Check this out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TdMMGVRKqY

hello!

sorry, if you have texted me at some point but for some reason my virgin sim card isn’t working or getting any signel although flo’s contract is working fine.

 just spent the last few days in palolem. very nice. much better then benoulem. planning to come back here with lucy, a more gentle intro to india methinks. going to the contraversial gokarn tomorrow to check it out. then onwards to kerela were there is exotic dancing to be had. time seems to be nipping past rather quickly as the days are filled to the brim with eating and relaxing by the sea. flo and i went for a stroll along the left hand side of the beach yesterday and finding ourselves at the end decided to clamber over the boulders that abutted the sea and continue our route to the other bay. much fun and reminiscent of our respective childhood scamperings.

in one of the rockpools inbetween the rocks i spotted what looked like a perticulaly wierd bit of seaweed. on closer examination it was a sea slug! i plucked it from the pool dispit its efforts to twitch away. realy odd creature. like a sock filled with liquid, it wibbled in my hands like a water baloon, every now and then ejecting water in confusion. rather neat.

have yet to be seriously ill yet. this may have something to do with the insane amount of health giving pilules and whatnot we are ingesting everyday. food so far is very hit and miss. the best was in mumbai. need to be a bit more careful with the food here as the electricity keeps on cutting out all over palolem. some of the bars bbq fresh caught fish, and last night i had calamari which was very tasty.

christine seemed to remember you mama, though didn’t mention much fish gutting. 🙂

 people in goa seem remarkably friendly, hopefully this is true for the rest of india.

will blog from gokarn next.

julio

 

Dear Julio and Flo,

I was beginning to think that you had gone to Kashmir too! It was nice to receive some news. How was the train journey?
Give my regards to everyone at Antoinette’s (I am the one who spend one afternoon gutting small fishes with them)
Have you seen any kingfishers yet? They sit on the line by the side of the road on the way to the beach.
Daddy made a strong stew yesterday and instead of putting in the recommended five cloves, he threw in vaguely a dozen and acted in the same willy-nilly manner with the cinnamon, allspices, cumin etc…with the result that he nearly blew our heads off. We are not going to have any colds this year or the next, I reckon, thanks to this medicinal concoction!

Enjoy your walks and bike rides around.

Love Mama.

hello all!

sorry i haven’t blogged till now, but its been a bit hectic so far. at present i am in benoulem (sp) scribing this onto the palm whilst reclining on my bed at antoinet’s. fairly nifty place, cheers mama and dod! this guest house and the country side around really reminds me of sychelles, with the whitewashed tin roofed houses nestling in palm tree surounds, and the jolly residence always happy to give you the time of day. the beach is also rather nice. i have had one considerebly refreshing bathe.on the negertive side, the places to eat are filled with every human charcature of the englishman abroard. pink and bulbous, they waddle to and fro talking of mundane matters. this wouldnt be a problem but all the eateries and places drink are designed to cater for this type of cliantel.  this gives the place a bit of a “resort” feel. the food is nice ebough but with little choice in comparison with bombay. yester day flo and i were recling on the beach after a nice swim when a grizzled indian chap came over. he had spotted the ankh around my neck and asked if i was catholic. i wasn’t so i said no. this didn’t seem to be a problem as he was catholic and that would be enough for both of us.and he sat down and chatted to us. it turned out that he was a fisherman and he owned a boat that we had spotted earlier called “jesus lasio” we had been curious about the name and flo asked what it meant. he looked a trifel ambarassed, then admitted that when he was telling the guy who painted his boat, over the phone what he wanted the name to be he had said “jesus loves you” but this was what he got. we found this rather amusing. after that little anictdote he wnet to help his ship mates setup the jesus lasio.a few minutes later a flushed chappy with a distinkly german moustache charged over and asked if i would help another bunch of fishermen push their boat into the see. sure thing. i hoofed it over, and me the german chap and several toothy locals heaved at the boat. it slid towards the sea on what looked like a row of railway sleepers which had been oiled. only broblem was they only had about five so someone had to scurry behind the boat, grab a sleeper and lob it in front of the carreening boat.after seeing us succesfully luanching this boat the crew of the jesus lasio called for our aid and the german chap, flo and i pegged it over and heaved another boat into the sea. they were massivly heavy, but it was fun.bombay was quite nice in the end. arrived feeling like i had not slept for days. which i hadn’t. got a taxi to the fort area were my pristine hotel, which i had booked before leaving england, awaited. ofcourse the taxi driver didn’t know were my hotel was and when provided with the address for the place, cast doubt as to its very existance. i then said it was next door to the regency hotel. aha! he not only knew were the regency was but he could take us there! he dropped us of at what appeared to be the place. i attempted to triangulate my possition and work out were my hotel was in relation to the regency. this would have been considerably easier if the hotel we had been droppped of at was the regency. on claser inspection it was in fact some other hotel called the residency. cursing the blighter who dropped us off and myself for failing to read the sign, we went to get another taxi only to be met by the same problem. no one knew of my hotel or the road it was prosumably connected to. deciding to cut our losses we took a taxi to colaba, and stayed in a perfecly nice room overlooking the harbour at half the price of my hotel. the area we were in was really nice, had very few people trying to sell us stuff and had some classy little cafes stuffed with indians eating away. just a few minutes walk down the dock, was an icredibly taky touristy area, which was best avoided. our bit of town were one could sit at a juice stand and sup on a relaxing lassi and chat to a random indian who was doing the same was much more preferable.we went to see a bollywood movie at one point. i was quite possbly the most dreadfull film i have ever had the misfortune of viewing. far from being all singing and all dancing joyfest it was a bleak tale of abduction and revenge, cut together and directed by someone who clearly dispised the very idea of cinema and all it stands for. and was also blind in one eye.

 anyway i shall blog again when i have time. and i shall try and remember to bring my camera cable so i can put some photos up.

julio

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