Barreton Hotel Panaji

... will find it. He said as the bus left, and he saw me through the window, I looked like I was going going to cry. I felt like I was going to cry, as I checked every bus that came in and went out in the sweltering heat, going to control and showing them the tickets I had, but they shrugged and said they cannot help. <br>Eventually, a white bus with a single bar across all the windows with a green and red arrow on the front rolled in with a blue interior and the conductor ...

... crowds (relatively) few and far between, the driving was sane and it essentially it felt like I was in a different country. It appeared that Goa is to India as Laos is to SE Asia. The Portuguese influence was clear to be seen, as I passed seascapes and beaches the roads were lined with churches, crosses, football goals instead of wickets etc etc. Even the people looked different, with a number of Indians quite clearly being the proud ...

... ze von, ten svinak, ji chtel vykopnout z jejiho baraku. Ale vona jak mu ukazala!!!! Von sel z baraku a ze ji este musi platit! Ja sem myslel ze to je jenom v americe?!?!? Par mladejch, svobodnejch traveleru myslim pohlavi muzskeho, uz kolem ni sedelo. Podobne jako mouchy sedaj na to co jim voni..... Dopil sem, vzal jedno to go a vodesel na pavlac se venovat mymu delikovi. Kdyz pivko doslo, skocil sem si pro novy. Vlastne Olina chtela na noc flasku pitny vody. Tak sem tam musel jit. Tam uz ...

Hello again! Now from sunny Goa. And I'll tell you for why. I decided yesterday that for all Mumbai offers it's a little like London. Very loud and busy and exciting but I fancied some sea and sun. So I jumped on the 6.55am to Goa. I say "jumped on" the process was a little difficult. They gave me a W2 ticket, which I was assured meant the name of the carriage I was in. So I walked the length of the train - which was by far the longest train I've ever seen ...

... people even sitting on the overhead luggage racks, there's no room for lying down. But sleeper class isn't so bad. There are padded bench seats and right at the top of the carriage is a bunk. The backrest of the seat has a hinge at the top, so whenever you're ready to go to sleep you pull this out and it forms a second bunk, the bottom of the seat becoming the third. Depending on your seat number ...

Seems there has been a little bit of a time warp. I'd hoped to jot something down here once a week, or so, but things, places, the heat, and a few thousand clicks have jolted the schedule slightly. Mamallapuram, 80km or so south of Chennai, is an old stone-age town, carved out of hard rock hillsides. One-thousand year-old temples litter the area, a kind of miniature bas relief version of Angkor Wat - both from approximately the same era, though local lore will have it that the old ...

... roofs underwhich to eascape the sun and play pool. the water is warm, although a little choppy for swimming, it's more of a jumping in the surf kind of beach. There are drum circles, volleyball nets, yoga sessions and new years parties (still) and on a budget of 5 pounds a day you can see why people come and stay for the long haul. So, with no pressing engagements here we are, and i suspect shall stay, until we get the urge to go...

We are still enjoying our time at Palolem Beach, it has been very restful before we move onto mumbai and then Bangkok. We met a local fisherman who offered to take us out up the backwaters in his boat, which we did, and it was fantastic, we passed monkeys i the trees, saw the majic stones, which are natural, and nobody knows how they ended up like they are or how they remain balanced, (will post photo) we saw ladies drying out fish on nets on the rocks, and we saw ...

So much time sitting on buses and trains has meant lots of time to battle each other over the backgammon board we picked up in Agra. You actually need two pairs of dice to play the game properly but I couldn't think of a better play on words in time for this entry. The journey from Mumbai to Goa was surprisingly easy despite being over 12 hours long (about the same time it takes to fly from London to Bangkok!). Somehow you just ...

... now there are probably hundreds of thousands, no exaggeration either. Getting a tad annoyed with the hotel staff. Hotel is fine but it seems that there is no management, so you will often find a group of 5 waiters sat in front of the TV watching wrestling while 3-4 tables are sat waiting to order food. The other thing is the live music. Know, I could cope with a bloke playing a sitar in the background while I tuck into a Veg Bhoona, or perhaps some traditional Indian ...