further south

The major day of the Dewali festival was pretty cool, very colourful and extremely noisy with fire works and crackers going off for about 20hrs a day/night. I (Phil), was actually hit by a fire work just above my left nipple, I have no idea where this thing came from, but the bruise on my chest certainly showed where it ended up! Or at least I thought it was a fire work, I don't think we upset anyone that night.

The next day was a cruisey 5hr bus to Pune, more great views of life on the roads, not for the faint hearted at times but you see much more of the goings on than you do on a train, although the train is a lot smoother. Some pearls of wisdom via road signs, classics like HOLD YOUR NERVE WHEN TAKING A CURVE, and CAUTION AND CARE MAKE ACCIDENTS RARE!

As for road mayhem we have seen the aftermath of a few vehicle casualties and we witnessed a entire wheel just fell off a taxi when taking a corner! The wheel hit another taxi and bounced back towards us on the 'pavement'. That guy obviously should have been holding his nerve!

Pune seemed like a nice place, but we only had allowed 1 night here, as we had to book the overnight sleeper train a few days in advanced, as the trains were booked days in advance due to people travelling home to spend Dewali with their families.

Splashed out here for a beautiful meal in a top hotel's restaurant, complete with a trio of Indian musicians. Still a cheap meal for Western standards, but very expensive for India!
We left Pune on our first sleeper train! Ohhh....very exciting! It was only a 10hr journey, but not a bad trip overall, not quite Orient Express luxury, but at least there were no murders, oh unless you count a few cockroaches.

So that train got us into Goa, so a few more tourists about here, but a nice change. Spent a couple of days in the Goan capital Panaji, checking out some Portuguese colonial buildings and being asked if we wanted a taxi every few minutes.

Then it was up to one of the northern beaches, Vagator, which was nice and quite, the first bit of tranquility we've had for weeks, from here checked out the vast sprawling Ajuna markets which was quite an experience! We also read here in the local paper of a man who married a dog to try and make up for his wrong doings when he was young. Apparently he was very cruel to 2 dogs and subsequently lost the use of an arm and then a leg and then became deaf. Hardly what you'd call a good catch. Mmm, India is a very mysterious place! Personnally, I think the dog could have done a lot better, the guy was clearly punching above his weight.

And now we're relaxing (in an internet cafe) in southern Goa, on Palolem beach, which is really beautiful. We had a train booked to leave today, but we decided to forfeit it to stay here another couple of days, it really is that good.

So, if you don't mind I think I'll head back to the beach......