Goa; South young man

Kieran:

Yesterday we shared a taxi with two other travellers (who we met the night before) to Palolem in South Goa. Two hours down the coast, the weather's still great, the beach is even nicer and there's far more going on down here, than in Anjuna ( I guess the low season affects the north more than the south). The food's a little more expensive here, but the quality of the meals seem better, so that's good.

We seem to have made a group of four for the next couple of days, with the two solo travellers we shared the taxi here with. I think we'll look at getting another moped tomorrow to explore the area, much the same as North Goa, but with a few more hills.

Today's been a great day for people watching and we spent a lot of the day just sat in a restaurant, talking and watching the day go by. We saw a cow chew on a man's vest for half the day without his knowledge, and helplessly watched a huge group of dogs violently attack a lone one, while men from the restaurant rushed out to break it up, throwing rocks at the vicious mass.We were told at dinner last night that we missed out on a beached whale that was saved only the day before, bummer!

We leave this evening for Cochin in Kerala, continuing to hug the coast south towards Bangalore (our final destination). We only have to endure an overnight train journey this time, so shouldn't be as taxing as the the last time we used the train.

The past couple of days have been spent relaxing on the beach and in restaurants, but with little else to do, you can't feel too guilty. Although as a change to disturb the peace, we did take a moped out to a rainforest wildlife park further inland and spent a good 4 hours, navigating the awful tracks on our bike, dismounting every so often to adventure off by foot into the dense forest, stumbling across a tree houses or two nestled high in the canopy. We didn't see much actual wildlife in the park, but were constantly walking into thick cobwebs everywhere and as we drove, did see a large owl swoop across the road ahead of us. We did managed to find a large spider under a tree, a few other creepy crawlies, some tree swinging monkey's and plenty of mangrove crabs.

The best food I've had so far in India has been in Palolem and there's no shortage of eateries and bars to enjoy the evening. All I seem to have done here is eat, drink, swim and sleep and it's been nice but I'm glad to be moving on.One night, we spent an evening on the beach with a druken goan fisherman, who had a screw loose or something, but had spent the last 37 years in goa and has had a film made about him. He owned a drum, on which he only knew one tune and which he played endlessly. But my favourite moment was when he pointed at a red boat light out at sea and said that it was the planet Venus!... we doubt that this washed up hippie is ever sober or actually gets any fishing done. He was accompanied by an also drunk (though not as far gone as his friend) Polish man, who as far as we could gather from his very limited English and use of hand gestures, had come to India on a boat illegally and had no visa... It turned out to be a very interesting evening, which lasted well into the early hours of the morning. Our two other travelling friends left us yesterday, one going on to a party elsewhere in Goa and the other returning home after 3 months in India.

Nick:

Patnem is literally one beach south from here, it's very small, and only about 2km away I think. Oh and Chicken Dumpling stew please, how exciting!

Our hotel in Palolem is called Wavelet Hotel, Kieran's still sleeping there now as he stayed out a little later than I did last night. There's a pretty happening beach bar/dance club thing here which we went to with our new friends from Anjuna, Meg and Tom. It was pretty nice sitting out on the beach under the stars, but the club was a bit annoying, so not what I came to India for! Kieran was enjoying it though, so I let him stay and hit the bed earlier. I think it was a good move as I've had this morning to myself! I found a place that does awesome coffee with a good window view so I could draw and lyric write. I took a few photos of quirky things at my leisure and went trawling through a bookshop. Want to read something by an Indian author, but not sure what I'll enjoy... Any ideas for me?

It's a nice morning here, all bustling, I quite enjoy getting off on my own actually for a change, Kieran and I are getting on just fine, but you always need a break at some point!
Everything is in walking distance in Palolem, it's really only two streets, so it's dead easy to wander off on my own, and meet up on the beach or in the hotel.

Probably will get ourselves a moped at some point soon, if Kieran ever wakes up!

Next day: Hey dudes, thanks for the e-mails. I think it was just the soap, not insects! Looks better now I've rinsed everything. Have seen those Banyan trees around, they're beautiful, and some hints of Mangrove, but only very small patches. No fairy terns sadly, no gull/tern like birds of any description actually. Bee eaters, King fishers, some little wader like birds, and I'm pretty sure that there's a white Belly Sea Eagle floating around!

Last night was a thunderstorm, really far out at sea, lit up the sky brilliantly. We ran into some odd half Indian, half Polish hippy who's lived in Goa forty years. He was drunk off his head, and kept playing us songs on his drum. He claimed to know 200 songs, from different countries. You could say any country name to him and he'd play the song, but it became hilarious very quickly because each song was exactly the same!

Our friends Meg and Tom and heading off separate ways today, so we're back to a twosome tomorrow. We're going to investigate visiting Cotigao wildlife park. I could see about a recipe book for you... Last night we ate a red snapper (but I think that's actually their name for generic large fish, it wasn't really red). The four of us shared one big one, and it was really good! Got a photo of him. He came with some rice and salad and even chips! Most things have a western slant on them here, but there's often some unusual spice or something odd thrown in!

New moped has no name, we only took it for half a day, it was black with little personality... There's also an hour boat trip up the river you can do here, where we can see more Monkeys. I'm trying to persuade Kieran that it'll be fun!

Today we biked out to Cotigao wildlife park. It was pretty cool, no guides this time, or other people in fact! Just us on a dirt path with our moped around a pretty huge thick jungle park (i think we drove about 8km in to the park and 8km back) We had to get off at certain points and walk to observation platforms, which was where we saw most things. Little lizards, frogs, a thin black snake, some big spiders! There were monkeys all over when we were in a tree top tower, was pretty cool. Sadly we didn't see much else, no panthers, porcupines, Lori's, Bears, or squirrels, but they are in there somewhere! The best sighting of the day was a huge owl that flew in front of us. I showed my photo of it to the ranger at reception and he said it was just a common owl! Oh well, it looked very big and impressive to me.

When we got back to the entrance, some people were offloading a van with injured wildlife in it for the sanctuary to look after. They had a bag with a couple of pythons in, a caged monkey and a croc, with it's mouth and arms duct taped up! They didn't mind me getting close and taking some pictures, so they're pretty cool. We're off to Kochi tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, our train leaves Margao at 20:40, and should get in at Eranakulum just after 12.00 noon the day after (wednesday). We've also booked our hotel already for Kochi, at a place called Tag und Nacht, so we'll be there the first couple of nights at least!

I'm not sure about the spider, will show you picture! Was a bit crab like... lots of thick webs everywhere. We didn't quite feel the owls wingbeat, don't recall hearing it either, but we had our moped engine running at the time...

Picked up a copy of white tiger this morning for the train, already started over lunch! It's quite insightful, a very good thing to read while in India... We're checked out of our hotel, and just hanging out taking pictures before our taxi takes us to the station. The sky is pure blue today, pretty glorious.

Exciting to be moving on to our last week. We hope to catch a bus south to Alleppy and take a back waters tour there, we'll see, they have a travel desk at our hotel in Kochin. Also looking forward to seeing you guys soon!