swim and a chat with some swedish girls katie had fished in expertly we went for a nice cold beer in the shade before renting out some kayaks and hitting the water. Hard work but great fun bobbing on the water looking back to the beach. Rowing back was difficult as tide was heading out but we got there well exercised and let the sea wash us back to shore. A nice American who'd been sat next to be in the Bollywood had just recently been in Palolem also so she'd given me a reccomendation of 'Cafe Ibiza'. Good call is all I can say, I payed 2 pounds for a shark steak caught that day and 1.50 for 2 cocktails. It may have been the tastiest thing I've eaten in India and right on the sand. The thought of 3 more whole days in this place seemed very appealing! There was the sound of daft punk pumping in the distance so we asked the nice guy who worked there what
was going on. He told us it was the weekly saturday night silent disco which went silent at 10pm as Palolem has strict noise rules. We were 100% going to go! We got the beers in at Cafe Del Mar again and I decided I'd quite like to try the local 'culture' and ordered us all a shot of Goan Feni called Cashew Cashew. Rob and Katie hated it. The football was on which was brilliant as I'd been missing it although Newcastle managed to lose again to Blackburn which left me grumpy for a while much to the amusement of Rob and Katie!Walking along the beach heading for the silent disco we heard a little shout of 'Rob!' and turned to sea Charli Marsh from college and crowthorne.. In goa! Crazy, we'd known she'd been in India and was heading to Goa but had no dates or even what beach she was going too. So a very strange coincidence! She was with a nice guy called Joe from she'd met in Bangalore and so we all headed up to the silent disco together. After some precarious rob climbs we came down into a little cove just past the main
beach. There was crazy lights going on people dancing on the sand in absolute silence. Brilliant, I loved the reading festival silent disco but this one was pretty crazy in terms of location! We paid our 500R for the headphones (crazy!) and got in amongst it. The music was really good and the whole thing pretty surreal! After getting bored of pulling off the 'Slimey mediterranean' dance moves me, rob, charli and joe headed back down the beach after failing to convince katie to leave the tunes behind. We sat and chatted for a while under the stars in one of the fishing boats me and rob have made home after a night out before all turning in.
Woke up at the same time as Katie and left Rob behind for his beauty sleep to get some breakfast. Sat out on the sand sunbathing and putting some tunes on. After a few hours I officially became in Robs words 'An Indian'. It was mothers day so I headed to an Internet cafe and phoned home whilst getting some blog stuff etc done. While Rob finished off his first blog me and Katie went for a wander around the tiny
little town stretching away from Palolem Beach. Pretty much consisting of shops selling the usual travellers garb and restaurants. But still distinctly more peaceful than anywhere else in India and so different! It's easy to forget. We did nearly get crushed by some falling palm leaves but luckily we moved from the spot 20 seconds before! A grinning bus driver leaned out the window to tell me I was 'very lucky man'. After a lunch of a twix we headed for Cafe Del Mar again after a cold beer by the beach hut. We sat and had some cold drinks as the sunset on Palolem. Infront of us on the sand was a bunch of people playing volleyball and we designated them all personalities and names. Some included was 'Dad' - the recently divorced bachelor who's back on the prowl and wearing speedos, Jack from Lose who was the rock of the team. Skimpy - an indian guy in skimpy speedos and our favourite - Scraggles. A ridiculously thin guy who looked like - according to Rob - the dude from the film the mummy who gets caught in the tomb with all the money. We figured he'd busted out
and was looking for some team camaraderie. The reason he was so skinny is that he was so rich he spent all his money on fast cars and women and somehow forgot to eat. Marvelling at our creations and immaturity we went for dinner at Cafe Ibiza again for a repeat of last nights amazing food! The tuna steak was very good (thought of you mum) altho nothing on the shark. Charli and Joe joined us for some drinks and it was nice to sit and have a chat until we decided we were up for a good session and predicatably headed for Cafe Del Mar. We smoked some sheesha and had some beers and had a really good night. After ending the night in our boat again getting inspired and deep we went to bed to the sound of waves crashing. It would be hard for life to be better!
Yesterday consisted of pretty much the same. Sunbathed for a while, had a little swim and walked the beach with my music on ultimately chilled out! We had dinner somewhere called Big Banana and my 'sea food sizzler' was brought out with plumes of steam flying off into
the sky. Needless to say it was good. After some cocktails, us 3 and Joe headed for the reggae party which we'd heard about on the beach. We got there and some guy from UB40 was up singing live whilst people sat around on the sand with candles. Ultimately chilled! The scottish guys we'd met at the silent disco were there so we just chilled with them really and also spoke to this Belgian guy called Chris who'd been home 4 times in 18 years. He'd been away so long there wasnt the faintest hint of a Belgian Accent. Kind of aussie instead! Charli and Joe had checked out as they thought they were leaving that night but decided to miss the bus so crashed in our room. Bit of a squeeze but we managed! Today sadly is the last full day in Palolem before we fly back to Mumbai tommorow afternoon for our flight to Hong Kong 12 hours later - so more airport fun! I'm off out to enjoy the sun. Sad to be leaving India but next blog - Hong Kong! Miss Everyone!
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Callum Northcote
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tht looks great man!! ur all bare lucky. in London, it's windy! veryyyyyy windy!!!!! but reasonably sunny. lol!!!! toon r too close to the drop dude! have to start winning soon. remember to keep your eyes pealed for the Matilda Hospital in Hong Kong!!!! brrrrrrrrap (i think it's in Victoria)