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Published: March 17th 2009
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We have finally left Northern India and headed South to the idyllic beaches of Goa. On the recommendation of fellow travelers we met is Jodpur we decided to head to Northern Goa to the beaches of Arambol - this required us to land in Goa's capital Panjim before heading up North. Panjim was an ok city - we stayed in the older part of the city with old portugese colonial styled buildings. We were so happy to finally get closer to the ocean where we could get some fresh fish as after almost a month we are very curried out! So our days consisted of exploring our area, finding the best fresh fish we could find and planning the journey up North. We spent one day in Old Goa, which is basically a series of churches and monuments - very beautiful but very hot!! The humidity was killing us - we have left the comforts of A/C up North as we spent too much money slowly acclimatzing to the Indian way of life and had to make cut backs somewhere! So from this point on in our journey we had a consistent shiny sheen to us, and began our interesting tan
lines...
We were lucky enough to be in Panjim when their version of spring carnival was going on so we found ourselves some standing places along side the parade route and waited in the blazing sun for floats to begin coming past us. We lasted about an hour before Kat pulled the plug in search of a cold kingfisher and respite from the heat! Ed managed to find himself a local gym and pump some iron with the locals.
We also had the annoying experience of trying to figure out how the hell we were going to get to Arambol - we offically hate our guide book now, as these 'luxury buses' (truly an oxymoron) do not exist and the bus stations are so confusing and not helpful - we were there multiple times trying to sort this out and as it turns out you just show up and follow where various people are yelling out different locations and then get on that bus! Katherine was getting quite nervous about taking the local buses from this station of chaos. We ended up showing up the next morning - Ed dealt with luggage and Kat leapt on the bus
Typical afternoon
waiting for a train... securing our seats by an open window before the bus was loaded to the brims. Literally there was a long seat along the back of the bus, leg to leg filled with men, then the bus driver insisted they make more room for another man, at which point the men were sitting on-top of one another - amazingly no one argues, they just go along with it...we were in hot bus hell...2 buses, lots of sweat and bumpy roads later we arrived in Arambol.
Needless to say, our initial impressions were not good - we were expecting an oasis of calm and beauty and we came upon narrow, dusty streets lined with street vendors. We met our hotel man at a local shop then trudged, literally 30 minutes to our hotel, that our book described as the most lovely seaside cottages on the beach - we have never seen a grosser, dirtier shit hole EVER! The hotel was falling apart, the bed was dirty, the toilet stunk, there was no blanket, toilet paper and a fan above that looked like it was about to crash on us - we were too tired from the treck to move that day
Sherpa Ed
Ed gaining a zillion points by helping his sick girlfriend - its 40 degrees out! so we spent one uncomfortable night there before finding the Laughing Buddha beach shacks which were much cleaner and nicer for our next two nights.
We also found that Arambol was inhabited by tons of expat hippies - they were everywhere, you almost felt like you were intruding into their private hippie commnue. We often heard the laughter yoga next to our hut, groups of people having sing along beside us while we had our breakfast, more men in thongs than is really necessary, a good amount of nudity - it was so strange not be able to show much skin or wear anything fitted a few hours north, then come south and people were crusing around naked. Sunset was a very interesting time to be on the beach - everyone who lived there seemed to be there to master something whether it be yoga, tai chi, hula hooping, singing, dancing etc but they all came out at sunset to practice their craft as the sun went down.
We left Arambol and heading to Palolem - hoping for a little more touristy stuff and a little less free love. Our journey was,again,annoying as our train was a few
hours late. While we waited a little school girl took a liking to Katherine and sat beside her, kinda watching her, seeing what she was doing - eventually she showed her her English school book which was falling apart, so Ed grabbed the first aid kit and got out the tape and did a little repair mission on her book - feeling like we'd done our good deed for the day we went back to reading while the girl looked appreciative (ish) and like there was still something else, so began tugging Katherine's arm to show her her shoes that were falling apart then saying money, money 10 rupees! She hadnt wanted us to repair her book she was just trying to get some rupees out of us - seriously every person has their hand out, and after a while you get a little hardened!
We arrived in Palolem and were nicely surprised at the tranquility and beauty of the place. We went to our beach hut, apptly named 'Bliss' and ventured around. Our huts were secluded and surrounded by trees along a river that flowed into the ocean - it was exactly what we needed! We spent a
lot of time walking the beach, exploring, we went dolphin watching with a local which was very cool to see, sunset on one end of the beach with a small bar and gentle ambiant trance in the background, and lots of fresh fish - we were happy!
As our days were winding down in Palolem Katherine started to get ill - lack of appetite, weird chest pains - not good in the middle of Indian nowhere. On our last night, we returned to our hut to discover a visitor, a little frog, cute but didnt want to sleep with it - Ed tried in vain to catch up, but it went into hiding and Ed's insistence we would never see it again - oh, and the power was out and we had a toilet ant infestation, interesting bed time combination...in the middle of the night (our taxi was coming at 6am) Katherine jumped up up, jumped on Ed and then he screamed as the bloody (he's never coming back) frog jumped on Katherine's back in the middle of the night...it was funny, but it was also 5am - so we were tired travelers the next morning, and we were
off to get our next train to Hampi!
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Katie
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Good Look!
I am loving the stash, it is a great look on you Ed!