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Poor Kitty
Picking the brains of fellow travellers it seemed Rajistan was very popular, many thought it to be the most beautiful region in India, so our plan of action was to travel across Rajistan passing through Jaipur and check out the pink city, Jodhpur to see the blue city, ending up in Jaisalmer, the golden city where you can ride out to the desert on camels and camp over night, but as they say 'the best laid plans go to waste'. We assumed like everywhere else in the world you can just book a train ticket and simply go where you want to go, but oh no, not in India, why was everyting more difficult here? To get around in India you need to be extremely organised, the one thing Ryan and I are definately not. Our go with the flow attitude towards travel wasn't suited to India, trains need to be booked weeks in advance and however hard we tried we just couldn't get seats on any trains heading to Jaisalmer, very frustrating indeed. All the trains were booked up for weeks and all had long waiting lists of up to twenty odd people, we did manage to make it as far as Jaipur and hoped we could get on a train from there, so we spent a few days in Jaipur, treated ourselves to a bit of luxury and stayed somewhere with a hot shower for a change. We visited the pink city which was more like a disappointing shade of terrecotta, and that was all there was to do there really. We bumped into Stuart and Cyntia again at a lovely restaurant called Peacocks it was a gorgeous quirky rooftop restaurant were we had the most amazing chicken tikka masala, stuffed naan and chia tea, for some reason Ryan and I have started the trend of always ordering the same food. We were definately falling in love with Indian food, and this was by far the tastiest meal we'd had since being away, I'm drooling just thinking about it. We'd been stuck in Jaipur for long enough trying and were ready to move on, so in the end we gave up on train travel and flew straight down to Goa instead, which was fine with me i was ready for some beach action.
It was six o'clock in the evening when we arrived in Goa and we got a taxi up to Arombol the most northern beach town which took about an hour, it felt like we were in a different country. Arombol had a laidback, hippy atmosphere, there were no resorts or big hotels, just guesthouses, beach huts and wooden bugalows on the beach. Stalls selling bohemian clothing and jewelry lined the streets and people with beards and dreadlocks walked around barefoot. We got a room above a restaurant on the beach, it was ok not brilliant but was right on the beach for five quid a night so no compliants. The beach was full of tables lit with candle light and groups of alternative travellers huddled around listening to people playing guitars and smoking weed. Each restaurant had a variety of freshly caught fish on display so we treated ourselves to a huge fresh tuna cooked on the BBQ, then relaxed with our full bellies watching the fireflies and inhaling the marijuana tinged air. The next morning we had a stroll around to check the place out, it felt wonderful to be by the sea instead of in busy crowed cities, compared to elsewhere we had been in India, Arombol at a glance was very clean, but at closer inspection we realised it wasn't. Walking along the beach we spotted loads of broken glass, stray syringes and of course cow, dog and human s*** on the sand, well it is still India after all. Even though cow pat on the beach isn't ideal, I loved the fact cows roamed along the beach, it's unique. There were also a couple of pigs that would try to eat the rubbish before the pack of ferral dogs chased them away guarding their territory, theres loads to entertain you whilst your sitting drinking a beer, things you would never think you would see at the beach, the numerous Indian men openly pissing on the sand was my least favourite. We decided to rent a scooter for the day to check out some other beaches along the coast. It was Ryan's first time driving a scooter, I was on the back of course, I'm dangerous enough driving a car so thought I'd keep out of trouble and out of hospital and leave the driving to Ryan, I made sure we both got helmets and after a bit of persuision/bullying I got Ryan to wear his, I admit we didn't look cool and no one else was wearing them but I don't care safety first. We were a bit wobbly up the first street but after that we were off, I was very impressed at the Goodbody's handling of the bike especially for his first time and I felt quite safe in his hands, that was until he ran over a cat, to be fair it was the cats fault it just ran straight out in front of us and fortunately it only went under the front wheel. Ryan put his foot down trying to lift up the front wheel to stop the full weight crushing the cat and ripped the skin off his big toe in the process, the cat ran off so we can only assume it was ok. So we stopped off to fix up Ryan's wounded pride, errr I mean toe which was actually quite nasty and all I had was duct tape to strap it up with, what use was all our first aid gear when we leave it behind in our room. So Ryan was sporting a rather fetching big silver toe, but I guess it was waterproof. It felt fantastic to have the freedom of transport, oh how I miss my car. We went to Old Goa, Candolim, Baga and a few other places on our little yellow scooter and by the end of the day our bums were numb. Some of the other beaches were cleaner than the one in Arombol but they didn't have the same hippy vibe we liked so we decided to stay put for a few days.
One night we were abruptly woken in the middle of the night to the sound of a loud bang outside, then another........ and another, we seriously s*** ourselves jumped out of bed, we paced the room in the dark not knowing what to do or what it was and then there it was again BANG, we though it sounded like gunshots so we stayed in the room quietly crapping ourselves until finally, as we looked out the back window we saw the flash of bright colours in the sky and realised......... it was just fireworks. Feeling pretty stupid we went back to bed. The next morning I was pottering around in our room whilst Ryan had popped out, I could hear an argument break out between two locals outside my room, soon escalating with more people joining in, spying out of the peep hole I watched deciding whether to go out or not, soon there was about six people screaming and shouting, crying and pushing. Next thing someones shirt got ripped off, I went out to see what was going on with a few other spectators standing around not knowing whether to intervine. Then someone pulled out a big knife and there was a tussle and it ended up being thrown on the ground by my door so I grabbed it and took chucked it into our room and shut the door to stop anyone using it. After a while I got bored and went in, they were still arguing but no punches got thrown just endless screaming and shouting, if this was in England a fight would of broke out by now, god help them if they ever got in to an argument like this in Liverpool. With the fight, the knife and the fireworks we decided to find somehwere else to stay and moved to a little beach hut further down the beach, it was lovely you could hear the waves crashing whilst lying in bed, much more relaxing indeed.
Palolem was deemed as the best beach in Goa, so we saved the best for last, and it was a beautiful beach, definately our favourite. Much cleaner, I was happy that it still had the cows, and it also had gorgeous old wooden boats lined along the sand. I found us a beach hut in a little hut village, it was so cute, a cluster of little wooden huts with little pathways and lights and each hut had it's own porch with a hanging chair and a hamock, they were all named, we had 'happiness' .We loved being so close to the beach, we often went jogging, (we needed to keep Ryan's imaginary moobs at bay) although he didn't have much luck with this activity, one day he witnessed an Indian man with his pants around his ankles, crouched down, arse out taking a dump on the beach, of course looking at Ryan as if he had rudely interupted him, and another time he jogged barefoot straight through a cow pat (well he hoped it was a cow pat and not the human variety, it was too dark to tell). Since being in Goa we found that any attempt at sunbathing was a waste of time, the second you sit down your surrounded by Indian women selling you bracelts and bags etc. The first time I was too soft and ended up with about 20 bracelets laid out on my thighs within the first five minutes of sitting on the sand, while another five women waited patiently for their turn. It was amusing at first, they are nice and polite (most of the time) they all call you 'my lovely' and ask you lots of questions, but by the twentieth time it's just friggin annoying. Once, one wasn't taking no for an answer and unzipped my bag and tried to stuff a necklace in. They just don't give you a minutes peace, even pretending to be asleep doesn't work, I found getting up and leaving was the only way, so unfortunately for us there wasn't much relaxation or sunbathing going on. One day before we even had chance to put our towels on the beds three men had come over selling reflexology or something, next thing Ryan's foot was being rubbed, he looked pretty uncomfortable and I was fed up and just wanted to chill and read in peace, so I proper flipped on them, it definately worked as they soon left, but it made me just look like a crank. I think that was my last attempt at a relaxing day at the beach. Oh and while I'm at it, another way they like to enhance the tourists relaxation experience at the beach in is to collect all the rubbish from the sand (I agree this is a positive thing) and then pile it up in the middle of sunbathers and then set fire to it, India is full of nice little touches like this. All that aside though, we had enjoyed Goa but was time to move on, we wanted to go to Kerela next to take a trip on the rice barges through the backwaters, but again the same scenario emerged with the trains so instead we had no choice but to end our time in India early and fly straight to Sri Lanka. We had originally thought we would spend about five or six weeks in India because it's such a big country, but it turned out we only ended up spending two and a half weeks there, partly due to the fact it was impossible to get on any trains and the fact we were fed up with all the hassle. but we are glad we've experienced India, it's definately a place we will never forget.
- comments
Beef Hey, Goodbodys! Where r u off to next?
Maggie Katie great again!!!! Glad your away from India though!! Mag xxx
anna-maria nelson well worth the wait for this little gem! and ryan, running over a cat! you must have been devastated!!!ha! ooops!xxxxxx