So long Goa

Paradise??? Lost

Well, today I'm sitting in an air conditioned internet cafe in Mangalore. To cut a long story short the Goa experience was not quite what I had in mind. Now don't get me wrong I'm sure that if you had local knowledge and patience you could find some nice chilled out places but what we found was a bit too close to Costa Del Sol for our liking. Now if I were a surf dude or beech bum it would have been great but somehow something didn't push the right buttons. That said it was a nice place to hang out and relax for a while. Perhaps being in my early twenties and thin would have helped as well ...





So yesterday we jumped on a "local train" from Canacona (Goa) and headed 400 km due south to where we are now. The train journey was quite an experience given that it was a local service and had none of this 2nd class, 2-tier A/C, 1st class reservation stuff that gets you a reserved seat. So we went cattle class and spent 6 hours getting numb backsides on a wooden bench. Fortunately I didn't need to use the toilet which would have been an adventure too far ...

Interestingly although Mangalore is a busy city we haven't experienced any of the hassle we received in Goa. Rather than view you as source of easy cash they just leave you to yourself to get on with it.

Neither of us appear to have suffered the dreaded Delhi-belly yet but given the interesting places we're eating in I'm sure it's only a matter of time. It might just be me but I'm kind of surprise that nothing i've eaten so far has been particularly spicy. Perhaps the waiters just ask the chef to tone down the flavour for pale Europeans but there's definitely an element of vitamin Chilly missing from the diet.