Where to Goa

I guess I should try to quickly change my mantra from "Sometimes a girl needs to treat herself" to "A girl treats herself to a trip to Asia, maybe she should now be more careful with money." I am currently staying in a town called Candolim here in Goa. The place I am staying is right on the beach and there were only two rooms available when I arrived. One was a windowless room tucked far away in the back of the property and the other one (for a mere $3 more) was a bungalow type room on the third floor with a view of the Arabian Sea. Guess which one I chose... My new home has 3 walls and the 4th consists of a balcony and straw walls that can be raised up and down. It is a wonderful place where I can stare out at the beach and all the cows that roam freely down it.

I am also starting to make some friends. There is quite an interesting mix here at Candolim; Goa is infamous for its ability to attract UK tourists, hardcore yoga-ers, and backpackers. I am amazed at the abundance of old UK couples who wander around with matching tatoos. I have never been there, but maybe this is like the Indian version of Daytona Beach?

The interesting thing is that I was not even planning on coming to this town. I was going to stay in the capital for a few days and make some day trips to the beach and to the inland spice plantations. However, with another experience of "sometimes you don't get what you want in India," when I attempted to buy a train ticket to leave here, the woman at the station told me that there were no trains available until Monday and that I couldn't purchase a ticket until Saturday. It was a bit frustrating, but I decided to turn the negative into a positive and hopped on the first bus I saw heading to the beaches. There are worse things in life, I suppose. It was actually quite fun to take the local bus and I am looking forward to more trips on it. I think taking different modes of transportation might end up being my favorite part about this country.

I won't spend too much time talking about my overnight train to get down here, but I will say that it could possibly be the best new improv game. I purchased tickets for a 3 bed sleeper car with air conditioning, expecting it to be a small room with 3 bunks but in fact 3 means 8 people will be crammed in. I lucked out in a sense though because the people in it were hilarious. I had a middle-aged Croation couple, an 82 year old man from Canada, and an Indian-American family from Colorado. We all bonded as the husband from Croatia preached to us about universal love and the 82 year old man kept passing gas (loudly). If I ever manage to leave Goa, then I will have a 24 hour train ride ahead of me and hope that the people I share it with will be just as entertaining.

That's all for now...