Goa, Goa, Gone

Lads & lasses,

Only a couple of days left here now, Goa has been an excellent place to relax and recharge batteries before the Messy Travelers bandwagon rolls on, Goa itself is a charming place with charming people, big time tourism hasn't fully hit here yet but we've seen enough fat sun burnt middle-aged Germans moaning about the food to ensure it's on the way.

Main Highlights: the 25 miles of white sandy beach and surf, just to show we haven't just been lazing on the beach all day we cycled 10 miles down the coast to where the beach meets the River Sal in South Goa to a tiny fishing village called Mobor, dolphin spotting trip, gate crashing a Goan Wedding party (English bird marrying a local lad - loads of messy northerners from Lister territory getting bolloxed over from England for the wedding), stumbled upon a Hindi action film being made starring 'Sanjay' (India's answer to Sly Stallone), I failed the audition for 'dodgy bearded bloke loitering with intent in background' whilst Beth's insistence that she's Natalie from Eastenders
didn't cut the mustard either.

Was Beth's birthday on Weds too, hired a scooter and headed for the mountains, bloke who lent us his brand new scooter instantly regretted it as we shot off a little quicker than expected with Beth driving and me navigating and praying!!, quite impressive for a first go we only crashed four times...Crossed the river on the ferry, through a dozen villages with the locals waving and cheering as we sped through (all seemed to be laughing for some reason...) then up into the mountains overlooking the coast with a small bay below us, picture postcard time sooo tranquil too (apart from Beth squatting to relieve herself by the roadside...), Smooth Groover had laid on flowers and balloons as a surprise when we got back to the room, meal and drinks in the evening topping a pretty good day at the office.

People here are such a friendly and trusting bunch ("don't worry Mr. Simon and Mrs. Beth pay later!!"), as inquisitive about us as we are about them, have managed to get myself roped into a game of volleyball between the waiters from our local restaurant tomorrow morning so I'll find out just how friendly then...

Also been invited to lunch at the home of the local newspaper seller (bit of a local personality - first time we met him he wrote a nice but slightly camp poem about me although I blame that on the dodgy Indian deodorant picked up from Bombay airport...), great bloke though, English is perfect, can reel off every postal district in England as it's his ambition to visit every one.

Of course being India the locals aren't without their bizarre customs, saw a bloke on his back balancing a donkey all dressed up stroking it's legs and chanting, some sort of prayer ritual (we hope) People here are a mixture of young travelers, middle-aged 60's hippies and middle class Indians on
holiday, the atmosphere is so relaxed and laid back.

Both had a couple of days on the bog where we'd got a bit carried away sampling the local cuisine, not all bad though as I lost a couple of chins and Beth has discovered a new wardrobe, but have now found our level with the local curries (curry every night Bec!!!!!)

Leave Goa on Tuesday on the 12 hour overnight train to Bombay (population 10 million, let's hope we've learnt from Delhi) before flight to Beijing via Singapore for 10 day China tour. Hectic couple of weeks as we're stopping over in Shanghai and Singapore for a few days so next exciting installment will probably be from Bali.

Love and sloppy kisses to you all,

Groover and Beth - The Messy Travelers