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Published: December 10th 2010
Day 6.
I woke up to kelly in the bathroom at 7am. We'd arranged to go to the Dudhsagar waterfalls in eastern goa with the Americans today as it was my birthday and we were leaving Anjuna Villa (where they were still staying) at 9am to get in hired cars. It took me a while to remember it was my birthday today... After Kelly had left to go home and freshen up, I picked her up and we drove to to Anjuna after me receiving two massive pieces of chocolate cake as a happy birthday! After meeting the Americans who were still having breakfast, six of us got in two cars and started off on our journey to Dudhsagar.
We drove the way I came from the airport on my first day. The massive river in Panjim (Panaji) host to the massive casino ships and fishing boats sat glistening underneath the huge bridge we crossed. We travelled through dust, lush green forests, past spice plantations, traffic jams of hundreds of huge lorries, in the hot, hot sun. the car started making funny noises and Tom pointed this out to the driver who pulled over (the other car doing the same so we were all together) and realised we'd overheated and that water was needed in the engine... we provided the water... not actually getting it back in return in the end either... and all was Ok to carry on slowly to our destination of the massive waterfall. It took over two hours to get there and we were quite hot and tired when we did.
The next part of the journey was from a small town at the bottom of a national park where the locals were selling us bananas and peanuts to feed the monkeys near the waterfall. We got into a Jeep with our guide Raj (who was very good at his job and spoke good english - russian as well apparently) and took a 45 minute drive along a VERY bumpy, rocky road to the top of the huge hill where the waterfall was and passing jeeps full of miserable looking Russians on their way down. This journey was amazing in itself and we DROVE through three rivers, water even coming into the vehicle at one point! It was exhilarating an I was so excited to be doing this on myyyyyy birthday! Everyone was so nice about it being myyyy birthday and I was liking my new friends more and more by the second. We had to pretend we only had one camera with us, as we had to pay 30rs for each one to take into the park.
getting to the car park and using the toilet, seeing the huge plastic rabbit holding a rubbish bin, we then made our way to the waterfall pool by foot across natural stepping stones and a rough path up the side of the rocks around the water. This was amazing to see the massive rocks which had obviously fallen years before to create this wonderous landscape. We were about to see the second biggest waterfall in India! 310 metres high! Duhsagar meaning Sea of Milk. Along the way our guide showed us hundred year old vines, told us about the problems with litter from the tourists and took our photos whilst showing us the easiest way across the rocks. The monkeys appears as we got closer to the waterfall, waiting for our peanuts and bananas, of which we had very little. They were so cute and followed us all the way, other people feeding them taking photos as we were. There were lots of people around - Indians and Russians mainly.
Then, we got to the waterfall. I was quite overwhelmed at how beautiful it was. Absolutely huge. Grand. Majestic. It was myyyy birthday and I was here, with some amazing people at the second highest waterfall in India! I told myself not to cry as it's bad luck to cry on your birthday. i took loads of photos, had a swim and even got to go under the water of the smaller part of the falls with the much needed help of Ra and Tom - I was a bit of a wuss, but I so wanted to get under the waterfall and was a bit scared of how deep the water was. i did it though and am glad i did as i would have regretted it if I hadn't... only thanks to Ra and Tom though, my personal lifeguards :-) It's highly likely, that had I seen the warning sign on the top of some rocks around the pool, I wouldn't have gone in. Check out my photos and you'll see what I mean...
The journey back was long, but we'd had such a good day and I felt very happy that I'd met the people I'd met and that I'd seen such an amazing sight on my 28th birthday. I felt warm and content.
The sun was setting as we arrived back at Anjuna, so Tom, Kelly and I as we were waiting for the others to get back, even though they were in front of us, went to a bar on the cliff to watch the sunset and drink a beer.
We'd arranged to have food in a German bakery a few doors up from the hotel, so us three made our way there, sat down and had a drink to wait for the others. They didn't show up, so as we were so hungry, we ordered food anyway, thinking they'd be on their way soon and they could catch up quite quickly. We chatted as we waited and got to know each other some more. Three people who had only known each other a couple of days really... The others (Ra, Sasha and Penguin...) still hadn't turned up about an hour later and we started to worry that something had happened to them on their way home as they were in front of us and should've been here ages ago. Eventually, after us watching every car that went past and thinking of all the possibilities of what had happened to them and how we could get in touch with them, they sauntered up to the restaurant and we were relieved to see them. they had been at ANOTHER German bakery!!! It was one of the possible options, but Tom was sure they wouldn't have gone to the other one... it was his fault really ;-) This became the joke for the rest of the evening and everything was blamed on Tom from then on!
The conversation fell towards relationships, Ra and Sasha's wedding, love etc etc, which started to make me feel really sad. It was my birthday and it dawned on me once again that I was essentially alone here and that I didn't have that one special person that they all had to be with. I tried so hard to contain it and carry on with the conversation, but I couldn't. I thought the best thing to do was to go home and be with myself for some thinking/birthday time. Through my tears, even though it was my birthday and I didn't want to cry, I told them I was going, only to be surprised that they all wanted so much for me to stay. They managed to pursuade me to go for a walk on the beach with them on a different conversation topic. They were so nice to me and I felt bad that they'd changed the setting just for me, but it felt warm that they'd thought about me in that way and that they did actually want me to stay. I cheered up and we had a laugh on the beach, played with some dogs, took a wee in the sea - Sasha skinny dipping herself in! - and seeing that the tide was getting quite strong (possibly because we'd angered it by weeing in it) we decided to leave so we weren't washed away!
We were walked home, possibly by the same dog that walked us home the first night we went to the beach together and said goodbye to each other and what had been a totally wonderful day.
I'll never, never forget today. i swam in a waterfall with some lovely people and although I cried on my birthday, the tears closed up one chapter of my life and allowed another one to begin...
/cheesieness
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Mippor
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Ah so nice blog entry. its nice that you met these friends and you're having this experience. anything can happen in India!hehe