Happy Belated New Year from South India

Dear All,

We trust you all had great Christmas and New Years celebrations. I think you may have had snow in the UK before the 25th and are experiencing it now? I'm assuming it wasn't a white Christmas, as I think the news of that would have reached our ears even in Goa!!

Well, it was a very different Christmas for us, but before I go into that I suppose I ought to try and catch up with where I last left off. I must confess that three weeks on the beach has not done wonders for my memory, so this may be a little sketchy in detail! We had visited the Bhuddist caves in Ajanta and Ellora in our last posting. They were a pretty amazing site, being carved into existing mountains and volcanic rock formations. The temple at Ellora was probably the most impressive with two stories and incredibly elaborate carvings. The caves also had waterfalls going over them at points and would have been the most beautiful place to live. That was the great thing about both sets of caves; you could really imagine how a community of people had lived there 2000 years ago.

After seeing both sets of caves, we were relly ready to head for the coast. We've been driving now for 5 months and our longest stop was back in Turkey for just over a week. So, we decided not to stop in Mumbai. We would loved to have gone, but cities of 16 million are best experienced when you have the energy for them, and dare I say it, a hotel! So, we headed from Aurangabad towards Pune - pronounced Poonah. We stopped over one night there before heading towards the Konkan coast.

In the Lonley Planet they suggest that some areas of the Konkan coast have beaches to rival the Maldives. We didn't find those beaches - Mark has been to the Maldives, so he knows - but we did find some lovely beaches, the best being near Tarkali. The difference with the beaches there is that they were working beaches as opposed to tourist beaches. The villages rely totally on fishing. We spent a couple of days there and met many of the locals. They were really friendly and loved the van - where we parked at the end of the penninsula some fishermen sleep outside - its pretty hot - so we got to know them a bit. Mark played cricket with them at sunset - they hit his wicket the first ball they bowled!

Getting closer to Goa we couldn't help but play the Alabama 3 track 'I ain't going to Goa', which has a line in it which goes soemthing like this: 'there aint nothing worse than some old white hippy wearing luminous spandex trousers, smoking dope and saying he found enlightenment!' That track was very apt for us going into Arambol in Northern Goa. It is like hippy central! The main street in the town is called Glastonbury Street!

There were more dreadlocks and tie-dye than you could shake a stick at and every evening at sunset a load of people- maybe around 100-150 - would gather to watch the sun go down and sing and play drums and dance! We had great enjoyment watching it!!

When we were heading for Goa we had thought mainly of going to Agonda in the South, but Pete and Caf, who we met in Amritsar were staying here, so we thought we'd pop in for a few days and see them. However, we got such a great spot right on the beach that we didn't leave for two weeks!

Where we parked there had been an old beach bar last year so we were 50 metres or so from the sea and had a view right over it. The old beach bar had left all their equipment in a shack nearby, which was emptied when we were there. They didn't want their tandoor oven - made in an old oil drum from clay and ground glass - so they gave it to us. We had a go a making tandoori breads and a more succesful attempt at cooking tandoori chicken, prawns, squid and fish. It was a cool set-up. Veronika and Christian were great neighbours, it was so peaceful as we were a long way from any roads and we just really enjoyed being on the beach.

However, as we had always intended to go to Agonda, and as we had our friends Simon and Handan in Palolem, whcih is 7km south of Agonda, we knew we should move on. We were worried of course that we may get there and it wouldn't be as good as Arambol. Our worries were totally unfounded. Agonda beach and the area where the overland trucks park is just out of this world.

We arrived on new years eve and were the 16th truck there on this date! They were mainly German trucks, we later learnt that there had been a programme in Germany about overlanding and Agonda beach, hence the numbers. Overlanding in Germany is much bigger than here and what's really nice is that it's not all people with lots of money in huge trucks, its also young people in battered old buses who manage it too!

We spent new years with Simon, Handan and their beautiful daughter Zola in Palolem. We stopped with them until my birthday on the 2nd and then returned to Agonda. After a few days some of the trucks started to leave and we managed to get a great spot right in front of the sea and with three palm trees around us. We were awaiting the arrival of Alan and Shameem and wanted to set up a great camp. We bought those wedding canopies in Ahmedabad and a great big rug in Jaipur for this moment - so we set about tying our canopy to the palm trees and with our rug underneath it, it was the perfect place to sit.

The two palm trees framed the scene in front of you like a huge screen. I remember in the UK at work, I would have some screen saver that was a beautiful tropical beach. Well here it was real. I'll describe the beach. Unlike Arambol which was a massive long beach this was more of a bay. It was still big. It would take you half an hour to walk from one end to the other. It was lined with palm trees and other types of trees - but at our end mainly palm trees. There were big rocks jutting out at the end of the bay where we were and then behind them a jungle through which you could walk to Palolem. So, it was a beautiful yellow sanded beach with greenery and rocks. We were thirty steps from the sea. The first couple of nights we stayed the sea seemed really loud in the van, but you had to just let the sound of the waves wash over you and in an instant you were asleep.

Waking up there in the mornings was great. Sometimes we'd just go straight for the sea and swim, othertimes have breakfast overlooking the sea and our neighbours swimming! The beach wasn't busy during the week at all, mostly there would be a few couples on the beach. At weekends Indian tourists would come to relax and have a party - which was cool. There were a couple of small fishing boats on the beach too - sometimes you could watch them bringing the boat back in and see what they'd caught. It was pretty idyllic and we felt so relaxed there.

We had great services too. Every morning two bakers would come selling bread and cakes and vegetable puffs. The Germans even got the baker making apple strudle every day!! We had a water delivery every other day in huge twenty litre tubs that we could empty into our tank with a huge funnel and pipe. Our neighbours were great. We had German, Dutch and Slovenian overlanders there. We ate together many times. Someone would go to Chowdi, the local town and pick up 4 kilos of king prawns - they were 4 pounds a kilo - we would cook them in loads of garlic and chilli and lemon and everyone would chip in with a salad or potatoes etc.

The real highlight for us was that Alan and Shameem were coming to meet us in Goa. We wanted to be in the right place and were so chuffed with Agonda as we knew we'd have great time there. We found them a beach hut around 200 metres from the van - looking right over the sea. We'll put pics up soon, promise! They arrived 3.30 in the morning, so we went to the airport in a cab and picked them up. We got to Agonda just in time to see the sunrise with a cold beer! It was so brilliant to see them - I can't tell you how happy we all were!

They had brought us lots of goodies from the UK, not least a stocking from my Dad! We opened our Christmas presents at 7am! After a sleep until midday we enjoyed the sunshine, the sea and the beach.The next week went so quickly. Alan and Mark set up a volleyball court in front of us with Mandy and Stefan - our new friends from Germany. There were a few days of volleyball tournaments! We swam, read, listened to music, chatted and sunbathed and visited Simon, Handan, Zola, and their friend Sarah in Palolem. They came over to see us for a day as well. We walked around Agonda and along the beach, went out for meals and drinks. I'm sure everyone else can remember more detail, but you get the drift!

They left us after a week and headed for Hampi, Gokarna and Kerala. We had arranged to meet in Varkala, Kerala a week or so later. Mark and I did not want to leave Agonda. We had said we would go to do some more sight seeing in Southern India, but instead we enjoyed that beautiful beach until the last possible moment! We left ourselves three days to get to Kerala and went via Gokarna, Ullal and finally Chettuwa before we arrived in Varkala three days later. In Chettuwa, we were taken to a local festival by some young people. They were every proud of Kerala and the fact that they had many cultures living togther in harmony. In fact, these young muslims took us to a Hindu temple for this festival. We really enjoyed their company and after being in a beach bubble for 5 weeks, which we were miserable to leave, we were reminded again of how special that travelling experience can be.

We drove into Varkala at 6 the next evening and knew Shams and Alan were arriving at roughly the same time on the train. The amazing thing was that just as we were driving past the train station, Shameem ran out into the middle of the road trying to hail a tuc tuc! After nearly running her over - we followed them in a tuc tuc to the northern part of Varkala - Odayam beach.

We've had great time and don't want them to go, but our other friends Tracey and Martin arrive the day after and we'll have great week with them too. I suppose our next update maybe when they've gone. We'll have four days until my cousin Jane arrives on the 10 February (how lucky are we - three visits). Kerala is beautiful. In India they call it God's own country. If I believed in God I'd probably agree with them, but even in the absence of an almighty power this is a beautifully lush countryside with so many things to explore. Tea plantations, spice plantations, hill stations, backwaters and beaches. It doesn't get much better than this!

Until the next time, much love,

Jo and Mark