Goan to Retire Here!

We are now in the beautiful land of beaches, seafood, coconut groves and ALCHOHOL! The atmosphere is laid back, "goan with the flow" in Goa! We love it here. It is an oasis in an Indian madness.

To get here, however, was no oasis. It took us a total of 30 hours from departure from Udaipur to arrival on the beach here, in Palolem. Our train ride was interesting, we both got motion sickness - that was the overnight train where we shared an "AC" berth with two Indian engineers. The air conditioning was luke warm, the room was about 6.5ft by 6ft. We arrived at 4:30 am in some small hot little industrial town. No sleep.
The next train ride was a grueling 11 hour ride! This was a chair ticket - we found our chairs pretty quicklly. So here we are - I was freaking - 6 people in a space of about 4ft by 5ft, no electricity (and remember it is early in the a.m.), knees hitting the passengers opposite of you! Oh my - I was ready to upgrade. But lucky us -- someone came with the ticket bearing the same seat number as ours. Hmm, it appears that we were in the wrong car! "Whew!" is all I can say -- this was a 3rd class car. So, off we go, running to the front of the train, about 200 m to catch our car before the train left -- me yelling at Jon -- Run faster Honey! (I should add, he has most of the souvenirs in his back pack, and he is refusing to use it properly - he had it over his shoulder, not like a back pack).
Arrived in Mumbai, starving, sweating and wearing our p.j's (well, we slept in our clothes, so technically they are p.j's). Hopped in a cab to a nicer area of town. Much different than Delhi - or are we just getting used to everything? Found a great restaurant, first real meal in the last 24 h - this is probably the first time that we were actually hungry (did we mention that we are gaining weight?). Sat on the walkway of Marine Drive, Jon was a bit tired and I almost fell asleep on the pavement when I rested my head on my backpack -- Ok, time to get moving!
At the airport, 6.5h early - so we tried to sleep. Many mosquitos - spray the OFF, and wrap up in a shawl. Pass out for maybe an hour. Then on the plane, out like a light -- but of course this is only a one hour flight. So we have now slept about a total of 4h in the last two nights!
It didn't matter that we had no sleep, because here we are in glorious sunshine, swimming, drinking and eating seafood!
We are staying in a beautiful little hut situated in a coconut grove at the end of the beach, next to a river. It is beautiful. I have found a marvelous shop filled to the ceiling with lovely, lovely clothing -- and no hassel from the shop owner. I shopped with three australian women and we all bought several items. The owner leaves the store and lets you shop, then tells you the prices. Great!
We are drinking Bacardi breezers as we write and are heading off for freshly caught seafood. The restaurant that we are going to tonight specializes in Goan food. It is situated across a long wooden, somewhat rickety bridge over the river into the hills. Of course, Jon was there today, knows the owners, and made arrangements for dinner - he has met so many people! He is so friendly some have claimed that he must of been here before -- "don't I know you?"

Making plans for all of you to come here with us for Christmas next year...

Brenda and Jon