Chillin' & Roaming

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We’ve been back in Goa for two weeks now and it’s still raining. Apparently these last two weeks have more than made up for the dry(ish) monsoon that they’d been having until we arrived. It is lovely at this time of year, no shacks on the beach, hardly any tourists or hawkers around and the countryside is lush. We’ve hardly been out since our last Blog - just been enjoying chilling at home, cooking and watching TV. We’ve got quite a few opening parties coming up in the next few days so will more than make up for lost boozing time. Mark and Simon (formerly EDEN) have got a new place….they’ve took over the upstairs bar at Paradise Village (the hotel that the Sullivan mob are due to invade at Christmas). We’ve already met the General Manager, he told us that they’ve refurbished 80% of the rooms and pool area and are building a new restaurant on site. Hopefully we’ll be able to pull a few strings and get you allocated the better rooms.

We took a drive down to Palolem earlier in the week; the roads on the way down have deteriorated over the last few months, pot holes everywhere and puddles as big as Australia. Palolem was as lovely as always but the local government down there have gone a bit mad with the bulldozer, every illegal building has been smashed to pieces, the main beach road has only 5 or 6 buildings still standing. The locals reckon that re-building will take place soon so we’ll see what happens.
After a couple of days stuck in doors we decided to get out and have a drive up north; we found some places that we’d never been to before; from the stares that we got from the locals they obviously don’t get many Europeans up there; it’s way off the tourist track. We came across a massive mansion and after doing some research we found out that it belongs to The Viscount of Pernem, he’s the worlds only Hindu Viscount!! We tried to get a look at the house but were stopped at the top of the drive by a very confused looking security guard; he probably thought we were casing the joint. Driving through the villages we came across some great sights; men sifting sand from the river bed and loading it onto the banks to dry in the sun, we stopped to take a few pics and were invited in for chai, “next time” we promised; but he didn’t understand a word. We saw kids taking a bath in the river and women washing clothes at the washing stones by the side of the road, spotted a few monkeys and a couple of kingfishers before stopping off in the main town for water and snacks, again they didn’t understand a word but we managed to somehow get what we wanted before driving back to the madness of Calangute.


That’s what we’ve been up to for the past week or so, what about you? Drop us a line and keep us updated on what’s happening…………have you all started Christmas Shopping yet, buying winter coats and boots!?!?!

Take Care, Bev & Barry xxxx

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