Asia 2006: Random Bozo goes to Goa

Original diary entry: funky dung

It's hard to explain the pleasure in having a shower, cleaning my teeth and putting on clean clothes this morning. Suffice it to say that I feel much more human.

This morning's rapture was enhanced by eating home-made peanut-butter on toast for breakfast.

Simple pleasures for a simple person?

Fuller description written 2 days later

I felt stable enough to eat breakfast and bus to Chaudi (3 km) to buy and post some birthday cards. Indian envelopes and stamps aren't gummed - presumably because the humidity would ruin them. Instead, on the counter of the post-office was a pot of gloue and some twigs for brushing the glue wherever it was needed. Chaudi's other amazing sight was a woman fish-monger in the market smoking a bidi.

I walked back to palolem, passing an old baba who tried to speak with me. He went on and on in his language - I don't think he was after baksheesh but I wasn't in the mood for a cultural exchange just then, so shook my head and walked on. I also passed a cellphone shop and got details of some deals but it still seems cheaper to get a spare sent from the UK, assuming it arrives.

At the entrance to Palolem village, there's a restaurant called Brown Bread. They sell a vast range of teas and the ginger-mint seemed to be the best one for my condition. I slowly slurped this and then realised that if because it was nearly 4pm, I only had two hours of daylight left.

I then went back to my room, stripped to the minimum I dare wear in public (shirt, lycra shorts and sandals, put a few bits into a polythene bag of dubious integrity and walked along the beach towards the strait separating it from Monkey Island. The tide was in and the strait was wide - no chance of wading so I swam across, holding my poly-bag clear of the waves (thank goodness for all that life-guard training in my teens. [Yes, I **was** Worcester's answer to David Hasselhoff!]). At the island, there's a little beach and a well-worn trail to the top - but no other visitors I could see. I sat on a rocky outcrop for half an hour, listening to and catching occasional glimpses of the monkeys and trying to avoid being eaten by huge red ants. This was possibly the most peaceful I've felt in Goa - no traffic noise, no madly barking dogs keeping me awake and so stress apart from formic-acid-avoidance.

I swam back fairly quickly because I could see the sun was getting near the horizon, showered and ate tofu-burgers (I'm not proud!) at Brown Bread and tried to settle for the night. This wasn't easy - my guts were still dodgy and my left ear had become painfully blocked with a conglomerate of sand and wax. Rupa's ear-drops couldn't dissolve it, water couldn't float it out and cotton buds just wedged it in further. I didn't have tweezers and probably wouldn't have trusted myself with them if I did.

I also found the Indian version of MTV and saw the video to the new crazy frog song. My mind has rotted so I shouldn't plug a single by Malika called I hate you even though I thought it was fab.