Hello friends and family! Sorry its been a while! Hopefully the next couple of blog entries will keep you up to date with what we have been up to.Well, where can we start? On the 2nd November one of my best friends, Miss Kirsty Owens, arrived with her boyfriend Mr Robert Owen (better known to most of you as "Bez") as they were coming to see us for a week in Goa! Yippee! I was very excited and Kirsty was also bringing with her a much needed bottle of Martini for me - the price of Martini in India is ridiculously expensive as it has to be imported so I had not had any since being at home and I was in desperate need!
We sorted out a moped for them so we could all buzz around Goa - it is the best way to see the place, as well as saving a fortune on taxis! For the first couple of days, we chilled out by the pool at La Goa Azul, took them to our favourite places and went to see the chaos at Baga/Calangute Beach (although luckily it was much quieter than normal!).
We then went to spend a couple of days in Aswem (in North Goa, as we know someone who owns Beach Huts up there, a place called Bedrock.
We also went to the Saturday market together where we experienced all the Indian spices, clothes, colours, smells as well as the usual hassle from the sellers - it was quite intense and I think we were all relieved to get out of the market after a few hours (plus the boys seemed to be quite anxious to get round the market quickly as Man Utd where playing Chelsea- turns out they were playing on Sunday, not Saturday as I had 
told them - whoops! I was sure the TV said Saturday!). The market did have a few comical incidents - many of the Indian sellers shouted at us "come and have a look, cheaper than Asda price!" or "come on honey, spend your money". Bless them, they do try hard! It must be difficult getting a constant stream of NO! The plan is that Kirsty and Bez will make a blog entry so you get their take on things so we dont want to go into too much detail in case we spoil anything!Some photos during their stay with us...
All of us having a farewell meal at Honeys
Kirsty and Bez with Thapa
Kirsty and Bez with all the boys from Honeys
We have met many lovely people at La Goa Azul but we really want to say thank you to Kath & Glyn who have truly helped us settle in - they have been wonderful and we would have been alot worse off without them! Hopefully now we have found our way a bit more and we are not so much of a burden, but we justed wanted to say a big thanks. They have helped us find the studios to live in during our time in Goa, they have took us out in their jeep to great restaurants and recommended excellent places to go which has made our time at Goa really enjoyable.Also we must give a big thanks to (the other) Kath and Phil who have helped us with the planning of our next trip (when Andrew's mum arrives) and have lent us lots of books; we really appreciate the help everyone has given us!
Our friends at La Goa - Thank You!
Our time was due to end at La Goa Azul in mid-November, but before heading to South Goa we were going to spend a few more days at Aswem Beach. However, the onset of severe tropical storms put a dampener on this which meant we had to stay in the hotel for a couple more days until it died down. When the weather was more settled we got our taxi driver, Sandip, to take us down to Palolem which was about a 2 hour drive. We decided not to book any accomodation and just find something when we arrive, we find this way suits us better as we can check out the accomodation before we decide to stay - we have been caught out too many times! We arrived at Palelom and just as we took our first step out of the taxi we were surrounded by touts trying to make us stay at their hotel! We politely declined and made our way along the beach. We saw a rocky beach head at the end of the long cresent of sand, which had some huts, so rather than stay directly on the beach we headed here. On the way we were approached by countless hawkers trying to sell us goods, I guess that our white skin and huge backpack gave our game away. It has become quite comical talking with the hawkers. Inevitabliy they first approach you, ask you your name, where you come from, a whole host of friendly questions directed at you with the intention of hooking the fish, and then, wait for it... the famous statement arrives.... "come and look at my shop", we reply "No", they try again and again "please come and look at my shop we have lots of lovely things and they are very cheap". In the end you have to look at the floor and just march on, "okay maybe later" is heard behind as you walk into the next shopkeepers territory.
We chose a beach hut on the top of the rocks and it had two beautiful views - one overlooking the gentle curve of Palolem beach and it's palms, and to the other side a smaller shingle-beach cove. 
The beach hut was basic, but it was clean. However, we soon saw that insects and wildlife were going to be a problem and as I hate creepy-crawlies of any description I was more than a little bit sqeamish! We stayed for 2 nights in the hut and I couldnt take anymore especially when we returned to our room at night, several tree frogs had decided to make a home right there in our room! urgh!! I made Andrew catch and then remove them from the hut before I would set foot in the hut.
We had a lovely few day and nights though, watching fireworks on the beach, going on a boat trip to see the wild dolphins in the Arabian Sea and finding a hidden river which we took a tranquil boat ride on and saw beautiful bright blue Kingfishers.
The next stage was to move a short walk south to Patnem, which we had been told was lovely, so we were looking forward to this! I had had enough of bugs, frogs and beach huts though, so we opted for a real, bricks and mortar room, still right on the beach, alongside Home, which is a great little hotel/bar/restaurant in the centre of Patnem Beach. We stayed there for five nights, but again the tropical storms kicked in so we spent a couple of nights sitting in a bar with no power watching the thunder and lighting illuminate the beach - it was pretty cool, again as I am not a fan of storms it was quite a big deal for me to actually sit amongst it! (I know, before you all say it, I am scared of everything - this trip has definitely pushed my boundaries!). As commonly featured in our trip we spent the days, chilling, playing scrabble on the beach whilst watching the sunset and fitting in the time to watch most of the Harry Potter films.
The storms bought a whole heap of problems for the beach and the restaurant owners, as they had just finished clearing the beach after the seasonal moonsoon when this storm dumped a fresh load of bits of wood and rubbish. The villagers seemed to work as a big group to clear the mess, young and old worked for two days and nights piling , burning and burying until the beach was clear.
One morning we were enjoying breakfast on Patnem beachfront when a young girl and her smaller brother started setting up something right before eyes, within moments to our amazement the young boy was walking along a high wire whilst the girl banged on an Indian drum! We dont normally give money to street/beach acts as there are so many however we were totally amazed by this, we, along with many others gave them some rupees! Definetly a potential act for India's Got Talent (sure Simon Cowell must have something in the pipeline!!)
For one day in Patnem we hired a moped to see what South Goa had to offer. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a dodgy bike which felt like the back wheel was going to fall off at any moment! However me made it in one piece and we stumbled across a beautiful place and beach called Agonda. We plan to go back there when we return to Goa and stay for a few days. It had hardly any people on and the sea and sand looked lovely, we both thought that it was similar to the "Summer Bay" palm beach which we visitied in Australia a few years ago.So ended our time in Goa as we were about to embark on a mammoth rail journey up and across India to get to Nepal which would test our very limits. To be continued............
Some more photos...
Andrew doing what he does best - relaxing!
Cows on Patnem Beach
Me and Andrew - I put this picture on as I find it really funny!
Bloke and his partner doing Yoga on the Patnem Beach - the cows dont seem to mind! This is the same bloke who wore a thong!
Have a look at our new world food blog website The Food Atlas.com for world food recipes and stories.
Are you interested in food recipes from around the world? Have a look at www.thefoodatlas.com
Computer speed problems? www.systemoptimizer.org
Posts
