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After our first overnight bus in India, we arrived in Goa. Heading first for our chosen section of Goa in the South, Agonda, which the guidebook reliably told us had a hostel with Wifi, we found the hostel was undergoing renovation and there was absolutely nothing to see or do, including no other people. We quickly revised plans to go to Palolem, a slightly bigger area of Goa beside Agonda and hitched a taxi there. Would we find a hostel with wifi? Which film does Palolem beach appear in? Who is Polish nappy man? And NO MONUMENTS TO TALK ABOUT – YAY!
 Sitting at a table on the beach, looking left. We were quite busy in Goa.
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Whilst waiting for the taxi in Agonda to take us to Palolem, we checked on the internet if there were any hostels with wifi. We found one that was recommended so told the taxi driver to go there. After being sent in every direction by locals who all looked a little confused at the hostel name, we finally found a local guy who told us it hadn’t been built yet. How could it not be built when someone had recommended it? That boys and girls is because at the end of every season in Goa, they dismantle all the tourism things on the beach – all the beach huts people stay in, restaurants, hostels, you name it really! Then at the start of every season, they rebuild it all again. Moral of the story, don’t bother with recommendations from any year other than the current one if you go to Goa…Got the taxi driver to drive around looking for anywhere with a wifi sign to no avail and stopped for a drink at Maria’s guesthouse. Finding that they had rooms too, we took a look and seemed like it would do the job for a couple of nights – 400Rs per night, double room, fan and private bathroom.
 Final full day we decided to go fishing, while Lynette thought about putting a cap in my ass.
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Room and bathroom were bright orange and I thought the room always smelt a little like pee. Each morning we could hear scratching above our heads so I’m suspecting rats in the roof above us. One night I saw one in the palm tree outside our balcony – can rats climb trees? The freezing cold shower water was always refreshing as Goa is just so hot but at night it was so warm we had to have the fan on. The fan unfortunately clunked on every rotation, a fact Steve mentioned just once or twice…so sleep was hard to come by there. Along with this, I discovered moving ‘things’ on the walls and ceiling. Shaped like small leaves about 1cm long, an antenna/stem/proboscis (pick one) would come out of either the top OR the bottom (I watched one stick it’s antenna out the top, then go back into the leaf thing and then stick it out the bottom) and suction onto the wall to move along. Hotel staff didn’t know what they were but said they weren’t dangerous….If anyone knows what these are, please tell us!
 The first time a sacred cow casts a shadow over your sun lotioned body it is a bit of a shock.
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The beauty of Goa is that one day really does just merge into the next. We intended staying two, possibly three nights and ended up staying 9 nights. As our train to Hampi whenever we would eventually leave left at 8am, we kept booking our taxi through the hostel for 6.30am and then cancelling the night before when we realised we had no intention of leaving. They seemed to find it amusing though!
 Goa beach, where the more inventive touts bring have a mobile high wire and well trained children.
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Walking the two mins to the beach, we had to cut through one of our favourite bars ‘The Nest’ who were so lovely that on what they thought was our last night (but actually was one of our many false alarms) they gave us a free drink – about 3 times the size of a normal shot…Our second favourite bar was ‘Silver Star’ further along the beach who seemed to serve the best food – Indian and International for really good prices. The beautiful crescent shaped beach about a mile long was made of lovely soft white sand and the sea was always warm so no shocks when you ran in. Beautiful dragonflies dot around the sands and crabs of all sizes scuttle for their holes as you approach. Cows, being sacred in India, wander every single street, but in Goa they also wander the beach so it’s not just dog pooh you’re watching out for! At one point, we saw a cow intrigued by a group of Americans on the beach and their food. She wasn’t going to give up and all the Americans were screaming, until one held it at bay with a fluorescent pink lilo. Bet Bear Grylls doesn’t have that technique in his repertoire.
 Plenty of boats offer dolphin and fishing trips for about 200Rs each.
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It’s a picture postcard beach and was the Indian home of Mr Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy – I wonder if Matt Damon had the same issue of leaf shaped creatures in his room? Free sun loungers were outside each bar and helped us with the first 6 days of baking sun where we crisped up nicely. Wooden boats lined the beaches with fishermen offering a variety of tours. Hawkers interrupted every 5 mins asking if you wanted jewellery/henna/pineapple/dvds etc. You have to be firm with them, if you even answer any of their questions, they sit down and tell you their woe begotten life story so you feel you have to purchase something – we didn’t fall for it! We had meals of curries, fish, sandwiches, you name it from many of the sea fronted restaurants. My favourite meal there was a grilled red snapper with salad which was absolutely gorgeous. At night they would put candles outside making the whole beach look very tranquil and pretty. Beach fires would also be lit at night and fireworks would be set off along the length of it. Drinks during the day were fresh fruit juices or milkshakes – carrot juice was lovely here and at night cocktails appeared for ridiculously cheap prices – a White Russian might set you back 120Rs – £1.50 roughly for a pint of the stuff.
 This big! Enough for the first bite of a starter!
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The couple we hung about with most were Paul and Stef – a Manchester couple who taught us the card game Canasta (mainly because Stef just couldn’t get Hearts, repeatedly putting down the Queen of Spades to win the hand). We met them whilst drinking too many White Russians in the Silver Star one night whilst watching Polish Nappy Man being physically thrown out of the bar. Polish Nappy Man as we *fondly* dubbed him, was a guy we met on our second night. Whilst having a lovely romantic drink at a quiet beach bar, Steve was intrigued by the white man with tattoos all over his body, Hindi paint on his face, dreadlocks and wearing a white lunghi hitched up in short fashion (hence the Nappy Man part of his name). As soon as Steve asked the guy where he was from, we knew it was a mistake (Royal we, I suspected a mistake before Steve asked him 
). He insisted on joining us, telling us his life story of how he was tattooed in a former life, was from Poland with no friends or family and was living in the Himalayas on a small form with his cows, sheep, chickens and cannabis plants. He told us about how he loved the Indian people, yet then spoke to the waiters as if they were dogs. Helping himself to a swig of our beer (his mouth didn’t touch the bottle – I watched), he told us that in India if anything is on the table, it means it is for everyone. Declaring the guy a FREAK, we decided to finish up and go, paying our bill before he’d finished his beer as we suspected some ‘I’m your friend, could you buy me a drink’ scam going on. Every night after that, we saw him with other foreigners or upsetting locals – some foreigners bought him dinner just so he’d leave them alone so we got away lightly.
 Every restaurant puts their catches of the day out in front to whet the appetite.
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Our other two nights out of just relaxing on the beach and watching the most beautiful sunsets we have ever seen were going to a silent disco and fishing. I’d never been to a silent disco before so for those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s an outside party where everyone wears headphones and tunes in to their music without disturbing the locals! It’s very surreal and very funny when you take the headphones off and hear everyone singing out loud. Not so funny when you’re dancing to a good song and a drunken husband thinks it’s funny to keep hitting the change channel button on your headphones so you keep being switched to Prince (TAFKAP, symbol, whatever his name is now)! Our fishing trip consisted of a coconut with thin fishing wire attached – Bolivian piranha-style fishing! Both Steve and I managed to catch around 10 small snapper each but they were too small really for cooking. We both managed to catch ‘something’ much bigger too but as the wire dug into our hands while we tried to ‘reel’ it in with the coconut, the wire which was too thin for anything other than a small fish snapped, taking hook and all with it.
 Finally my favourite sunset picture of the holiday, unfortunately to take the picture we couldn’t actually be in it!
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All in all, Goa is a beautiful place. Very easy to stay there for far longer than you ever intended with the lazy lifestyle and stunning sunsets. As we went at the start of season, it was very cheap for us without too many tourists around but we’re assured it gets much more busy and much more expensive in the weeks to come. In April, apparently the prices go back down so this is a potential to return to before going home next year! Our first ever beach holiday and we loved it although I’d like stronger fishing wire next time to get the big fish as then you can take it to one of the restaurants to cook for you! Next stop….Hampi!
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Hi Steve and Lynette. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY. I hope you future years are as eventful and as happy as your 1st year of married life together. Love from all in U.K.
Heya! I know this is kind of off-topic but I had to ask. Does building a well-established website such as yours require a lot of work? I am completely new to blogging but I do write in my journal on a daily basis. I’d like to start a blog site so I will be able to share my experience and thoughts online. Please tell me if you have any kind of suggestions or tips for brand new aspiring blog owners. Thankyou!