Surf's Up

Pangandaran, Java island, Indonesia (map)

In this blog: a pleasant and fairly uneventful end to a fantastic couple of months in Indonesia 

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All aboard! Heading to Pandangaran

Despite being a country of many islands and therefore lots of beaches, somehow we'd only been on the sand once in Indonesia. So with just two remaining days to be used wisely, a trip to the coast seemed like a perfect ending to our time in this wonderful country. 

We left our previous destination of Yogyakarta nice and early on the train, and the four hour journey passed quickly and uneventfully. We arrived at the small town of Sidareja ready to catch a connecting bus which was said to be straightforward, but ran straight into problems. The first bus driver said he was going to our destination of Pandangaran, but in fact just dropped us at the depot a mile later. We were then told the next bus would come an hour later at 1pm which was annoying, so passed the time by eating at the only crappy little cafe around where the main dish on offer was curried intestines. Errrr just chicken and veg for me thanks! We went back to the station to be told the 1pm bus had already left at 12.30 and a local told us to wait until 2pm. This was getting annoying, especially as Sideraja was the biggest, smelliest, and most unpleasant hell hole I might ever have been. Another shopkeeper soon came along and told us there were no more buses and we despaired. A few minutes later again someone else told us it would arrive at 3.00 which wasn't a lot better either. It was total chaos and confusion, all hearsay and guesswork by the locals and Rene and I were pretty peeved. Eventually at 2.30pm against all advice a rotten and battered old tin can showed up and we were finally on our way. Better than nothing.

We arrived at Pandangaran, and immediately got the impression this was a nice coastal town. Brushing off the persistent local cycle rickshaw mafia at the bus station, we walked past Tsunami evacuation signs, a sad reminder of the 2006 disaster there that killed over 300 people. We found a nice hotel, and with the tiny bit left of the day went for a wander on the beach. After a spot of illness over the previous week I was nearly back in working order again, and the huge crashing waves seemed to knock the last out the bugs out when I swam in the sea. Just what the doctor ordered I reckon.

Having learnt a bit of Indonesian over my time in the country, about fifty words in fact, I ordered dinner that night in the native tongue, translating the English menu into Indonesian. The waiter was impressed and soon I was munching into a beautiful plateful of fresh prawns. However when I got the bill something serious was up; my food cost three times as much as it should. I politely complained and some confusion followed, only to discover that I'd mixed up the words for shrimp and prawns and ordered a much more expensive dish. I noted to myself not to get too cocky with languages!

We had two full days left, but for once I have little to say about them. On the first, after some chores Rene and I went to explore the town, situated on a small peninsula jutting from the coast. The black sand beach was a bit rubbish strewn but nice enough and we stopped outside a small national park. The Indonesian government in it's wisdom has recently set up a two tier system for national parks so instead of everyone paying the equivalent of £1 entry, the locals still pay that whilst foreigners now pay £11, which is both ridiculous and a little insulting. It barely seemed worth a quid from what we knew, so we protested with our feet and left. Yeah! That showed them! 

Except it probably didn't. 

With monkeys on the road outside and three fairly tame kijang deer eating out of bins nearby we had half the experience anyway, and soon found more entertainment on another nearby beach, watching locals fishing by throwing out fishing nets and bringing in nothing but a catch full of rubbish. It was pretty funny. Nearby were huge groups of locals stood on the road by the sea, pulling in huge trawler nets like a tug of war team, which each yielded about two bucketful's of fish and yet more trash, and a frenzy then followed as they fought to divide the catch between themselves. A bit further along the coast we found the local fish market which because of Ramadan (Muslim festival involving fasting) was pretty quiet. We still managed to find an open cafe behind a fish shop which cooked up a lovely fresh batch of tiger prawns in sauce - the king sized black and green version of your normal prawn and very delicious. We walked back past some young kids playing with home-made bangers which they filled with some sort of fuel and ignited, letting out a shotgun-like bang which almost pierced our ears. The kids absolutely loved it, though are probably completely deaf by now.

That night we found a cafe-bar popular with foreigners and realised how few such places we'd managed to frequent in Indonesia thanks to our route; a nice change. It was our last night in the country and indeed our last night travelling together since Rene was heading for India whilst I was moving towards home. So whilst watching the Germany v Brazil World Cup highlights (the first of the World Cup I'd got round to watching), we mulled over our time travelling in all the out-the-way places in Indonesia, and indeed the past three months we'd travelled together since meeting in Malaysia, picking out the highlights, the tough times and the bizarre situations we'd encountered.

Travelling with Rene had been fantastic and to be truthful I don't think I could have found anyone much better to travel with. He impressed me with general knowledge which belies his 24 years, by always being very laid back, good at problem solving and and by willing to do pretty much whatever I suggested. He amused me with his constant catnapping in every place possible, by walking a mile ahead all the time in his own little world, by staying up 'til all hours on his computer and often falling asleep in front of it, by often sleeping with his rucksack and possessions laid out on his bed, and some of his nerdy habits like hacking into a computer router to reset it instead of just turning it off and on again. And finally he confused me by somehow travelling without what I consider the essentials of suncream, a guide book, anti-malarial pills, mosquito spray, a mobile phone, hat, or an alarm clock (what did he have?!) - yet somehow got away with it. In over three months we didn't have a single argument, and whilst I occasionally stressed or got annoyed about the odd situation, he never got wound up once. So here's a toast to Rene!

On the final day woke up with a half day left before our train to the airport, and since Indonesia is known for it's surfing and the waves in Pandangaran were pretty big, a bodyboarding session seemed like the perfect final activity. Paying the 50p fee to borrow a board for an hour, I headed out into the waves and caught a few, and I mean just a few waves. They were a bit crashy at times and it was hard to get back out to the break but a lot of fun anyway. Pandangaran had been surprisingly quiet for the time of year and our time there brief, but it left a good taste of Indonesia in my mouth.

It was time to leave both the town and the country. A cycle rickshaw journey followed by a couple of hours on a bus led us to Banjar train station, and in the waiting room I briefly chatted with a young solo German guy who'd just left hospital nearby after a bed-ridden week alone recovering from dengue fever, a particularly nasty mosquito-borne illness - the whole experience sounded awful. Our night train journey that followed was also pretty awful, relatively speaking anyway, since only economy seats were available and we spent the night sat bolt upright, face-to-face and knee-to-knee with other passengers. It was far from comfortable and I barely slept. 

We arrived in the capital city of Jakarta at 3am and departed the train when to my surprise an Indonesian guy in his forties showed up and greeted Rene. It turned out to be someone he'd met when he popped to Jakarta a couple of weeks ago to get a visa - an extremely helpful and pleasant, if slightly strange chap who he claimed he couldn't sleep so decided to come and say hello to us. At 3am! Very bizarre. Since the station was quiet and I had a couple of hours to burn 'til the airport buses started running, I slept on some benches for an hour. Mr Helpful however decided we'd be better off going across town to another station where I could catch an earlier airport bus. I protested since I was quite happy sleeping like a tramp on my bench, getting what little sleep I could, and was a bit of an angry bear when stirred but he was insistent so I reluctantly I went with them on a commuter train across town. This guy was supposed to know everything about Jakarta, yet we ended up going half an hour further away from the airport, where I said bye to Rene at a station and caught the bus straight back past where we'd come from originally, totally pointless. I was not amused, even if I knew the guy probably meant well. It was however not enough to ruin my fantastic impression of Indonesia. Little could. 

Pandangaran beach

Pulling in drag nets by hand on the coast

They happen

Tasty tiger prawns at a cafe at the fish market

Kids playing with home-made bangers

Bye Rene!

India: the Final Chapter

Varkala, India (map)

In this blog: a relaxing end to my time in India

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Varkala beach

The tasty last bite. You know, that little habit of making sure the last forkful of your meal is a nice one to remember? A friend recently introduced me to the idea of doing this to countries as well, so that the last few days give you a favourable memory of your time there. So at Varkala - my final stop in India, I got my fork out and did exactly that.

The best accomodation in ages

The starting point of this mouthful of pleasure, was to go to a nice place - Varkala, a coastal resort about a hundred miles from the most southerly point of the country. I arrived to find a string of well kept hotels and restaurants, lining a crumbling red clifftop above a nice stretch of sand. It has a touch of class above most of what you'll find in Goa and other Indian resorts, being slightly less commercialised and noisy, and lacking the package holiday makers and hippies. Next in my metaphorical mouth came the hotel - a smart place on the cliffs above the beach with a grass lawn outside, marble floors, a comfy bed, balcony, bath, hot water and a sea view - most of which sounds like fairly normal things but have been mostly absent throughout my travels in India. Finally, I spent a bit more on food and drink than normal, dropped anything that might be considered cultural, and just relaxed for a few days. A perfect final bite.

And because of all this, I've not really got a lot to say about my time there for once. I managed to fill most of my time on the balcony, beach or hotel restaurant. I did a bit of reading, swimming in the sea, interneting, or music listening, and caught up on some phone calls. I sorted a few chores, including washing even my rucksack and shoes, which hadn't had much love for a while. I did some planning ahead and looking back, and spent a day catching up on the blogs, including spending a bit of time reflecting on the four-and-a-half months I'd had in the country - as you might expect there was a lot to write, so more to follow soon.

All the local hotels and restaurants' in Varkala seemed to be run and jointly owned by Nepalese families for some reason, so for once the Indians were generally sidelined - an interesting sight. Being the end of season - Christmas and new year peak time - things were pretty quiet generally, and the mostly-female shopkeepers desperate for business. As persistent and irritating as this could be, it actually worked to my favour as you could strike some pretty good deals on local crafts. And after not buying a lot throughout India, I reluctantly did exactly that one afternoon, knowing I might appreciate it one day.

Varkala beach

I can't say I really met many other travellers for once though - a mixture of it being quiet and me being a bit lazy. But I did have a chat with an African-American couple, who are living and teaching in an international school in India for a couple of years and told some interesting stories, then another day to an English/American couple who had just turned up. I had to laugh when they told me about the train journey they'd just taken - their plane arrived at Mumbai, and they took a night train south to Varkala which was due to arrive at 11am. On the train and nearing what they thought was the end of the journey, they checked with staff that their stop was coming up, to be told it was actually 11am the following day, and therefore they actually had another 24 hours more on the train! Imagine that feeling.

Keeping it cool

Over the three days I did manage to go for a couple of short but pleasant walks along the coast, where I met a few interesting locals. On one walk, I passed a young Indian lying in the shade by his motorbike, who lazily demanded some water from my bottle, unsurprisingly I shouted back 'get your own'. On another, I relaxed watching fisherman prepare their small boat at a quiet beach nearby, and one of them purposefully came and said 'hello, smoking?' to try and scab a cigarette. The last day, another fisherman asked me to help drag his boat in, before telling me he'd caught very little, had a wife and kids to feed, and therefore could I give him money please. He didn't make much of my not-too-out-there suggestion to go fishing again instead. Even at a resort as westernised as Varkala, you can't escape India entirely.

A Dramatic Final Scene

The three days flew by in a blur of both busyness and relaxation, and was the perfect closing chapter to the Indian tale that I'd hoped for. But before I knew it, that was it - the end of both my time in Varkala and indeed, India as a whole. And a dramatic ending it was. With darkness descended, twenty minutes to go before I had to leave I sat in the hotel's outdoor restaurant for a drink. A few raindrops started to fall. A few minutes it started coming down faster, and next thing, there was thunder, lightening and very heavy rain,mall with little warning. I hailed a rickshaw and headed for the train station. Huge puddles had already formed, and rain sprayed in from both sides, getting us wet. The palm trees along the road were constantly silhouetted by flashes of lightning, adding to the effect even more.

At the train station, the power had gone out and I sat on the gloomy platform waiting for the as-usual delayed train to arrive. It departed almost as soon as it arrived, which meant without realising it, I was able to finally achieve one of my Indian dreams - just like in the movies I had to run alongside and jump onto the train as it moved away from the platform. Perfect timing. I looked out the window and smiled, pondering whether the thunderstorm was the Hindu gods saying 'thanks for coming, we held the rain back as long as we could', or more like 'we've had enough of you now, get out'. Whichever, it was as dramatic an end as you'd expect from weird and wonderful India.

Nearly Paradise

Palolem, Goa, India

In this blog: a 450 year old corpse, gigs and parties on the beach, a cooking course and a spot of cycling.

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After a nice, but slightly dull few days in Vagator in North Goa, I headed to the South Goa coastal village of Palolem - known as a bit of a hub for independent travellers. Like the previous week or so in North Goa, most days in Palolem seemed to revolve around walking, swimming, lazing on the beach, hanging out in beachside cafés, reading, podcasts and meeting people - good to do, but pretty boring to read about so I've tried to cut it down to a few highlights below.

Palolem beach - nearly paradise

Palolem is a place of outstanding natural beauty, though slightly ruined by development over the past twenty years or so. Compared to other parts of Goa it's better looked after however, with the council banning hawkers from flogging stuff, keeping the con men away, and picking rubbish daily so it's not all bad. It also seems to be quite literally Little Britain - I've not come across so many Brits since I left home. Some on holiday, some spending the winter there. Most of them nice, but I came across a few less desirables such as an ex-con couple and some lager louts. On the whole I loved the place though - not over busy by day, but busy enough by night.

I arrived knowing no-one, but managed to meet quite a few people over the week, to the point that after a short wander along the beach of an evening I always came across someone I knew to hang out with - a nice experience after several quieter weeks on the social front.  A mix of English, Scots, Germans and French mostly, with the odd Dane, Swede, Indian and Ukrainian thrown in for good measure. 

15th Feb

Started the day in Vagator with an Indian breakfast I'd had every day for the past week - Poori Bhaji. This consists of a doubled up roti bread which is deep fried so it comes out as big puffy discs, and is served with a non-spicy veg curry. Using your fingers, and trying not to burn them at first, you tear strips from the bread, double it up and pinch the veg between - in the manner you do with many Indian dishes. A great breakfast which really keeps you full for hours.

Leaving Vagator, I set off heading south to Palolem. Despite it being less than seventy miles away, this involved taking six different buses but unbelievably for India, I didn't have to wait more than a minute for the next one to depart each time, what are the chances of that I thought? 

Cathedral at Old Goa

Coffin of St Francis Xavier

I did a little detour along the way to a town called Old Goa - the former capital of the region of Goa when it was a Portuguese colony, but mostly abandoned in the seventeenth century due to cholera outbreaks. As I was en-route to Palolem, this meant spending two hours walking round with my heavy main backpack as there was nowhere to leave it - not the most pleasant of things in a breezeless 32° sunny day I tell you! The buildings were all typically Portuguese in style and interesting to see, but the most interesting part was the Basilica of Bom Jesus - a church where the body of St Francis Xavier is kept in a glass sided coffin resting on a plinth. Despite dying hundreds of years ago, his body 'miraculously' stayed well preserved (though fairly shrivelled now), and bizarrely they open it up and carry it through the streets every ten years for everyone to see. He is however missing a toe which someone curiously bit off, and an arm which was given to the Pope as a gift!

Digs

Arriving late afternoon in Palolem, I walked a mile or two from an inland village to the coast with a recently married British couple from the bus, who are travelling India for a few months as their honeymoon, nice idea. My digs this time were as simple as it comes - a small bamboo and palm leaf hut raised on stilts, set amongst other huts about twenty metres from the beach, with only an outside toilet and cold shower - basic but fantastic.

I headed out along the beach that evening, which in between the swaying palm trees is lined with many restaurants. The evening started a bit dull, having tea in a place full of ignorant London geezaas watching Premiership football. Moving on I found a venue with a live band playing, and got talking with a guy at the bar who I thought was English due to his near-perfect English accent, but turned out to be a German guy called Hans (what else?!) who'd lived in England for eight years. A 48 year old train driver, like many people here he comes to Palolem on holiday every year so knows it inside out, and thereafter I ended up bumping into him most evenings at the various gigs and parties that happened around town.

16th Feb

Elsewhere in India you often wake up in the morning (or night) to the sound of traffic, beeping and shouting. In coastal Palolem though, it's sometimes cockerels calling, wild boar snorting, and crows crowing, or on my first morning there - the sound of waves crashing in on the beach nearby - not the worst wake up call. 

Near to my hut was a slackline tied between two trees about a foot from the ground - a bit like a tightrope, except a fabric strap. Along with a French guy, we had a go at learning to walk it later that day. At first it was a pretty disastrous effort, but we slowly got better, eventually both being able to do nine or ten steps until it got too bouncy in the middle and we could go no further. I really enjoyed learning a new skill and spent a little bit of time on it every day though never got that good - the circus hasn't called yet anyway.

In the evening, a live reggae band were performing at the end of the beach at a busy venue in a little cove surrounded by palm trees - a perfect location. The music was fairly average, but I hung out with the English couple from the day before and it turned out a pretty fun night nonetheless.

17th Feb

Cooking course

After another day on and around the beach, I booked to do something different - an Indian cooking course. I've eaten so much Indian food now, it would be sacrilege to keep using those crappy jars of sauce from the supermarket when I eventually get home. I also thought it would be a good way to meet people, maybe even some girls for a change. No such luck - the group comprised an Irish couple, and three gay English/French guys! 

The dishes on the cards were butter chicken, fish byriani, mushroom masala, chicken vindaloo and chapatti bread. Rahul the instructor was very good - down to earth, patient and knowledgable, and at different times either split the group in two, or gave us individual tasks to do - chopping, stirring, adding spices etc. Indian cooking turned out to be quite complex, for me anyway, involving a huge range of spices and many steps - often the meat and certain veg and spices are cooked separately then combined at the end. I see Indian cooking as 'modular cooking' - many of the different dishes are from the same ingredients, but just made using different quantities and methods. It was good fun and pretty interesting, even for someone who generally hates cooking, but there were two especially good bits at the end - 1) we didn't have to wash up, and 2) we got to eat it all! And very good it was. 

Our group got on well, and went for a drink afterwards, also meeting-up with some French friends of theirs who I got talking to. After just a few minutes, one of the girls - Aurelie - said to me 'so what do you think about French people?'. Oh hang, sensitive subject. I hesitated, trying to think of a diplomatic answer, and she laughed knowing this. All the French people I've met whilst travelling are first of all very nice, but also quite aware of the tendencies of some of their fellow countrymen, and I carefully explained my view before she fortunately smiled and agreed. 

Continues in a couple of days...

Local going net fishing on the river near Palolem beach

Typical house in Goa - bright, bizzare, gaudy

Lunch one day - it's not all curries -
masala omelette and salad papad

River near Palolem beach

Goa To The Beach

Arumbol, Goa, India

In this blog... I go to the beach, have my palm read and see a load of live music

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Goa is synonymous with India, but in reality isn't the real India at all. One of the country's 28 states, the former Portuguese colony was only taken back as part into India about fifty years ago, giving it a much more laid back and European feel than the rest of India. For me personally it's always eluded thoughts of swaying palm trees, hippies, and trance music, and indeed I've found that to be the reality. But with Arumbol at least, it's heyday as a travellers paradise appears have since past, with hoards of tourists, commercialisation, unplanned development, and police rules taking away the relaxed magic it would have had in the sixties. That said, it's still a very appealing destination and in many places beautiful. It's just not paradise.

Naturally it's fair to say the past week or so hasn't been action packed or cultural like the previous few, and the pace of life has slowed down to that of a turtle. It's a nice change in many ways, but doesn't necessarily make great reading, so I'll spare you the full diary and pick out a few bits. 

Arumbol beach

Waking up on the night bus from Pune, I was shattered, having reminded myself that the irony in the phrase 'sleeper bus' is that it's very hard to actually get any kip due to the constant moving around whilst you lay down. Arriving in the inland town of Mapusa, I shared a taxi to the coast with a German girl who'd also been on the bus, and once at the large coastal village of Arumbol had breakfast with her at a little vegan cafe, her choice I add, before heading different ways. Arumbol is a pretty, laid-back village in the north of Goa, dominated by a strange mix of hippies and Russians, and sometimes Russian hippies. Indians are most definitely the minority for once. The long white-sand beach is beautiful, and backed by a small jungle of palm trees, indispersed with lovely little makeshift bamboo huts you can stay in, but after asking in about ten different places I disappointingly found nothing available, so went to a boring ol' guesthouse in the village behind instead.

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I started my time in Goa as I meant to go on - with a doze, some lunch at a nearby cafe, a walk along the beach and a late-afternoon beer at another place on a quiet rocky piece of coast. These small bamboo and palm leaf cafés seem to dominate the whole stretch of coastline, and are great hang-out spots with their nice seats and sunloungers. Most days thereafter consisted of various combos of hanging out with people, reading, writing, walking, swimming and listening to my new-found passion - podcasts. I finished off the book I'd been reading - What Young India Wants - an interesting read which seemed to boil down India's problems to government corruption, lazy politicians, an undemanding population that only votes for people for their own caste, Simon-says schooling and a lack of creativity generally. 

The highlight of the first day was a trip to the doc, I say highlight as this was thankfully my last rabies vaccination, after a month of weekly jabs following the dog bite on New Year's Day. Come get me dogs, cause I'm immune! The process of getting the jabs has varied whichever town I'd been in at the time - one was at a pharmacy where a guy, hopefully a nurse, turned up on his motorbike and did it. Another was done at a backstreet pharmacy by the owner himself, another whilst sat in the back of a open fronted pharmacy, and one in a fairly posh clinic by a nurse, and the cost every time -just £1 (100 rupees).

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Abiah and Lambo

The first couple of days in Arumbol I found it difficult to meet people to hang out with, thanks to the majority either being couples, stoners, or large clique groups. But as the week went on at various points I briefly met and hung out with a couple of Finnish guys, some Israeli girls, a German electrician who helped to build the Fendt tractor factory, and a Spanish guy who by chance I'd met in Pune a few days before. Yes, a very male dominated place again. On the third evening at the nightly sunset drum circle on the beach, where foreigners bring along a drum and jam away whilst others dance wildly in front, I spotted a familiar face. One that's hard to miss since he's a 6'6" dreadlocked Dutch guy, known by his pals in India as Lambo - the Hindi word for tall. I tried to think where I'd seen him before, then remembered back to East/West cafe in Rishikesh, northern India, where I'd hung out a number of times back in December. Along with an Israeli girl we met the next day, most evenings over the week the three of us hung out together, which was great since we shared a similar sense of humour, and as with many people from both those nations, they spoke perfect English. 

Typical scene outside the crazy Love Temple resort

One morning I awoke to the sound of laughter outside. It was a very strange laughter though, continuous and very forced sounding. Was this some sort of early-morning stand-up comedy extravaganza consisting of just one-liners I wondered? Even better - it turned out to be people doing laughter yoga, at a strange beachside resort nearby, interestingly named the Love Temple. This placed seemed to be the epicentre of hippiedom in Arumbol, with the beach outside filled with dreadlocked and tattoo covered people meditating, learning various circus skills, smoking pot and generally fulfilling the stereotype you come to expect. It sounds like I'm hippie bashing here, but I did meet one or two by end of the week who were quite fun and engaging. Still not my scene though.

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Nightly drum circle at sunset

Soon after hearing said laughter yoga, the noise from my room changed to Goa's signature sound - trance music, coming from the roof of our hotel where it turned out a Russian guy was interestingly living in a bamboo-framed cotton tent, and practicing his DJing outside. But trance wasn't the only music to be found in Arumbol, 'cause there's also a good live music scene. One evening I watched a couple of American acoustic guitarists who surprised me with their creativeness, another evening a live reggae performance consisting of various travellers who seemed to have formed a band for a few days.

The best though was a live jam session in a tiny makeshift cafe, run by a hilarious Tibetan guy known as Cookie who's catchphrase was greeting everyone with a funny Mary Poppins-esq 'hello'. This live jam session had a mix of people playing acoustic guitars, an accordion, a bongo and a bass guitar all coming together in fantastic quirky manner. It was so infectious that they went on long past the 10pm noise curfew enforced in the town, and Cookie got taken off by the cops! 'Its not the first time, nor the last' he said the next day smiling. A couple of the beach cafés sometimes paid a bribe, sorry bought a licence, from the local police to stay open til 3am. So two or three nights we ended up out 'til closing time at these great beachside trance parties, with some excellent foreign DJ's, and everyone either inside or on the beach dancing around barefoot. It was fantastic, and I loved the laid back feel to it all.

You may recall a few weeks back I wrote about getting my palm read. I couldn't help but think at the time it was a load of tosh, just someone picking out the obvious or generalising to get my cash. To be fair I had it done in a gem shop, where they guy obviously just wanted to flog birthstones 'to balance your jupiter' as he said... Hmmm. Lambo was telling us how he'd learnt to read palms over the past couple of years, and knowing he was a genuine guy and all he'd want in return was a beer, I asked him to read mine. This time I felt a little more convinced that there might be at least something to it, partly 'cause I trusted him but also because the outcome was more accurate. His reading described my personality and past with a depth beyond an acquaintance of two days, and told me some interesting future predictions, and whilst there was a couple of things that didn't quite tie up, he did admit as much. The trouble for me with someone predicting your path ahead is that it's based on the notion of the future being pre-destined, written already, but as with most people I tend to believe that the future is based on a mixture of preparation and chance so can't be predicted. That said, whilst not completely convinced I now believe there might be a bit of something to it, and recommend palm reading to anyone for a bit of fun or curiosity as long as it's done by someone you trust.

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Trees along the shoreline

The beaches around Arumbol are beautiful, and surprisingly clean for a nation that leaves their rubbish wherever they like, and great to stroll along. Indians for once were the minority, but the few Indian tourists never ceased to make me smile, jumping around and playing in the water like ten year olds, I guess it's the first time in the sea for many of them. In this conservative and sexist country as ever the groups were mostly men, who go in the water either fully dressed or in their underwear, and when you did see a woman on the beach or sea they were generally covered up in saris or loose t-shirts. One day I wandered off behind the beach up a narrow sheltered valley, to a fantastic big banyan tree that people talked about - with a spiders-web of branches drooping to the ground. It seems the tree is quite an attraction for the hippies and there was a circle of them sat at the base if it smoking pot with an Indian sadhu - an old holy man sat in a white robe giving them pearls of wisdom. It was a strange sight, but not as much as when I wandered down one of the small paths that led away from it, to find a few groups of hippies living in small camps in the woods. Sometimes in tents, sometimes just sleeping in the open air.

Catholic church, Indian Goa style

Goan food is a little different to the rest of India, with more emphasis on meat and fish, and some different Indian dishes that I'd not seen elsewhere in the country, such as xacuti (chicoti) and vindaloo - the latter not having the notorious spicyness as at home. Or maybe my spice tolerance has just gone through the roof. I also found and ate beef for the first time in India, not generally eaten as cows are sacred in Hinduism, but with Goa having a high Christian population and lots of foreign tourists, things are a little more relaxed. The beef wasn't terrible, but the finest steak of Philip Warren butchers' it certainly was not. Alcohol is another difference in Goa - much cheaper (lower taxes) and available everywhere, rather than just a few tightly controlled shops elsewhere - Portuguese influence again.

Arumbol grew on me over the eight days I was there; it was quite moorish and I'd ended up quite liking it. But Goa is a big area with lots to see, so I headed next a few miles south in search of quieter beaches and better nightlife.

Of course there's cows on the beach, this is India!

Fresh water lake behind the beach