Happy New Year Everyone!
It’s 2010, and I can’t imagine spending a transition between years in a better way than I did this year, or is that last year? Dunno, anyway things in India have not changed much and I am still having the time of my life and never want to leave. The reports of the English weather have done nothing to change my mind about this and I’m so psyched to still have two months of sun left.
If I remember correctly then the last time I wrote was Arambol, that was a bit of a mammoth email and hurt my brain and fingers a lot, but it was just before christmas right? Yeah, Arambol was lovely enough but it was full of crazy hippies off their faces all the time, not really our scene but I’m glad we went because we had some crazy ruins with a few crazy people, my favourite of which was the naked man in the restaurant. On the second day I think it was, we decided we were hungry at around three o’clock in the afternoon, and so as rational human beings do we went for lunch at a respectable looking restaurant where wed eaten the night before and that morning and had really enjoyed the food. It was boiling hot and we didn’t much fancy scorching in the sun even more so went to sit under the cover of the roof, right in front of a man who appeared to be sleeping on a beer bottle. This being Goa and India, we didn’t really give it a second thought, and spent a good 15 minutes how brilliant the blend of spices were in the food and how excellently the fish was cooked, like the pretentious pricks we are, when Freya turned around and said ‘Guys, I think that guy behind us might be naked’. We laughed at her and continued with our food admiration, when all of a sudden we heard an almighty crash, turned around and the guy behind had broken his chair and was sprawled, indeed completely naked, on the floor of this restaurant. A couple of hours later when we were coming back from the beach he was still lying in that exact same position. Amazing.
After Arambol we headed down by mixture of smelly buses and squashed taxis to Palolem, where we were very excited to meet up with our group of Aussie boys that we’d arranged to spend Chrsitmas with. They’d already booked us some beach huts so we could stay in the same place along with three boys from essex they’d befriended along the way. Our beach huts were basic to say the least (our bed was a table with two semi matresses plonked on top) but it was all we needed because all we were doing was sleeping and our earliest night was 4 am. We had a few crazy days and nights and loved every minute (if not partying we were kayaking, eating, sunbathing or swimming) before heading up to Arambol for Christmas. The days before Christmas were spent similarly to those in Palolem, perhaps a little more chilled out. Oh yeah and we said goodbye t Heather in Palolem! It was a very sad affair, but its ok because her sister lives i London so that just gives her an excuse to come and visit.
Back to Anjuna, we pretty much spent it on the beach being harassed by tiny girls trying to sell us the oddest things, egg whisks for your head, magnets stickers and all sorts of other crap. One day we hired a scooter (to see us trying to start it must have been the funniest thing EVER, we couldn’t even find the ignition) and went to Baga, a few kilometres away to meet up with Przemek, a friend of mine from Belgium which was very exciting. We also met up again with Priya who came down for Christmas and it was great to exchange India stories with her again. And then it was Christmas! We made our palm leaf Christmas tree (which, if I do say so myself, was a masterpiece) and spent Christmas day at a party in Elephant Art Cafe on the beach that the boys had organized. Frey and I bought each other dresses, but their secret santa was the best thing ever. They bought each other the most hideous clothes they could find and were forced to wear them for the rest of the night. Comedy gold.
That night we met some more Aussie boys who we met up with the next day and they were some of the funniest people we’d ever met and so we were very upset when they told us they were moving down to Palolem the next day. After a day of deliberating, we decided that we’d go down and join them after we’d spent a day at sunburn, a three day music festival thats supposed to be the biggest thing in Asia. It wasn’t really music we were in to though, so we were very glad we only went there for the first of the three days and also it was a nice way to say goodbye to our original group.
After that we headed back down to Palolem AGAIN to reunite with our new friends. We’ve had the BEST time here and were both so glad we came down, we spent our days playing frisbee and kayaking (we are now pro kayakers from all of the practice we’ve had), stepping on sea cucambers and hermit crabs and generally smiling all day and all night. New Years the other night was by far and away the best NYE I’ve ever ever had, dancing on the beach all night with some amazing people that we were so sad to say goodbye to the next morning. Thats the worst thing about travelling. You make friends and feel as though you’ve known them all your life after only a day and sometimes you lose sight of the fact you have to say goodbye and its most likely you’ll never see these people again. On to bigger and better things I guess is all you can say. It does leave you with a horrible emptiness though and is definitely a feeling that I don’t like about travelling, one of very few but still.
Anyway, we’re here in Palolem for one last day today and are heading up to a beach closer to the airport tomorrow, because we’ve only got a week left! The next time you get a giant email like this will probably be Malaysia, or maybe even Thailand and we’ll have experienced our next dose of culture shock. I’ve loved every minute of India, but at the same time I’m so excited to go and see something completley different again and Singapore, if only for hygiene reasons, is probably as different as yo can get.
Hoe everyone at home is cool and that you all had a wicked new year, speak soon!
Marta xxxxxx