Tueday 9th March - Monday 15th of March - Relaxing in Goa

Arrived in Goa after 12 hours on the overnight sleeper train from Bombay only to find that the travel agent hadn't told us the correct stop to get off at and we were 30 miles from our intended destination! So we jumped in a taxi and headed off to Benaulim beach in the south of Goa which is far less touristy than Calangoute (our intended destination) further North . Beach-side accomodation at 6.66 pounds a night was very nice with necessary (for us) air-conditioning and a few decent restaurants within 10-15 minutes walk on the beach.

Spent most of our time lying in the shade (far too hot to be in the sun) on the beach and reading. We hired a surf board(of sorts) for a couple of the days which was very popular with all of the tourist kids that we bumped into! We hired bikes for a morning (when the heat was just about bearable for any kind of exercise) and cycled up the beach to the next resort which was really touristy (English breakfasts and some people who made us think we might've been in Blackpool!). Lots of hawkers on the beach but if you laid on the right sunbed then a local dog would come to your rescue as he would start to growl first and chase them if they came near!

On the Saturday night we caught a bus to the local night market in Apuru. To get the bus we were picked up on a couple of mopeds . Took a short-cut down a sand track where we came upon a 10 inch step. Sue's driver negotiated this well but with Derek's weight compared to his driver, their moped did a flip. The driver went left, the bike went right and Derek fell off the back! No damage done, just a bit of dusting off required. At the night market there was a local band playing cover versions of western rock music and lots of stalls selling food, clothes, garments, etc.

We finally met a couple of (real old) spaced out hippies and they were amusing for about 5 minutes and then they just become tedious and boring so you leave them and avoid meeting them again. Seems like it's all got too commercialised now and they've moved onto pastures new as we didn't see many around really.

The beach itself goes on for miles and you can walk from restaurant to restaurant without meeting a soul. The locals like to bring their water buffalo for a bath in the sea - quite a sight! Unless you count the sight of a decorated elephant giving rides to anyone who fancied it of course!

Had a fantastic relaxing time. Derek has never laughted so much before in all his life re counting all the things that have happened to ourselves and others during our time in India