17/11/0 - Wrong Turning

A few weeks ago we did a scooter trip inland for the weekend. It mostly went well - lots of nice scenery and pretty villages:

Born to be mild

However, at one point we thought we weren't going to make it back again...

On the map, it looked like an excellent route. How wrong could I be. Instead of an idyllic run through country lanes, we ended up battling through 20 miles of iron-ore strip mining. The roads were choked with lumbering lorries which had to squeeze past each other. The air was thick with red dust, the day baking hot, and the road potholed and slippery.

The endless line of trucks would occasionally come to a stop and turn off engines. Then Carrie & I, on our small scooter, would have to work our way down the middle of the narrow road - quickly ducking in behind the parked trucks to avoiod the oncoming traffic. At other points the jam would suddenly start moving again, and we'd have to race to avoid being caught in the crush. After getting us through the first few miles, the scooter seemed to deserve a name - so now it is known as 'Stewie'.

We were the only europeans we'd seen all day, and we felt very lost and vulnerable. There was a little local traffic - a few motorbikes and autorickshaws. At one point all this lighter traffic branched off the road and started heading across the plain. How odd we thought, noticing this too late to follow them.

Soon after the road just ceased to exist - replaced with potholes that'd been created by an elephant on a pogostick. We bumped and wobbled along. Stewie grounded in the deepest holes, and was banging against his shock absorbers. We didn't dare stop because of the trucks rushing behind us. Waah! Frantically trying to keep our balance, swearing as Stewie, and in a state of terror we made it through.

One of the hardest things about this route was that we had no way of knowing how much more quarry traffic there was to battle through - or whether we were on the right road - or whether we were going to end up in a dead-end somewhere. None of the truckers were very forthcoming with directions. Our chances of making it out were looking quite slim.

We were resuced by a Goan from one of the very dusty villages we struggled through. It must be hellish living there. He passed us on his scooter, double-taked, and asked where we were going to, 'Ponda!' we yelled, and he said 'Follow me' Then he hared off down the middle of the road, swerving at each of the oncoming trucks, so forcing them onto the verge. This left space for him to continue to accelerate down the center of the road, with us in close persuit.

After about 10 minutes of playing high-speed chicken the traffic improved and he motioned that we should take the next right-hand turn. With that our dusty knight of the road shot off. Once we turned off we were soon out of the red hell, and back in green and leafy Goa. We were caked in red dust, and Stewie has developed some interesting new squeaks. I don't think we'd better tell George (who we rent the scooter from) where we've been this weekend.

Very Special Thali

We were in Panjim last weekend, trying to do some christmas shopping. Best part of the day was lunch in a smashing little cafe in the market that did a great thali.





Carrie had the 'North Indian Special Thali' : 4 veg splonges, dal, rice, chapattis, poppadom, curd, buttermilk, 2 desserts.

And I had the 'South Indian Special Thali' - similar, but with more unidentified things.






Loads of food, and all delicious. Cost? 40 Rupees (50p) each. Amazing.

Odd Instruments

There's a lot of 'open mike' and 'jam nights' at the bars here in Arambol. The granddaddy of them all, and the most variable, is at Loeki's on a Sunday. Last week I witnessed

• various singer/guitarists


• a brave lass singing acapella


• a bloke doing magic tricks with a banana -- "can you verify that this is an unadulterated banana madam?"


• belly dancers from turkmenistan - who were very good


• a bloke singing punk comedy songs about what he'd like to do with belly dancers with turkmenistan


• a very old hippy singing a song that just consisted of the line 'live life' over and over


• a mystic singing 500-year old Sufi spirituals

However, what really caught my attention was 2 british crusties playing Hang Drums. (sample music) These instruments sound wonderful, and the story behind you get your hands on one is intriguing (follow the wikipedia link).

Pictures of how Arambol used to be...

There's a smashing hammock shop here in Arambol. The owner, Andy, is positively passionate about hammocks, and takes the whole business very seriously. I've bought a 'flying carpet' - which is a nifty hammock which you sit in crosswise. I wasn't allowed to leave the shop before I was shown how to fold it, wash it, and the optimal distance for hanging it - it's now strung up in our spare room (sadly there's no space on the balcony). Very comfy!

Andy has loads of photos of Arambol online. Most interesting are the photos of how the place used to look 25 years ago (if you can get past the very dodgy fashions and nekkid hippies)

27/10 - shopping trip

Got up really early and walked through the dawn to the bus-stand. Got chatted to by a very friendly local who was trying to sell us God. We smiled politely, but weren't buying - we plan to go shopping today instead. We took the bus to Mapsa, and then tried to find the connecting bus to Panjim. Was a bit confusing, as there seemed to be about 5 contenders. The chap in the government bus stand kept beckoning to us and shouting advice - only after a little while of me rudely ignoring him he explained that he was one of the Rodrigues brothers (in fact, he's the one who lives opposite with the family who do our laundry). Whoops, I'd better make my apology next time I see him.

Anyhow, we finally chose a bus, and it left eventually. We got to Panjim around 7ish, and so nothing was open. We found a clean hole-in-the-wall pure-veg place, and had breakfast. The menu was quite cryptic - 'dosa','masala dosa','masala curd dosa','mysore masala dosa', etc. I chose a mid-priced one at random, and got a crispy pancake filled with spicy potato mixture with a coconut dip. So far so good. A chap on the table next to us got brought out the biggest dosa I'd ever seen - it looked like a drainpipe, and lay across a whole thali tray full of dips. I'm sure that didgery-doo-dosa wasn't on the menu...

After brekkie, the shops still weren't open, so we went wandering round the old quarter of town. Very pretty, in a ramshackle half-broken kind of way. We climbed the hill in the middle of town (with a monkey-temple on top), and looking out, you could hardly see the city - so many palm trees that most of the buildings are hidden

Panjim

By 9am the shops still hadn't opened, so we found the swanky hotel in the middle of town, and sat in the lobby for an hour, pretending we were residents and making full use of their air-con - it was getting swealtering already. By 10.30 there were some signs of life out there, so we went shopping...

.. Carrie had been hoping to buy herself some treats - clothes, jewellery and the like. However, we didn't find anything suitable - Panjim doesn't have any big-name highstreet shops. I think that most folk here visit a tailor and get things made to measure - or go on a shopping trip to Bangalore. Still, we managed to find the Goan equivalent of Wilkinson's and had a mad rummage getting things for our apartment, which I think she enjoyed, and had a good wander around town, past printers, door-handle shops, tile shops, the court house and attorneys, hardware shops, motorcycle-spare-parts shops, stationers, etc. Most of these places have a counter right at the front, with all the goods hidden from site - you have to ask to be shown stuff - quite unlike the endless browsing in the UK. I quite like shopping like this, but I don't think Carrie does.

On the way back through Mapsa we stopped at our usual cafe for lunch. The chap in there is quite impressed that Carrie is teaching in a local school, and tries to look after us. He always recommends the 'fried chicken and chips', which we've never chosen yet. Instead, I chose, at random, 'Sambhar curry rice' - which I was surprised to find out was dried-shrimp curry, with a chutney of fermented dried shrimp. Pretty revolting - certainly worse than the goat xacuti I ha last time - but I was famished, and managed to get it down.

26/10 - Keri Beach

We shared our scooter (Carrie driving) to Keri beach. This was the first time we'd tried a scooter excursion by ourselves - and having two on the scooter takes a bit of getting used to - much less manoueverable, slower stopping, and you need to take a run-up at hills. Still, the trip was good - we managed to find our way by ourselves this time, and Carrie soon got the hang of driving with 2 people on the bike. The beach was deserted - and the waves were quite fierce. There's a steep drop-off at this beach, which makes swimming quite treacherous. We walked to the end, where the beach curves round a rocky headland which calms the waves and makes the beach shelve away more gradually.

And we spend the rest of the afternoon there, sunbathing, splashing in the water, reading the guidebook and generally taking it easy. Very nice indeed. Then we scootered back into town for a iced-coffee-mocha (carrie's new favorite drink / dessert).

I've gotten quite sunburned - turns out that the new-fangled spray-suncream that we've got doesn't do a very good job of covering you. So I've got a very red stomach, mottled with the occasional white patch where I'd managed to get enough suncream. Quite sore, and I look like a lobster.

14-20/10 - Week in Pune

This week I was attending a conference at an astronomy institute in Pune. I shan't bore you with the details - but the architecture of the place is worth sharing:

13/10 - Scooter safari

We hired scooters for the day, and in the morning tentatively set off up the north coast, shepherded by Jamie. We saw a long beach, terekhol fort, lots of people taking in the rice harvest, and a cobra sliding off the road into the verge.

scooter safari

After our success in the morning, we spent the rest of the day touring goa - heading down the coast to Morjim, and far inland. By this time it was early eveining - cattle were traipsing back into the villages for the night & people were hanging round their homes taking it easy and catching up with the day's news. We got lost, ended up in a farmyard, but managed to get back to Arambol before the sun set - we didn't fancy our chances dodging potholes in the dark.

After this, we've decided to rent a scooter full time. A basic honda has absolutely no street cred - the posers her ride Royal Enfields - but it'll do us nicely.

12/10 - Pictures of our apartment

Well, we've done some shopping and decorating and these are the results - it's not looking too bad.

house photos

Photos

I've uploaded some photographs of arambol to picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/noelwinstanley
I'll be adding more piccies there as we take them.

3/10 - wedding day

Today we attended a Goan wedding reception. We'd been invited to the reception of the sister of the fiancee of Diego (who is the owner of our local bar).

Caroline, Jamie and I took a long taxi ride, first to Mapsa, and then onto the outskirts of Panjim, from where we turned inland and followed the estuary up to Old Goa - here you can see the old cathederals and monastries of the abandoned city poking their whitewashed towers out among the trees.

We took a drive-on ferry across to Divar island, which is really lovely. Tranquil, and filled with gorgeous old portuguese villas and houses. The reception was taking place at bride's parent's house - a large old villa on a single floor, with very high ceilings and a tiled roof. Cool breezes blow in from the well-tended forest garden outside.

There weren't many guests present yet, but we were welcomed and seated and left to awkwardly wonder what was going to happen next. Gradually the large room started to fill, as more people arrived - little old ladies wearing western-style dresses, younger women wearing a mixture of sari and western clothes, and men, all smartly turned out in shirts. We worked out we were accidentally sitting in the best seats, which were probably reserved for the bride and groom, and quickly switched to a corner.

The hosts were generous, and supplied us with plenty of beer, fizzy pop and nibbles (spicy sausages and fishpaste sandwiches). The village priest worked around the room, welcoming and chatting with everyone, including us, and introducing people with similar interests. He's a very friendly chap - quite the life and soul of the party. He'd be a gameshow host in a different life.

We had to wait a while until the bride & groom arrived - they were travelling by coach, with the wedding party, from the wedding in Bombay the previous day. Must have been quite gruelling, but they both looked quite unruffled. She was wearing a traditional red hindu wedding sari, and he wore an embroidered suit. We asked Diego 'Is she hindu? she's wearing a tilak' (red dot on the forehead). He answered 'Naah, that's just part of the costume'. Apparently the wedding itself took place in a church, when she wore a white wedding dress - so the lucky gal gets at least two wedding dresses.

The priest blessed the couple as they entered the house, incense was burnt and everyone stood, sang a hymn or two and said a prayer. We stayed at the back and tried to look unobtrusive.

Once everyone was settled back down again the bride and groom welcomed everyone in a receiving line, followed by cutting of the cake (chocolate - a good choice). After this the priest led a singalong of various folk songs, accompanied by his tambourine, which he played rather like a bongo drum. One or two of the ladies got up and danced, and some of the older gents took a turn at singing.

Then it was food time. A buffet of chicken xacuti, pork sorportel, roast beef, and veg korma. It was very good - first meat I've had in Goa, and a great way to start.

After the food, people quite quickly dispersed, which seemed odd to us, as it was only 2pm. Still, that was it. After some brief goodbyes, the bride, groom and the rest of the wedding party got back on the bus - they had other relatives to visit for tea.

1/10 - First day at work.

we got up at 6:00 today. it had seemed like a good idea yesterday - get our work done before the heat of the day, and have the evening for relaxing.

And, once we'd gotten up, it worked well. We did 2 hours each, then went to Double Dutch (we're fast becoming regulars there) for breakfast. Their tiny puppy is very playful, and loves to pounce on Carrie's baggy trousers. The owners tied up the little thing to keep him out of the way, but he was still into everything, chasing his tail, yapping at the cats, and getting himself tangled up. As Carrie puts it 'a right scrappy doo'.

Service is always slow at Double Dutch - breakfast took over an hour. Nice, but we can't really do this everyday. On the table behind us was a pompous old twit who was telling another regular how he was an astrologer, and could see the good, bad and history of everyone by looking at their chart. He then went on to expound conspiracy theories about lizard people ruling the world, evolution is a lie, and that most avocados are only fit to be fed to cattle. It takes all sorts, I guess.

I worked for most of the day in an internet cafe just down the road from our apartment - I've reached an agreement with them that I can keep a tab running and settle at the end of the week. It's a pretty ramshackle affair - cables and computers everywhere, and the occasional spark. Still, there's a place for me to plug in my laptop, and it's costing about £1/day It's quite noisy, but seeing all the chatter is in the local language, it doesn't distract me.

There was a powercut around lunchtime, so I popped back home. I got chatting to one of our family's brothers (I've not learned their names yet).He's a nice chap, very helpful, and said that if we needed anything, anytime, to call on him - he lives just below our apartment on the ground floor. One result is that I got him to agree to fit some mosquito netting over the ventilation hole at the back of the apartment, which will be good - we had a bat flying in and out last night. Luckily they manage to avoid the ceiling fans, otherwise we'd have awoken to minced bat.

He gave me a bit of a tour of the place - they're currently building another apartment on top of ours - it's no-where near finished - wet concrete and bamboo all over the place, but apparently it'll be completed, tiles and all, in two weeks time, when the season officially starts. There's small scale building work all over the village at the moment - new shops seem to appear each day, guest houses get a lick of paint, rubble gets cleared away. Even the beach is brightening up, as the coating of monsoon silt gets taken away by the tide.

Carrie went shopping a little later on, and I had to come back with her to get a deposit back from an over-eager trader who thought we was going to sell 2 sheets to her for £25, while they were worth about £5. It got a bit tricky, but we stuck to our guns and won through in the end.

Carrie's had a busy day - the parent's group representative who she's been in touch with about volunteering here in Goa finally got in contact - but seems to have utterly grasped the wrong end of the stick - she'd like Carrie to work 5 days a week, and would prefer Carrie to move so she's closer to the school (and therefore closer to her child). A phonecall or two straightend things out a bit, but Carrie is still unsure what the outcome is going to be - she says they were acting as if they were doing her a favour, rather than the other way round. Still, she's arranged a meeting with the woman and a teacher later in the week in Panjim, Goa's capital.

Carrie came back with a present for me - Double Dutch do take-away too! Sitting on my balcony, eating very good apple pie - doesn't get much better than this.

We finished for the day at 4.30, then walked along the beach for a bit. The beach gets quite busy in the evenings - the locals come out to walk, play cricket and catch up with the day's news. It's nice to see the kids of the long-term foreigners playing along with the local children - tug of war and tick seem to be the favorites.

Finally, I think there might be some kind of saint's day or something today. There's a small tiled cross in the tiny square that our apartment is on, and as we came back to our house, there were 20-odd of the family and friends sitting on plastic chairs around the cross, holding a candle-lit vigil and singing.

30/9 - Relaxing Sunday

Finally got a good night's sleep last night, thank God. We woke well rested, with no mozzie bites, although I had a little bit of an hangover.

We've had our first totally relaxing day - and finally unpacked all our stuff. I feel we've settled in now, which is great.

We walked up the lanes into the local part of town, and breakfasted at Double Dutch again - I think this is going to be a regular thing. We then did our first internetting, and went back to the house for a siesta - the monsoon seems to be finally over (touchwood), and it was hot and steamy enough that we wanted to just stay in our cool room with the fans on.

Later we came down to dreamcatcher (our local bar on the beach, at the front of our block of houses). Jamie and Jean-louis are here, as is to be expected. I overheard Jamie just say 'arambol is where people who don't fit in belong.' which just about sums things up.

The beach is warm and windy, and as it's the weekend there are quite a lot of indian holiday makers on the beach, bathing fully clothed and playing cricket. There's also a few cows on the beach, who don't seem to approve of the whole spectacle. It's all great fun to watch.

Carrie & I are sitting at a table, both happily geeking away on our laptops. We must look a right pair, but you can't beat this at the moment :)

We spent a quiet night watching the sun go down and met another guy called Peter, who is dutch; makes marmalade and peanut butter in the season to sell at anjuna market; and has an encyclopediaic knowledge of what's worth good on the menus of all the restaurants in Arambol. Apparently, Arambol is the best budget food destination in Asia.

However, I'm still just eating veggies. Had an ok vegetable thali, and turned in for an early night - we're both 'back to work tomorrow'.

29/9 - House Moving, again.

We didn't get any sleep last night - the mattress has got damper because of the monsoon, and now smells on mildew. Even the new pillows we bought yesterday now stink. We're not happy.

We decided we need to move from the back bedroom into the front room - it's about time we cleaned it anyhow. The back bedroom suffers worse from the monsoon, and has damp patches on the walls - mostly because the veranda outside is cut-away to leave space for a palm tree - people here seem to build their houses around palm trees, rather than cut them down, which is pleasant in principle, but not nice when it rains.

Cleaning is a slog - we manage to get the loose layer of dirt, cobwebs and bugs off, but it still leaves the ground-in dirt and stains. At least the floors are spotless (they're tiled).

The landlord, George, appeared while we were in the middle of cleaning. He's brought all the things we asked for yesterday - kettle, mugs, mops. He's obviously quite keen to make us comfortable, as I think we're very good customers for him - we're paying a good rate (we didn't really haggle) and are staying for a long time. I think the fact that we're actually cleaning up the place must be quite gratifying for him too. He say's he'll repaint the back room once it dries out from the monsoon - maybe we can get him to repaint the whole flat. He told me a little about his family - all the surrounding houses are lived in by his extended family - 4 brothers, I think. That's a lot of 'helloing' we have to do whenever we leave our apartment - but it's nice, and hopefully I'll learn some of their names in time.

By mid afternoon we'd got the room looking nice. Knackered, we decided to leave it for the day, and went shopping. Shops here open 9-12, and then 4-6 - so you need to be quick. We bought some fruit and bits and bobs for the house. Later Carrie bought a nice skirt off a very louche rajastani chap and his boyfriend. She haggled hard, and I think she'll be back there for more clothes at some point.

We had tea at a beach restaurant, and watched the sunset. There's a lot of dogs here that try to cadge food - but they don't lunge at the table, just sit at your feet and look up at you with plaintive eyes. Most of the regulars feed and fuss them, but we're going to keep our distance.

As we walked back along the beach to our house, we bumped into Jamie and some other expats at Dreamcatcher. It turned into a long boozy evening, full of useful advice, horror stories, and laughs. I think we're going to fit in just fine here. Carrie's been invited over to one of the girl's houses here - I'm sure she'll come back with lots of decorating ideas.

28/9 - Shopping

We didn't get much sleep last night - the mattress is hard, pillow is lumpy, and the room is damp.

We decided to go into the local town - Mapusa - to do some shopping to fit out the house. It's market day today. It's a typical hectic indian town - quite far away from the tourist world of the coast. Anyhow, after much haggling and wandering around, we managed to get pan scourers, insect repellent, pillows, and assorted other odds and ends to fit out our little place.

We couldn't face doing much more housework, so we went for a wander around arambol and exploreed along the beach a bit. There's bamboo huts and guest houses nestled along the north end of the beach, and around the headland there's more coves with basic accomodation in it. It's all nearly empty at this time of year - and there's people working on monsoon repairs everywhere - trying to get things in shape for the tourist season. THe monsoon is heavier and longer than ever this year - which is harming the tourist business, apparently. Still, it's good for us, as it means we've got the place more to ourselves.

27/9 - Moving in

We woke to the sound of rain, heavy rain. So we dozed for longer, hoping it'd lift. The power was off too, which was another reason to linger in bed. Eventually, we had to admit defeat and get going. After checking out, wilson drove us up to arambol - which was probably a bit galling for him, as we'd not taken his house.

It was bucketing down when we got to arambol. We left the taxi on the main street and then had to skuttle down to our apartment. The adobe and laterite house next to it has been demolished by the monsoon, and was slowly dissolving into a lake of mud, which we had to slide through to get to the steps up to our apartment.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning - when we looked closely, we realized the place was filthy, even for scruffs like us. By 4ish, we'd managed to clean the smaller room and bathroom - which will do for tonight. We moved our stuff in, set up the mozzie net, and headed down through the rain to the local beach bar (called dreamcatcher - cheezy name, good place) for a well-earned beer.


The only other chap in there was an british old-hand called Jamie, who spends 6 months a year here, every year for the past 10 years. He's a pleasant chap, well liked by the locals. He used to work as a housing officer, so he had some interest in what carrie does. We learned lots of useful stuff (best place to rent a scooter, what to expect from the weather, etc). The weather got worse and worse - lightening directly overhead. So we had no choice but to stay in the bar until is passed over. This tactic didn't work - the weather got worse, rain blew in horizontally, and we just got more drunk. Eventually we had to make a run for it, and got drenched - at this point we didn't really mind.

26/9 - House Hunting

We didn't fancy brakfast at the hotel - it looked like a cold platter of fruit, and had been out in the open for a bit - we're very wary about food hygine at the moment, and are only eating vegetables which have been deep-fried or boiled to oblivion. Salad and pork sausages will have to wait for a few weeks.


We walked into anjuna village, which hasn't really opened for the season yet, and ended up breakfasting on omlette and poached eggs in a shack restaurant on the cliffs overlooking the sea. The sea is very stormy at the moment, and is slowly washing away the cliffs. Spectacular!We suspect that the restaurant we were really looking for (listed in the guidebook) was washed away.

Back at the hotel, Wilson met us to show us a house he thought we could rent. It was still being decorated, but was Huge - high ceilings, big rooms, and even aircon in one room. Sadly the rent was huge too - and I don't really want to spend the season in Anjuna - it's very spread out, and there's not much here apart from the wedensday market. It's also get the reputation for getting quite sleazy later on in the year.

Wilson then ran us to the local bank to withdraw some money. The bank manager was comically officious - asked us what was our business in india, how long we were staying, and then asked me to repeat my signature. There's no cash machine in Anjuna, so this is the only way to get cash for now.

Later we too another taxi up to Arambol - which is where we really want to stay. The taxi was a classic old hindustani ambassador - heavily sprung, and so slow that it gets overtaken by mopeds. However, it's a nice way to travel and take in the scenery. We crossed a huge wide river, up in flood with paddies and pools next to it. The landscape here is very verdant at the moment - everything is covered in vegetation. Bright sunny skies today too.

Arambol is a rambling, ramshackle, charming little village, with a single main road that meanders down to the beach, getting progressively more touristy - the shops change from general merchants, fruit and veg, and telephone booths to tie-dye clothing emporiums, juice bars and falafel stands. However, it's very quiet - not many tourists around - although there are some comical dreadlocked emaciated isralis sitting on streetcorners studiously being cool. The locals here are very friendly. They say 'hello' as you pass them in the street - and after a while you start to recognize the same faces - the village isn't very big.

The beach here is gorgous. Craggy at one end, and then a big sweep of sand. Windy at the moment, and there's outrigger fishing canoes pulled up on the beach.


We asked at local shops whether anyone knew of a house to rent. After a bit of asking we got shown two in a local block of houses just back from the beach. The first was just a room - much too small to live and work in. The second seemed to fit nicely - first floor, cool and draughty, two rooms, bathroom and kitchen and 2 balconies. It was a bit grubby, and suffering from the monsoon but had a great location. No air conditioning, but each room had ceiling fans. We looked around a little more, but couldn't find any other rooms, so eventually took the plunge and went for it.

Carrie on the balcony

View from one of our balconies - the sea is behind those palm trees.

Pleased with ourselves,we celebrated by a slap-up lunch at a dutch/hippie restaurant.The Food here is very good - carrie likes the excellent apple pie. The restaurant is very relaxed, the owners being eccentric ex-pats with a passion for cats and puppies- which are all very well-looked after and run around beneath your feet.

We took the slow taxi back to our hotel in Anjuna, and relaxed by the pool. Carrie premiered her new bikini - she looks smashing. However, as always she's a little camera shy, so this is the only shot I managed to get.




We walked back into anjuna for tea, through paddy fields filled with fireflies. There's lots of dogs around, which takes a bit of getting used to. However, they're strangely placid, and don't bark, or move, for anything. The cows are a bit more scary - free roaming, and some of them are fearsome looking. We had naan bread and veg curry for tea- and the owner gave us some samples of Goan wine to try - he said he needed to know whether it was any good. We told him it tasted like a spanish rioja - not bad. That'll probably make it onto the menu.

25/9 - Arrivals

We landed in bombay.
Immigration
collected our baggage - got a trolley.
then walked through customs, and followed the stream of people to the bus for the internal flights terminal. Jet airways passengers get special treatment - advance checking, and baggage carrying. We had to walk past all this, and queue by ourselves. The female army guard looked in detail at our spicejet e-ticket - as almost everyone else had a proper boardingpass at this point. Then onto the coach (stinky air conditioning) and off for the short journey to the other terminal. It basically goes all round the airfield - so you can see runways to the left, and shanties to the right.

Much greener and more humid than I remember from last time.

Checking in at spice-jet was chaotic - seems like they employ an attendant to deliberately muck about the queuing - everyone was queuing nicely, and he'd tell people to jump the queue, only to find that the counter had then closed, leaving folk standing in limbo.

Anyhow, we eventually got ourselves checked in and went through security - quite strict in India, even by uk airport standards - the checked luggage is scanned and stickered even before you can check in.

We had a whille to sit around and wait in the departures lounge. We found free wireless, and emailed the folks.

The flight was pretty straigtforward - not very full, and not very long. The pilot had an entertaininly bright orange barnet - I'm pretty sure it was a wig.

Goa airport isn't the most impressive - it's shared with the indian air force, and as we had to taxi and wait on the runway for a long time, I was able to take in my fill of rusting ex-russian helicopters and staff sitting underneath turbo-prop bombers, sheltering from the heat of the day.

Goa is hot and humid today. We got met by our taxi pickup - Wilson, who seems a little bit of a wide-boy, but harmless enough. It took an hour in his honda minivan to get to the Laguna Hotel, Anjuna, where we're staying for a day or two.

It's a very nice hotel - luckily it's out of season, so we get it for £30/night. Its the sort of place where you leave your bags for 'the boy' to take to the room. Carrie doesn't like having to do this - it makes her uncomfortable watching someone else do the hard work - independant girl that she is. And you've got to tip them afterwards too - which ain't easy when you've only got a few large bills you changed at the airport.
I gave them a smile, which didn't seem to satisfy verymuch, but was the best I could do.

The rooms here are very nice - it's all individual cottages built out of blocks of the soft, red & hole-filled laterite stone which are used here instead of bricks.

Inside, it's pretty rustic, but charming. Nice and cool - and it had fans and air con. We had some problems with the mozzie net, and eventually put up our own.

We toddled over to the restaurant - very quiet, as if we're the only ones staying here at the moment. We ordered our first meal in india - vegetarian Thali, and ate it on the veranda in the twilight (it goes dark at 6pm here). It was a very hot and very good thali, but we both managed to get it down.

Back from China.

We covered a lot of ground in our 2 weeks in china..

• Beijng - forbidden city, temples, shopping, eating.
  
• Datong - hanging temple and buddhist caves
  
• Xian - teracotta army, pagodas, drum tower.
• Kaifeng - Night Market (mystery meat on a stick), Iron Pagoda
  
• Suzhou - Gardens, pagodas and shopping
• Zhouzhang - a very pretty water town - canals and bridges
  
• Shanghai - amazing
  
• Tai Shan - a mountain of steps
• Qingdao - not very nice really.
• Great wall - on a misty day.

To get around we travelled by train - hard sleeper, hard seat, soft sleeper and the new Japanese-style Bullet trains; coach - overnight and sleeper coach (with bunks); and climbed a few too many steps (tai shan, great wall, bell towers, pagodas).

We never really got off the well-beaten tourist route, but all the people we met were very friendly, helpful, and curious about us. Sometimes the staring was a little wearing, and I did get my arm hair tugged to check it was real more than once.

Here's some of the better photos we took:

China 2007