New Year Celebrations

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So Benaulim was really quiet .... nice for a while, but there was very little going on. I think there was one party on the beach on Christmas eve but that was about it. Other than that the only entertainment was the cricket match the locals had on the beach every afternoon at sunset. The place is lovely though, if you're looking for a place to chill and literally do nothing. The only downside to it is the town (or actually v small village) is a 10 minute walk up the road from the beach, so if you're staying on the beach like I was, you either had to walk up the road in the dark, or you're limited to the beach restaurants for dinner. Having had one encounter with some young guy on a motorbike ...... having asked ' can I take you to a nightclub' and having got a 'no thanks', he went to do a u-ie in the road and pull away, thought better of it and did a 360 back to me and then obviously decided to cut the foreplay and go straight to 'so do you want to have sex with me or something'! he he! Luckily he did bugger off when I not so politely refused. After that I stuck to the beach restaurants most nights!
On boxing day I went to Anjuna market, which I'd heard loads about and had to check out. Unfortunately you have to change busses 4 times to get there, but after a couple of hours I arrived in Anjuna and began the 20 minute walk across the fields to the market sight. You could see it from quite a way off because it's huge. I'd been warned about the 'ear waxers' both by friends back home but also a few people I'd met on the beach in Benaulim, so I was on the look out as soon as I approached the market. Sure enough, right in front of me, one poor guy was getting completely accosted by a guy with a huge spike in his hand.....and I mean accosted! They literally grab hold of you and lunge at you with this spike thing.....just as Nik and Sarah had said! Luckily the guy managed to get away unscathed and without handing over any dosh! The earwaxer then turned to spot his next victim and walked straight towards me. A very firm 'fuck off' seemed to work though and he turned round and walked back to the clan of earwaxers lurking at the side of the road! There was no way anyone was sticking anything in my ears!
Luckily they seem to lurk outside the market only, so once into the throng of the stalls, I didn't see any more of them! Anjuna market was huge, but it's really all the same stuff. Some of it's lovely, but when you're backpacking, shopping isn't really on the cards. If you're going home after Goa though, I'd really recommend a visit as they do have some nice stuff there. After the bus journey though, I wasn't really in the mood for shopping, so after half hour or so I found a nice bar with a live band setting up. It was right in the middle of the market, which was great as its a great place to do a bit of people watching. The band weren't great by 'fountain' standards ( or fountain standards outside of new yr's eve!) but they were the first bit of live music I've seen since my leaving do, so to me it sounded pretty good! They were doing some reasonably good tunes as well, so before I knew it a couple of hours had gone by and there were a couple of empty beer bottles on the table. Feeling relaxed and refreshed, shopping seemed quite a good idea all of a sudden! So I spent a couple of hours moochring up and down the endless amount of lanes, getting completely lost and enjoying bargaining with the locals. I bought a set of those spinny things which I'd seen some people playing with at the beach party. I'm not sure what they're called, but at the party they were using fire ones and they looked pretty impressive. Impressive is not a word to descibe what I manage to do with them, but its pretty good fun and whiles away the odd hour all the same :O) I also came really close to buying a pair of birkenstop sandals, but being ridiculously pig headed I walked away over something like 10p! ..... You can get a bit carried away at the bargaining over here! When I looked at my watch it was nearly 4 oclock and I was in danger of missing the last connection back to Panji so I hot hoofed it back to the bus stop. The journey home, unfortunately was shit. I'd hit rush hour in Goa and the journey from Panji back to Margo took about an hour longer than it had that morning as traffic was nose to tail. On a hot bus, it wasn't a great deal of fun. I did have a giggle over the sign on the bus though.....right at the front they have a sign (or painted onto the inside of the bus) 'no smoking, no spitting'. From a distance and in the half light though, it looked like 'no smoking, no shitting' :O) I know anythings possible in India but that was taking it too far surely!
Anyhow, finally got back to Benaulim and was starving so decided to treat myself to some jumbo prawns. Unfortunately they took ages to arrive (after 10 minutes the waiter had come over and said it may be a while as your prawns are still swimming!....not sure if I really wanted to know that or not!) They were absolutely fab though and well worth the wait. If that's seafood in Goa for you I can really recommend it.
The following day I started checking out some flights to Sri Lanka as the 9th Jan when my visa ran out was looming pretty quickly by then. First I checked in the travel agent and got the cheapest flight as being 7000 ruppees from Kerola to Colombo. It seemed like a lot, so I decided to check on the net. Sure enough on the net there was a flight with Air India Express for 3000, but it left from Chennai which is over the other side of India. The train to Chennai wouldn't cost anywhere near the difference, but it would take a day or two to get there. Being that time is one thing I'm not short of, it sounded like a good deal, so I went back to the travel agent to see why they weren't picking that one up. They hadn't checked from Chennai so they tried again and came up with a price of 4995 from Chennai for exactly the same flight. I was convinced it was because they were charging 2000 commission so I didn't book it. Instead I tried another couple of agents who also couldn't sell me the flight for that price, but the second one I went in tried to book it through the air india express website for me with my credit card. Unfortunately when the payment was going through, the screen froze so I sat there for ages waiting. Eventually the lady in there said I could leave my passport with them and come back later to see if it eventually went through or not. It was relief to get out the travel agents and get back to the beach! Unfortunately when I went back later they said it hadn't gone through. Oh well, guess I just needed to keep trying.
I aslo got an email that day from Ben and Saskia (who were working at animal aid in Udaipur with me). They were also in Goa for Christmas, but were staying in Palolem which is 40 50 ks further south from Benaulim. They'd been ill over Christmas and were going back to Udaipur in a couple of days, so I decided to head down to Palolem the next day to see them before they headed off. I also wanted to see some more of Goa while I was there so it seemed like an ideal opportunity.
The bus journey down there wasn't too bad...about an hour and a half from Margo,which is a 15 minute ride from Benaulim. I'd meant to email them to let them know I was coming the night before when I went back to the travel agent about the flight. Unfortunately, the internet place was full and I didn't want to hang around too long in town as the walk back to the beach when it's dark wasn't too much fun. Hence, I didn't have a clue where to find them when I got there, but I fancied a trip down there anyway and figured they were more than likely going to be on the beach somewhere making the most of their last day of sun! When I got off the bus, I immediately liked Palolem. There was so much more life there..... and people! Hence, I decided to see how much accomodation was down there for New Year. I ended up spending a good hour or two walking up and down the beach looking at beach huts. A lot were full up and a lot of others were really expensive. I found one I liked up the end of the beach, but as I walked out a load of travellers loaded with backpacks walked in. I was pretty sure they'd be taking the couple of huts that the owners said were left as they were pretty good and reasonably priced. That was a bit of a bugger, but I kept looking up the other end of the beach. Eventually I found one almost as good as the other one and almost as cheap. The young hut guy there seemed quite funny and the atmosphere there seemed pretty chilled so I decided to put a deposit down on it for the next night, rather than lose that one as well. As soon as I walked out the place though I kind of wished I hadn't put a deposit on it. I'm not sure why, but I just had a gut feeling about it. Still, I had a place to stay which was the main thing. Shortly after that, I ran into Ben and Saskia on the beach. Unfortunately, the last bus left at 3.30 which meant I had to head off fairly soon, but it It was great to see them and we caught up on what had (or hadn't!) been going on over christmas!
When I got back to Benaulim, I said my goodbyes to a few people and decided to head back to a restaurant where I'd had a fantastic chicken manchurian a few nights earlier. Needless to say, it wasn't nearly as good second time round! One thing to learn is that things are never the same twice in India!
The next day I got to Palolem around 11ish and headed back to the huts where I'd put a deposit down. I had a really wierd feeling about it and almost started looking for some other alternatives, but decided I didn't want to lose the 400 ruppees deposit! When I got there, William was there but we had to wait for the owner to bring the key to the hut. It was ok......I'd seen so many, I'd almost forgotten what it looked like! When we sorted out the money though, I stupidly handed over what I had in my purse and then turned my back to get the rest out my backpack. I could've sworn I'd given him 3000, but he swore blind I'd only given him 2 and having turned my back, short of making him turn out his pockets, I couldn't prove anything. That was a bugger, and a big lesson learned! Still, it wasn't going to ruin my first day in the place, and it wasn't long before I was on the beach soaking up a bit of sun and doing a bit of people watching! It was nice to have a lot of people to watch!! Moving to Palolem was a pretty good move.
That evening I checked out a couple of bars on the beach. A lot of the bars were quiet like Benaulim, but there were one or two with a lot of life in them! I met Oli, Gill, Sarah and Dan, all from England. Oli, Gill and Sarah were on holiday and Dan was travelling for a while. I think it was about 4 before we left the bar :O) Unfortunately, that was New YEar's Eve, Eve, so when New Yr's Eve came around, we were all pretty done in! We started the evening with pizza, and I have to be honest, I could've quite happily gone to bed at 10!! I was pretty determined to see the new yr in though ( I couldve stayed in Benaulim and gone to bed at 10!) and at that stage of the evening I really wanted to see the UK new year in too so I could ring some people back home. Needless to say, it turned into a vodka, red bull evening and got pretty messy! I think I made it til 4ish, but not 5.30 as I hoped! Most of the evening was forgotten until the photos prompted a few memories :O) I have to say, New Year was the hardest time so far to be away from home.....and my mates. I had a good evening though, which helped :O)
The next day, Oli and I spent hiding in the Smugglers, which is a british stlyey pub in Palolem which serve fab food (imported bacon and everything!) and have dvds you can watch in little side room with sofas! That was about all we could manage that day....I think we ventured out into the sunshine on the beach around 4 in the afternoon. Oh apart from buying a hammock .... we'd been threatening to get one for a while and having the hangover from hell finally made us get around to it! :O)
On 3rd Jan, I decided I really had to do something about my ticket to Sri Lanka. I'd tried on several occassions to book the cheap flight I found on the internet but had no luck whatsoever. Oli decided to extend his holiday a bit as his work hadn't started yet and come to Sri Lanka with me. That was cool.....we were pretty good drinking buddies and it was nice to travel with someone for a bit. Unfortunately we had no luck whatsoever with the flights and having chased round all day being told there were no flights to Sri Lanka before my visa expired we finally found one for 13000 ruppees which is about 160 pounds. That'll teach my to argue over 2000 wont it!! :O) Anyhow, we booked it and I was pretty relieved as I thought I'd have to rethink the plan at one point! Between that and the birkenstop sandels, (having refused to pay 325 ruppees instead of the 300 I wanted to pay at Anjuna market, I ended up paying 400 ruppees for a pair in Palolem!) I think someone up there's trying to tell me to quit fighting over what in effect is really small amounts of money!......and I lost the sandels on day 1!!
The only unfortunate thing about the flight was it was on the 5th Jan and not th 8th as I wanted which only gave us one more full day in Palolem. Most of the crowd had moved on or were moving on though.....Gill and Sarah had gone home, Dan and Gilda were heading to Galkona (not sure how you spell that) and Rick, aka Terry was heading home the following day.
On the last day, Oli and I did make it down to 'monkey island' at the end of the beach.....that was the first time I'd seen that end of the beach! It was pretty nice down there and really quiet, but I'm not sure I'd have walked all that way just to sunbathe. Judging by how quiet it was, I imagine most people thought the same!
Looking back, I didn't do all that much in Palolem apart from sunbathe, swim and drink ........ but it was great....... and I was looking forward to getting to Sri Lanka and the next part of the adventure! :O)

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