Week 33, Goa, India

Dear Ethel, Family and Friends,
We had a reasonably quiet week this week, Ernakulam being a small busy town and not much to offer the tourist apart from transport in and out of the area. However they did have a pizza hut which is a change to the usual offerings of curry and rice.

Tuesday we caught an overnight train to Goa. The train left at 1pm and arrived at 3.30am. The second class sleeper is comfortable enough with bunk sleeping arrangements and sheets and pillow provided. Food and beverages were available continually as the hawkers travel up and down the train and as soon as we stopped somewhere, one lot got off as another lot got on. The only small problem on the train is they don’t announce the stops. So we woke at 3am and to disembark at 3.30am precisely.

There is plenty of activity at the station at that time of night including taxis fortunately. However not the case when we arrived at our accommodation at 4am. The caretakers didn’t know about any room for us, so we found some hammocks in the garden and went to sleep there. When we woke later in the morning we found a glorious beach with lots of cows and people doing yoga. The place we are staying has a nice shaded garden and a restaurant overlooking the beach run by an English chef...heaven. And seriously it is a very nice beach, I know that we go on about our beaches in Australia being so good, but this is a real contender. As a result we have decided to stay 6 days here.

We are at Patnem beach in the south of Goa at the moment and will be travelling north this week to have a look at old Goa, the Portuguese town and some beaches in the North.

All the best Ric & Louise