arambol -goa

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so we moved up the coast a bit, which is a bit backward as next we are heading south but there are no rules.

anjuna was alright, but it didn't have much atmosphere, as everyone was on bikes all the time it was hard to meet people and have chats.

so we are in arambol, which is really lovely. whereas anjuna seemed to be all about old hippies, arambol is all about the new-wave of hippies!

we have noticed a hierarchy of tourists here in goa. you have to imagine that john cleese and the two ronnies sketch where they are looking down on each other....

the lowest of the low is the two week package holiday people, who are almost all british or russian. they just come for beaches and beer and are generally looked down on by everyone.

then you have us, the travellers / backpackers, who despite being on long trips are only in goa for a few weeks.

then you have the long-stayers, who come to goa for a few months, or maybe the whole winter, and do yoga and ayuverdic massage and get all spiritual. however, the backpackers also look down on them, because they tend to come to only goa, and don't see anywhere else in india.

then you have the extra-long stayers, who have been here for anything between 10 to 30 years. the longer they have been here the drunker they seem to be.

before we came to arambol, we lost Helena, Tom and Rafa. they have all gone back to spain :-( however, we are now hanging out with another english girl called Lisa. she's from essex but not an essex girl!

however, she's heading north, whereas me and Monica are now heading further south. we wanted to see some places in karnataka, like hampi and gokarne, but we started to get worried about the monsoon and don't want to miss the backwaters of kerala so we are going to Cochin next, hopefully on sunday but we are waiting to have the train booking confirmed.

on the monsoon, we keep asking people when it will start, and everyone has a different answer! somebody said end of may which is why we got worried, but i think it's really june but we will see.

turn up for the books, today is cloudy! wow. i mean, don't get me wrong, it is no way cold, or even cool, it's still really hot, but not crazy bright sunlight. it's pretty good actually.

but i am looking forward to heading south, cos i'm not really a beach person, and it will be really nice to not feel completely covered in sand the whole time!

haven't taken many photos recently, but i'll see if there's any worth uploading....

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