Sun, sea, sand, and sunsets (and a few cathedrals)

Two weeks sitting on a beach eating myself silly are ferpeckly lovely, but somewhat unexciting to write about, which is why there haven't been any notes for a while.

Any wahey, I'm back on a beach again! :-) This time in Goa, which is as touristed as they say and also as lovely.

In between the beaches, I travelled to Mumbai with Chantal (a slight[1] detour), lived a 5* life for a few hours (thank you very much, Roger), went looking for a pair of shoes (I failed, but Chantal had to be rescued from acquiring an indispensible 5th pair of strappy sandals), then we said goodbye. She headed for Delhi and then back to Belgium via Heathrow.

I got a domestic flight to Goa (the trains were full, the plane was cheap but late), and met up with Rhona in Panaji. We did the sights in both Panaji and Old Goa - see the latest photos - but the highlight has to be the special order sunset on a river boat in the evening. I haven't seen a sunset like that before: for the simple reason that you need clouds, and it's months[2] since I've seen one!

Panaji is very different from most of India in a few ways, including
occasional (local) women in very short skirts and shorts, and lots more, including the not-so-young-any-more in below-the-knee skirts which are a good 6 inches above anything I've seen elsewhere in India
(local) women out in pairs unaccompanied in the cafes after dark
(local) mixed sex couples out in pairs in cafes at breakfast (ooo errr)
"Goan" bread (remarkably similar to bread rolls)
wine (lots, freely available, some of it Indian and fairly nice)
you can't get fresh fruit (juice or otherwise) very easily (!?!?)


We bussed down to South Goa and Palolem beach yesterday. Goa at the moment gets a "best climate" award from me - warm and sunny by day (but not as hot or humid as Kerala), cool by night. Fresh fruit is available again. Yay! Anyone for yoga ...?

[1] Slight in this case involving 30 hours by train, of which around half were North of Goa, but luckily I'm not in a hurry.
[2] Around the end of November. In Sikkim.

28 Jan 2008