Sun N Sand Goa Panaji

... Cuba, or Lisbon, or any other city or country I have never visited... Hehe. <br>The SE cathedral contained the remains of St Francis Xavier, who was a great missionary in India. We spent about an hour debating the existence of God and the rightness of organised religion inside the cathedral of Bom Jesus, Jon thinking that Christianity is based on principles so old that they're outdated, and people should not believe in it anymore. They should modernise their beliefs. I ...

... so much about the Catholic religion when we had visited so many Hindu, Jain and Bhuddist temples.<br><br>Panaji is a mixture of old colonial Portuguese two storey buildings that wrap themselves around narrow winding streets. The food was amazing and different to what we had in Mahastra. We visited the church of the Immaculate conception and surprisingly enough we did not get immaculately concepted?<br>

Well, we ended up hanging around Gokarna and Om Beach for a few more days than expected before finally making our move on to Goa following a full 20 days in Gokarna. It was a 2 hour journey up the coast on a passenger train to Panaji (or Panjim), a very charming Portuguese colonial gem of a town with winding streets lined by colonial era buildings in shades of blues, reds and yellows with their ...

Az doposad sme meli furt problemy s internetem. Bud pomalej, nebo nebyl. A kdyz byl, byl svatek a internet nepremaval...... Predstavoval sem si tu Indii jako v loni, ale zapomel sem ze jedem na jihh, do ouplnyho praveku. Ted sme konecne v Goa. Trosicku civilisovanejsi cast Indie. Hodne influence vod portugalcu....ale tech pred dveste rokama. Tak ze vo neco lepsi nez ten pravek. Mysleli sme, ze este pojedem dolu na Paolem plaz, ale po posezeni s ...

... low rise buildings yet to wake up fully from their winter sleep before the tourist rush. We make toward Mary's Place, a Lonely Planet reccomendation perched upon a cliff overlooking the sea and at only R250 a night total it's a steal however, cheap accomodation carries basic ammenities and we discover our stone cowshed has no hot water, bed sheets nor loo roll. We decide to squat for the night anyway to save some money and perhaps we'll move on tomorrow. A bit of lunch nearby has ...

... were pretty annoyed and stuffy given the incredible amount of dust &amp; dirt inhaled (a real problem here in India). So, another splurge was in the air and we decided to stay at the nice Panjim Inn. Panjim (aka Panaji) is the most laid back and "western" town we have seen thus far and therefore really relaxing...and on top there is some great Portuguese foods to sample (A Ferradura Restaurant is recommended).

... in sight and if it hadn't been for the odd cow that strolled past we could really have been on any tropical beach in the world. We are in arambol by accident. We landed in mumbai after an empty flight with about a hundred movies to choose from and stunning views of snowcapped alps in the sunshine...got to our hotel at about 3am and although we slept a good part of the next day we decided to try to get a train out of there as ...

Goa - Palolem Beach So after launching off the train we got a Rickshaw (on apparently a 4km journey which took us about a stones throw around the corner the cheeky buggers) to a full guest house, and then to another, and then walked up and down the beach looking for somewhere to stay and it was all full. Apparently during the off season they take down all the beach huts, which is all very well but we are only 2 weeks off peak season and ...

Man, I'm running behind. Tonight we set off for Nepal... But back to the story at hand Goa, oh Goa, is perfectly situated about halfway up the West coast of India. This means it's the place people tend to get to about halfway through their trip. So why is this so good? Because Goa is a complete holiday from a holiday, it is the nameless, placeless tropical beach that can be found in Thailand, Fiji, Bali etc etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I give ...

... can be quite tiring having to fight of con artists, but its gettin easier(ish). The surrounding area was dominated by men, and after some hassle we get an auto rickshaw to the Red Fort, turns out it was a couple of hours wait to the English light show, so off we go for dinner and retire on our last night in Delhi! Day 7 Last day in Delhi and flight to Mumbai (yes a bit luxurious - but travelling does not equal backpacking - speaking of which, I've carried mine ...