Dear Dodman

I hereby give you fair warning that Sasha and I are heading for the aformentioned Palolem beach in one week from now. We are going very near Goa on the train tomorrow and then the next destination will be Palolem.

Perhaps we shall see you there.

Hey Tan! I heard your news a while ago and since you appear to be using Livster.net I thought I should say congrats from us both. How long till the bun in the oven is ready? As it were. Looking forward to meeting him/her when we get back!

The surf here in Kovalam is very good. Too good in fact to surf or indeed swim with added rip tides to ensure certain drowning.

AT the time of the Varanasi bombings we were as far away from the bombings as it’s possible to be in India – being on the southern tip itself. Both safe and well.

We are in Kerala and having gone down the eastern coast we are now heading up the western coast towards… Goa! So Nicky and Michelle don’t be too surprised if you get a tap on the shoulder from a familiar face or two. But we won’t be there for at least two weeks possibly 4 or even 6.

Come on, you must know “H” from Steps. Big happy cheesy dancey gormless, Pete Waterman produced pap pop. And he was the blonde head cretin of the gang – ask Liv, he’ll remmbe…

Poor Hannah. I hope that it’s an ironic thing being named after the smiling cretin from Steps. Also we will be in Goa in about a month, burning up in the sun. Your olds may just get a surprise from some friendly faces.

Yesterday was supposed to be a beautiful day in which we made the pilgrimage to the top of Arunachala – the holy mountain where Shiva is said to have appeared as I plume of fire.

Unsurprisingly climbling 950 meters in 30-something degree heat isn’t very easy – and the climb was surprisingly steap. An English guy said that it would take about 1 hour and a half but it took us more like 3 and half hours. I was pretty amazed and impressed that Sasha had decided to come too at the last minute.

We eventually got to the top, sweat dripping profusely down my face and into my eyes because I was also carrying provisions and 2.5 litres of water (though Sasha took it for half an hour). We were exhausted and the top was covered in oil because they set fire to it every year for a festival- we both agreed it hadn’t been worth the effort. We sat down on two ledges next to each other on the side of the mountain – Sasha with the bag, when two monkies started to purposefully climb towards us from below. They headed straight for Sasha and the bag - I told her to watch out but she just froze and quick as a flash one of the monkeys approached and attacked her! It was grabbing at the bag and clawing at Sasha. I left over to her ledge and scared them away – she was fine but had suffered a two inch scratch on her back near her shoulder. It wasn’t deep and she wasn’t bleading but it had happened very quickly and she was quite shaken.

We made our way down and were advised by the ashram to go to see a doctor and get rabies vacinations for her just in case. Bites are worse then scratches and the monkies almost certainly weren’t rabid. We got an appointment at 6:30pm and Sasha was prescribed three antibiotics and the rabies vacination. The doctor said we had to buy them ourselves from a chemist. However none of the three pharmacists he recommended had the vacination and we were left wandering around the town in the dark between chemists trying to get directions from locals who spoke only slightlt more English than we spoke Tamil. Eventually the fifth chemist recommeded somewhere that thank goodness, when we got there actually had the shots we needed. Exhausted we went back to the doctor who administered the first injection and then to have dinner in a restaurant recommended by The Lonely Planet. Both out dishes turned out to consist of very spicey tomatoe puree, lots of oil and not much else – gross. After some hassle with a rickshaw driver we eventually got back to the ashram.

Bad dad. Although we’ve been here two weeks they seem to have been very eventful and it seems more like two months. Sasha is fine this morning – we are off to Auroville in an hour.