Agonda Beach, 26 Oct 2010 - 13 March 2011

Dear All,

I'm writing this post in Margao, Goa as the springs on our truck are being fixed. Mark is at the workshop overseeing the work. The rear suspension on our truck is provided by two sets of leaf springs, both of which should look happy! Literally, the springs should make the shape of a smile if they are in a good condition, and if they're not they are either flat mouthed or miserable. Ours are not quite miserable yet, but if we continued any further with them they would be. So, 40 quid later and one day's labour and we should be out of here on our way to Hampi.

I'm aware that I need to update you on 4 months worth of our travels and I guess I feel slightly daunted by the task, although I know it's my own fault for no having done it sooner! So, here goes.

November was really a month of relaxing and preparation for the arrival of our family. They were all arriving in December, but they were coming for a month and we wanted them to see more than just Goa. It is a beautiful part of India but it doesn't give you any idea of the other side of Indian life. Deciding where to go, how to get there, where to stay and booking it all was a lot of work. It meant a visit to the internet cafe sometimes twice a day. We also had to book accommodation and set up our camp ready for everyone to arrive.

We bought a new table, put up a washing-up area outside, hung our two solar showers and bought enough bowels and buckets to wash dishes, feet and hands and fetch water from the local well. We had bought some large canopies in Gujarat and suspended them from the palm trees so that we had enough shade during the day. We bought mats for outside and we had a huge rug we had bought in Jaipur to lounge on. Our parents being all over 60 now needed decent chairs to sit on, so we rented three chairs from a local restaurant for whilst they were here. Fatima's restaurant also helped us get a large gas bottle which we set up outside to a burner we bought in Rajasthan. The only thing we needed then was enough plates and bowls to eat from and cutlery.

We had hired a scooter at the beginning of our stay for 1.50 a day so we spent a good few journeys to Chaudi, the local town to get all this stuff. We also used this for getting our water. The well is around 2 minutes on the scooter but you need it to transport the water. We used two 20 litre containers, like you would have in a water dispenser at work and a metal well bucket. This has a lip on it and you tie a rope around the lip and throw the bucket down and move the rope to flick the bucket over in the water and fill it before pulling it up and decanting it into the two containers.

The well was also a favourite place of ours for a wash. It was in the middle of the palms and forest and rarely was anyone about. We would take our shampoo and stuff and soak each other in water and have a good wash! It's not so easy to have a good wash under a solar shower in view of others! We used the solar showers mainly to rinse off after the sea. Not having running water is the biggest issue you have when you are static. For our drinking water we had a water man that delivered full containers and collected empties every few days. Anyway, enough of the housekeeping!!

Apart from the setting up and preparation work we did relax and spend time on other things. I had set myself a target of swimming to 'the rock' and back everyday. In the middle of the sea in front of us was a biggish rock that seemed a perfect target to swim to. Mark actually measured the distance by putting the GPS in a waterproof bag and swimming there and back with it. When the tide was high it was approximately 750metres. It used to take anywhere from 15 -20 minutes depending on the tides and currents.

My favourite time to swim was just as I had woken. It would normally be just before sunrise and I would wake, put on my bikini and goggles and walk the 50 steps to the sea's edge. The sea feels warm at that time of day. The first few times I swam I was a little scared to be out in the deep sea by myself, but I got over it quickly and just enjoyed it! The best bit about going early was that as I swam back towards the van the sun was rising over the hills behind and lighting the palm trees.

Mark used to watch me from the shore as he made the coffee. We enjoyed our morning coffee together and watched the day get brighter and brighter whilst waiting for Matthew the baker. He came everyday and brought fresh bread, vegetable, egg, apple and chocolate pastries. He was a very sweet man and of course everything was very cheap. How idyllic - camping on the beach with water deliveries and your own baker!

We had been looking for some yoga to do since we were in Nepal, but hadn't found anything suitable. We had heard there was some yoga near to us at Fatima's guest house. We went and met Deepak the guy who was teaching and asked if we could join the classes. He was running teacher training courses and sometimes offered drop-in sessions if he had room. He had taught our friend Simon the year before, so we were keen to go.

It was our first yoga and it was hard work! The session lasted almost 2 hours and was the Ashtanga Primary series, which is a very athletic form of yoga. It is also called power yoga at home and in the US. But, it was really enjoyable, so we went 5 days a week, me swimming before it as well! We did it in blocks - 2 weeks of going and then 2 weeks off as our parents arrived, but Mark had an abrupt ending to it in the form of broken toe!

Our friends from Nepal had arrived by the end of November. Stefan and Petra arrived first and then Marion, Patrick, Marla and Luis and Suzanne and Adrian. It was the end of a day and Mark had decided to have a wrestling match with Luis, Marion and Patrick's son. He slipped on a mat and fell awkwardly on his big toe and broke it. We went to the local hospital where it was put in a cast. He needed the cast as in a few days all of our family were arriving and we had to fly, train and bus around southern India.

That's it for now - I'm off to check how the work on the springs has gone - I'll be back soon.....


Dear Blog-followers

I think I last left you with the preparations we had been making to receive our family in Goa and with the fact that as I was writing the suspension on our van was being fixed. It’s been a few weeks since then and I now have even more to write about! I’m sat in front of the Bay of Bengal, in the van on the computer, but no internet access so I can’t really remember where I actually left off.

I do know that I haven’t told you of our family visit and it seems a good place to start. We hadn’t seen our family for 18 months and had both changed somewhat in that time. I think the most startling change has been our weight loss; Mark probably three stone and me probably two! Either way, they were pleased to see us and us them. We had a few days on the beach and then started our little tour of a small section of southern India.

We flew to Bangalore from Goa and then took a car to Mysore. The drive through rush-hour Bangalore was an eye-opener for everyone. The roads here are very crowded and carry a whole host of vehicles; buses, trucks, cars, motorbikes, scooters, bicycles, horse and cart, oxen and cart and of course pedestrians, some of whom are walking their goats, buffalo and cows home. It really shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. Of course there are many accidents and many fatalities, luckily we saw none that day. We simply held our breath many times and wondered out loud in amazement at the near misses and the organized chaos of it all.

Five hours later (did I mention it was rush-hour?!) and we pulled up to the Green Hotel in Mysore. This was to be our resting place for the next two days and is an old colonial building that is still used as a film set. We showered and met on the lawns for drinks and dinner. Very civilised!

The next day we visited the Maharaja’s palace which was suitably opulent and beautiful. As we wandered the grounds we were taken by a police officer to see the Maharaja’s elephants. They are incredible animals. We had heard a story before about elephants being given as gifts as a punishment. Apparently if your local ruling gentry really wanted to punish you after you had performed some crime or misdemeanor they would give you an elephant. The feeding of such a creature would surely bankrupt any normal person and they couldn’t be killed as they were a gift from the royalty! Anyway, we were offered pictures on the elephants and then of course asked for baksheesh.

We left the palace and our tuk-tuk drivers took us to a silk and sandalwood shop. We shopped well and made our way that afternoon to the Tipu Sultan’s summer palace. Mysore, like many places in India has a history of rule by both Muslim rulers and the Maharajas meaning multiple sights for people like us to visit!

The next day disaster struck as my mum was the victim of some bad bacteria in her food. We left her in bed that morning and visited Chaumundi Hill, a home for many temples, a huge statue of Nandi, Shiva’s bull and consequently many Hindu visitors. On our return she was no better and we left her and my dad behind to sleep it off at the Green hotel whilst Mark’s mum Sheila, Mark, myself and Jordan took a car to Mettupulayam.

This town is really nothing more than a railway station and hotels. Sheila and Jordan had their first experience of budget accommodation in India and we tried to sleep that night with the background din of budget hotels and air raid sirens that went off on the hour from 4am to remind people in the town to get up for their trains!!

We were to get a steam train from Mettupulayam to Ooty – the old British hill station that the Colonials used as their get-away from the stifling summer heat. It was actually knick-named ‘Snooty-Ooty’! The steam train travels up 2500 meters over 46 kilometers and takes four hours. It is a very picturesque ride and takes you over big waterfalls and through the Nilgiri Hills, home of many tea plantations.

We had booked into an old-style British bungalow 7km out of Ooty in the hills called the Sherlock. As we arrived that afternoon we had tea on the lawn in the beautifully kept gardens and waited for my mum and dad. They had taken a car directly from Mysore to Ooty.

We had log fires in our bedrooms and throughout the hotel and we needed them! The old colonial powers had used this place as their summer retreat, however we were here in December and it was cold in the evening. The hotel had warned us to bring warm clothes, which we did, however their preparations for the cold were not as good as ours. It was a shame as the hotel was great and we enjoyed our food and the scenery but it was too cold. The management were sympathetic in the end and gave us a good discount on our bill, but it was a bit disappointing.

That aside, we really enjoyed our time in Ooty. We visited a tea factory the day after we arrived and saw the raw green leaves being transformed into the fermented brown tea we know and love. The day after we had a great walk (minus Mark due to the broken toe) out into the tea plantations through a massive Eucalyptus forest with fantastic views for miles around. We were at 2,800 meters, the highest point in the Nilgiri Hills.

Our time had come to leave and we took a car from Ooty to Bangalore and ate in Bangalore that night. The next day we were up before the dawn and made our way to the railway station to pick up the train to Goa. Our train was actually a sleeper going to Mumbai – a whopping 36 hour journey – but we only had 12 hours on board. We had a whole section to ourselves with bunk beds and lots of space. The chai, coffee, dosa and idli wallahs were coming round regularly, so there was no chance of going hungry.

After a car ride from the station we were back in Agonda. How nice it was after all that travel to be back at the beach! The trip had given my mum and dad and Sheila and Jordan a real taste of India; the variety of it, the size of it and the number of people living in it!

It was nearly Christmas by this point and the next day we relaxed and put up our tent so that Jordan could camp with us on the beach.

Christmas on the camp was a busy one. By the time we had arrived back from our tour many more trucks and cars had arrived and there were 22 in total! We may have mentioned this before, but most of the trucks and people we have met traveling overland have been Germans. They celebrate Christmas on our Christmas eve, so we had in effect, two Christmases! On our Christmas day Mark, Jordan and I were up early. We had coffee and short bread biscuits and Toblerone for breakfast!! It was a normal day by our standards; the sun was shining, the sea was like a mill-pond and the puppies were play fighting on the big expanse of sand in front of us.

We started prepping the veg for Christmas dinner and Mark and Jordan went off to get the chickens. Getting the chickens involved picking which ones they wanted killed and then waiting whilst the guy rung their necks, shoved them into a huge old oil barrel until they beat the life out of themselves, skinned them and whilst the flesh was still twitching chopping them into pieces! Happy Christmas indeed!

Still, it doesn’t get fresher than that and they tasted good. We treated them well and marinated them in tons of garlic, ginger, lemon, salt and chicken masala. They were barbequed to perfection and accompanied with char-grilled vegetables and potato salad with home-made mayonnaise. My brother Angus had arrived late the evening before and his room had a fridge in it. For the first time in a long time, Mark and I enjoyed chilled white wine and a family Christmas dinner.

Angus, Sheila and my mum and dad had all brought cheese, biscuits and port with them. That evening all the overlanders built a fire on the beach and we took our chairs down to it and on two tables we laid out stilton and cheddar cheeses, biscuits and bread and two large bottles of port. It was our Christmas gift to everyone there and they loved it. The Swiss and the Germans never realised we had such good cheese!!!

The next days flew by filled only with eating out, sun bathing, book reading, socialising, yoga, swimming, cycling, games of boule and so on. We had a boat trip out to see the dolphins – visible from the shore too, and we saw loads. We celebrated the new year at the Cinammon club restaurant and on the 2 January we said good bye to our lovely nephew and Sheila. It was also my birthday and Mark and others on the camp had set up a great surprise for me.

Mum and dad took us out for dinner at the Dunhill restaurant where we enjoyed fresh strawberry daquiris and when we went back to the camp I was treated to a pyrotechnic display. They had strung up between two palm trees ‘Happy 38th Birthday’ using wire and rope soaked in paraffin. It was set alight whilst fire works were set off. I was very overwhelmed by it – what a treat. I had two birthday cakes as well and everyone enjoyed it.

By now we had more friends arriving. Simon, Handan and their daughter Zola arrived with their tent and set up next to us. Gina and Simon whom we met in Turkey when they were overlanding in their bus arrived, not this time in a bus but back-packing. The funny thing was, when we met them in Turkey it was August 2009 and they had been to India back-packing before and said to us we should try Agonda – they remember seeing campers parked there before. They couldn’t believe we were there 18 months later!

So, we enjoyed more time together. Mum, Dad and Angus had got themselves a regular breakfast restaurant in Lilly Moons where Simon and Gina also used to go. We enjoyed our coffee mornings with Simon and Handan at the camp and I was still yoga-ing and contemplating whether to join the next teacher-training course that started on the 18 January.

It was also decision time for us. We had a commitment to be home in May for my cousin Jane and David’s wedding and for June for my cousin Sarah and Ed’s wedding. We had contemplated flying home and carrying on traveling and returning to Nepal to teach English voluntarily and then coming home. The other option was to come home in May with the van and then going off teaching abroad afterwards. We decided to go with this and then we heard that the Pakistani embassy in Delhi was not issuing Pakistani visas to any foreigners.

Our German and Swiss friends had had to send their passports home and then have them sent back to get the visa at their home embassy. We decided to give this a try and thought we would send them home with my mum and dad and then my cousin Sarah was coming out in February and could have brought them with her. However, after some more research it was apparent that for British nationals the rules had changed substantially and we would need to provide bank statements, sponsors in Pakistan and a letter of reference from our employer stating when we were expected back at work.

Clearly the last requirement proved difficult for us and its absence would have required us to go in person to the Pakistan embassy for an interview. We didn’t really fancy the idea of being stuck in India with no passport and our passports being with the Pakistani embassy pending an interview! So, we had to look at another option. At this point we threw caution to the wind and decided that if going through Pakistan was going to be that difficult maybe we should pick up on the winds of fate and take the other route overland – through China.

We are now researching the tour agencies who can take us through China – you can’t go alone as you are required to have a Chinese guide in the car with you at all times. We’ve booked our flights to London from Kathmandu and will be returning home for a holiday for 6 weeks!!

Back to Goa. Mum, Dad and Angus had all left us by the 11 January. They’d all had a lovely holiday and it was a great month with some ever-lasting memories. We were sad to see them go. Sheila and Jordan were already home and one of the first questions Jordan had asked his mum was how old did he have to be before he could fly alone?!

It was decision time for me regarding yoga. I had started doing it in the middle of November and loved it. But, the course was a different kettle of fish. You may understand my reticence when you consider the requirements; getting up at 5.45am taking a cold shower, 6.30-7.45 in class doing pranayama – breathing exercises, 8-10 Ashtanga primary series yoga, 10-11 breakfast and then 11-1pm philosophy. 1-3pm was lunch break, but we were back at 3-4.30 doing anatomy and alignment and then from 4.30-6pm doing hatha yoga. This was Monday to Friday and Saturday was to be the same morning but finishing at 10am.

For someone who has done very little for the last 18 months it was a daunting prospect, plus I had some great friends on the camp who I wanted to spend time with and my cousin Sarah and her friend Jane were coming out for 10 days. I knew I would have homework and study outside of the course as well. Did I come traveling to do this or to relax? The truth is I didn’t know why I had come traveling apart from the fact that Mark wanted to and I couldn’t think of anything better to do! When would I have the opportunity again? What was the worse thing that could happen? I signed up for the course!

The only showers we had been using on the beach were our solar ones so the first morning I was up at 5.45am and dawn had not broken. I stepped out of the van door with my torch, but I didn’t need it. It was a full moon that night and it was just going down. It was beautiful. This huge globe of white with its craters and mountains obvious, was just hovering above the horizon and lighting everything with its beautiful white glow. I finished showering and had my coffee gazing at the moon and the silvery sea.

I don’t know if I can do justice to the course here – it was such a wonderful experience. There were only 13 of us on the course – I think it was the smallest of all of them – and they were all great people from all over the world. We shared ideas, laughs and tears and grew together – it sounds so clichéd, I know, but it was true. We were taught by Deepak and Shiva but we learnt a lot from each other. I shall never forget it.

Half way through the course my cousin Sarah and her friend Jane came out to visit. We booked them accommodation at the nearest guest house; Mycinta’s, so they were only one minute away. They arrived on the Friday and on Saturday morning we all went to yoga, had breakfast and went to Margao material hunting. Mark borrowed Patrick’s motorbike and took Jane and I took Sarah on the scooter. It’s a lovely ride to Margao on the coast road. You go through jungle, past river inlets and more beaches, over volcanic scrubland and through fishing villages before reaching the town.

We spent our time in Raymond’s suitings and shirtings shop where Mark was having his suits made for the weddings, in the material shops, the Bombay café and the spa. It was a good day that ended back in Agonda at Simrose restaurant where Ricky our waiter was only too happy to serve us lots of Kingfisher!!

Those ten days went very quickly. Sarah and Jane came to yoga every day, sunbathed, shopped, got Ayurevedic massages and treatments, enjoyed a cooking course with Deepak’s mum and the rest of the yoga course, enjoyed being a part of the community on the camp and were great company for us too. We were sad to see them go.


I completed my yoga course on the 18 February. We had a fire ceremony at our ‘graduation’, took many photos and had our last breakfast together. I can’t take all the credit for completing the course. Mark was a great support throughout and made sure all the housekeeping was done so that I could just get on with my yoga. We then had until the end of February to enjoy the beach and the company of our German, French, Scottish, Austrian, Australian and English friends!

The time came for our friends Amelie and Til to go. They went, taking their lovely son Theo and their two dogs Ole and Ford. It was an end of an era. We had met them in December 2009 and camped together in Agonda and Nepal and Agonda again.

Then it was everyone else’s turn. Saying goodbye to our friends Marion, Patrick, Marla and Luis was also very sad. Our French friends Lamy and Manu moved next to us and we enjoyed our last few days with then. The time came for us to leave, or so we thought. We headed to Margao to fix our brakes and the aforementioned springs, but it was to take longer than the one day expected.

After the brakes were fixed we spent a night on Colva beach where we met an Australian woman who was traveling on a motor bike across to South Africa. We returned the next day to get the springs done, but just at the last minute as the bolt to secure the springs was replaced, we realised that the thread had rusted and we needed a new bolt. Guess what? They didn’t have one the right size! We actually spent that night camped outside the public conveniences, which was where the guys had asked us to park our truck to fix it!! The next day we had to wait for a bolt to come from Vasco and by 8 ‘o’ clock that evening it was finished. Spend the night outside the toilets or go back to where we know and love? Agonda it was.

We had become a running joke in Agonda by that time as we always seemed to return and never managed to leave when we said we would. True to form it took us another three days! We were alone again on the beach front, just like in November.

We finally left Goa on 13 March. That’s four and half months on the beach. Not bad huh? I think we shall love that place forever – the times we had there are etched into our brains. In the future whenever I have hard or difficult times, I shall think back to those fantastic four and a half months; the place, the people, the animals, the sunshine, the moon and stars, the sea, the jungle, all of it.