Thursday 14th Jan

We took a long taxi ride right through the heart of Goa to Palolem in the south, passing through scenery straight out of Jurassic Park with hills and rivers and palm trees the whole way. Unexpectedly, although our driver did try to overtake on several blind corners, once he realised another vehicle was heading straight at us he usually swerved back in rather than step on the accelerator and continue with the overtake. In true Goan style, he honked his horn at everything we passed. There are signs on all the trucks here saying “If ok, sound horn”, which rather leads one to speculate as to what the signal would be if things were not ok. Do the drivers fear the worst if all’s quiet behind them?

Palolem is far more of a tourist trap than we’d realised, with stalls selling cheap tat lining the streets. The big draw is the beach, a strip several kilometres long of pale yellow sand. Bars and restaurants line the edge but the beach itself is hardly the seething mass of humanity you would see on the Mediterranean in the summer.

We had a little difficulty finding accommodation as the first two places we dragged our suitcases to were full, so we ended up settling for a resort of huts right at one end of the beach. Not ideal for the tourists travelling with two laptops, a mac mini, a fat stack of cash and some uber camera gear. We’ve booked in here for one night, then made a reservation for the next 2 nights at a classier place further down the beach (with lockers).

First order of the afternoon was to catch some rays, which was made slightly less relaxing by the highly persistent hawkers, but nonetheless astronomically better than being in London at this time of year. Alvin was not best pleased that all the hawkers thought he was Japanese. I was not best pleased when one proclaimed how very white I was. The sea was warm, but the waves were somewhat too forceful for my rather fragile bikini. We availed ourselves of cocktails in a beach bar and had a walk. Alvin was thrilled and amazed to discover hermit crabs.

We went back to the hotel and missed what would no doubt have been a spectacular sunset, had I not been in the shower. We went off searching in the dark for a restaurant recommended by the LP, which we couldn’t find, so chose a very pretty one in a quiet bay. The cocktails were none too good as the barman enthusiastically squeezed several limes into each one, whether called for or no. Some passing camera enthusiasts talked with Alvin in code for a while.

Back at the hut I found a sizeable cockroach in our bathroom. I’ve packed everything into my suitcase and closed it up in case the cockroach mates with the big spider in the bedroom and one of them lays eggs in there.