Sailing up the River Sal

After a half hour taxi trip with Candido our driver, and our friends from Ainsdale, we arrived at Mikes Place to board the boat which was very similar to this one below. It was an all inclusive deal so after the compulsory bottle of water the boys had plenty of beer and  G & T's.  Our captain took us along the River Sal, where we saw lots of herons, egrets and red kites.  Further along we stopped at Bat Island where we all had to whistle and shout to get the fruit bats to fly from the trees.  They were huge, nearly a metre across, and himself cameraman for the day didnt get them

 We travelled down the river past some tidy looking properties, which looked very British

These were a couple of Kingfish that they caught for our lunch which were cut into steaks for about 30 of us

The lunch Menu was

King Prawns cooked in Garlic Butter & Indian Breads

Kingfish Steaks with Safron Rice

Vegetable Curry

Side Salad

Fresh Fruit Salad

We went out to sea, and saw three pods of dolphins, my cameraman (himself) wasnt quick enough off the mark to snap them.  We had a visit from the dolphin police, who after collecting a few bottles of beer, obviously the permit for being out there, disappeared at speed after a fishing boat,perhaps prawns to go with the beer?

It was a great day out.

I must just tell you about a little place himself nipped into for a comfort stop.  It was dark by then and the cafe owner didnt have a light for the loo, so he went and got a bulb, put it in and when the light came on himself found two frogs swimming in the toilet pan - ooh er.  I decided to wait. The cameraman of course failed to get a shot

Today (Sunday) John the fixer and his wife are coming round for tea, so himself baked a pineapple cake.

Update:  Letter sent to Blighty. Post office manager in Varca took himself into the sorting office and on the computer tracked our letter through 5 cities before being signed for by the addressees next door neighbour and showed him a copy of the electronic signature! Impressive eh? Only took 5 days

Dog Lovers: Ken Dog is a whizz at catching beetles.

Normal photography will be resumed shortly todays cameraman is fired

A contented life

These two lovely ladies chat to me on my walk every day. I usually do half an hour in one direction, then return. They're always happy and I asked them why, they said they had a contented life, they trust in their God and he provides. They also gave me two cotton shirts to try at home, and maybe pay them tomorrow the princely sum of £4.50.  Rita in the green pointed to her husband catching fish with a line and three hooks, he had a fish on each one. Her God had provided today.

  

         Fishing boats with religious artwork 

         Usually named after Saints.

Lifeguards practicing their skills on the beach, with much hilarity. These grown men were larking about like a load of kids, carrying the jet skis in a race. There are hundreds of them along the entire 20 miles of beach. 

At the Sand Bar - free wifi, fresh flowers on the table, & lunch

Lunch today was:-

Chicken Tikka Masala

Coconut Vegetable curry

Zeera Rice & Cheese Naan

Kingfisher beer for himself

Bombay Saphire & Schweppes Tonic for me

£7.50    

Hungry yet???

Note to dog lovers Ken Dog runs to meet us every day, dont know what Indian dogs eat - Indian cats?

Note to Ollie, sorry sweetheart we weren't in Top Gear in India! 

No blog tomorrow sailing off dolphin watching at sea, then bird watching down the river.

Heretage home

The village we are staying in is very small, everyone knows everyone, and although we have been here just a week people acknowledge you in the street with a "good morning" or "how are you today"? Even the pigs give us a grunt when we pass.

Whilst at the grocery store the manager asked us if we would like to go to the village show. How could we refuse, so with a couple of friends Denise and Liverpool John we bought our tickets , 50p each including a free sweet.  It was supposed to start at 8 pm, nothing happened, so we went for light refreshment in the local bar, where even we could have had credit if we wished. It was very busy so John helped serve behind the bar , the locals loved it. 

  

                                                         

  

We walked back to the show which was a mix of comedy, music and drama, with a full orchestra to add to the excitement. We couldn't understand a word, but some of the stand up comedy had them all rolling in the aisles with laughter. All this under a huge canvas tent, with seating for 300 in the middle of a field. We slipped away when no one was looking. 

On the beach today I made several purchases of great value ( don't tell himself it must be our secret!)

Precious stones, jade, amethyst, pearls, and diamonds all set in solid silver, oh my lord how did I keep a straight face, its always nice to have a bit of local jewellery, don't think I shall need to declare these. 

                                    

This evening we were invited to our landlords rather majestic home. It is a traditional Goan heritage home that is over 400 years old and we were delighted to look around this truly beautiful property and were served drinks and refreshments, whilst being made very welcome.

Where's Ern?

We were having dinner with 9 people who we've met in previous years in Varca last night when Steve related the story of another friend who walks miles looking for starfish, shells and the like. She spotted something glistening on the sea edge and it turned out to be a silver pot. Thinking it might be a valuable antique she took it back to her villa and was delighted to see that it was in fact silver, it polished up a treat. A couple of days later Lena the cleaner arrived, screamed in horror and said it was in fact an ashes urn, terribly bad luck to have in the home. Needless to say it was swiftly dispatched full of sand out to sea! 

Today is Republic Day and our taxi driver Cadido explained that the children had half a day off school and lots of the bars etc would be closed, he's also invited us to his sons confirmation party next week

this is his daughter, isn't she beautiful, all the kids wear I D around their necks.

The local houses are very Portuguese and amazing colours.

                                                              

Just a quiet day on the beach thought you might like to see a menu. The rupee for round reckoning is worth about 100 to the £

                            

This is our adopted dog - he barks when Indians come by our sunchairs - he answers to Ken and spends a lot of time near the bar pictured below

                                   

     

Varca Beach

Just 200 yards from our apartment is Varca beach. The beach runs some 20 miles with just a few shacks/bars selling all sorts of southern Goan food. Goa is not like the rest of India, not so much poverty or crime, the people are really friendly and will go out of their way to help you. It was previously Portuguese and many of the residents have dual citizenship making work in Europe relatively easy. 

We spent most of the day here meeting up with friends John & Denise who stay every year for a couple of months in the Club Mahindra.  We come here because the Internet access is particularly good. We think it's good in Honeybourne but super fast broadband is up to 59 mb on the beach and 3G everywhere. Everyone in India has a mobile phone, an old girl shuffled along the beach saw me, and thought blondie will be a soft touch, asked for a small donation, when  I refused she got her phone out to check her mail! By the way I'm not tight but its not the done thing to give money and the the bar owner says she will ring all her mates who "will plague the life out of you madam" - technology eh?

Beach is full of wildlife, Lots of wading birds, a sea eagle who finished off the slower crabs on the shoreline and grey herons and egrets, which I wasn't quick enough to catch. A herd of cows and a buffalo also come along to graze on the lush grass in front of the Zuri hotel, the security guards have a bit of a strop and the tourists all take pictures!

We had to do a bit more shopping for the weekend; the supermarket is small but rammed with everything you need.

Next door the veg co-op sells its produce for pennies. The traders never give you change, just a few sweets or an extra few carrots. If you can't see the price list it's all about 20p a kilo for just about everything you would get from the fruit & veg dept in Tesco, but fresher.

As its the weekend and we're just going to spend it sitting in the sun, watching the world go by or sipping a G & T with a good book, I won't be blogging til next week so enjoy your weekend, we intend to ️:) xx 

Quiet time and the opticians

We decided to pop into Margoa this morning to get some new glasses for me, and three repair jobs for himself. "Comagain" our taxi driver ( well something like that anyway) had to get some petrol, and those of you with good eyesight will see it's just 54 rupees (54p) a litre.

I took my prescription into Lawrence & Mayo and whilst choosing some glasses, we girls can't decide can we, himself showed the technician 3 pairs, one he sat on, beyond economic repair according to spec savers, two fallen apart, and all were repaired f o c cleaned and with new cases. 

We had to send an important letter to the UK and the post office manager gave us the envelope wrote out our postcode from memory and charged us £10 for swift delivery within 2 days - we wait and see!

Back to the beach, sand kept beautifully clean by the blue ladies who walk miles picking up seaweed, litter etc which is picked up by the bin men in the afternoon. On the way back we walk along a country track and a black Goan Porker ran across the path into the field, it's very rural here. To get his attention I whistled and the damn thing must have thought we were going to feed him. I ran like hell, himself will never make a good burglar, the pig nearly caught him up, oh how we laughed. Think this calls for a gin & tonic

Gorgeous Goa

It's been a busy few days but we're here again in glorious Goa. We left Chennai a little lare our taxi was running behind time so we hailed a small cab.

As you can see it was a tad cramped in the cab but we got to the airport and our two flights were faultless and got fed free on both., and arrived on time in our extra leg room seats.

Albert our taxi driver picked us up and whisked us back to our lovely apartment telling us lots of news from last year.

Rush hour on the beach was just a herd of cows.

It's incredibly quiet here there have been 995 flights from Russia cancelled, 40,000 cancelled holidays - great for us but pretty tragic for the hotels and bar trade. The Indians are very worried - so are the Cowboys lol. 

So what's not to like here, a Bostin cup of tea, 30c sunshine, clean beaches, fab food, the sea like a freshly drawn bath with sea minerals - pure bliss!. Meeting up with six friends from last year for supper  to catch up on the goss.

Sunday - birthday

Thank you family and friends for the lovely cards and presents, some had me in tears, some made me laugh hysterically, Gay  & Di I'll get you back!       

  Himself at breakfast, curry already?

We had a fun day, out shopping at the mall this morning, 50% off in the M & S sale, yes really, and it's half the price of the UK,

Bought lots of things, then went off  for a very late lunch at the GRT Grand where we ate far too much. Lots of really spicy curries and vegetarian dishes 💨 prawn tandoori and lush desserts.

Tomorrow we fly ✈️to Goa and have no idea about wifi and when or if we will get our Indian SIM cards Monday/Tuesday, so if you don't hear from us, no news is no worries.

Note for Ken, have a new tour guide with a telepathic connection with other drivers and only takes 14 photos when asked to take 1 😎

Note to Jack & Ollie and The Boy, loved the pictures, thought of you all when the Villa Liverpool match came on the big screen by the pool last night it looked cold there, we were in our shorts  with a cold beer 🍺🍺 😎😎😎 xx

Arrived safely

We arrived in Dubai Emerates hub, what a place that is, and had time for a quck glass of cider.  Himself said to sip it slowly, it cost an arm and a leg I guess, but agricultural champagne is very refreshing.  We boarded our flight to Chennai to find that the crying baby had followed us, so little sleep was had. Food and service was excellent the stewardess even took baby for a wander!. Our hotel is half an hour from the airport and the taxi ddriver took several bookings on his iphone 6 whilst dodging the traffic. Were round the corner from Egmore Station, and tried to get our Indian sim cards updated, but alas too late on Friday.

We did however buy two new watches after mine threw a wobbly and wouldnt set and himself forgot his???? A tad tacky but for 3.50 for the two who cares

Off for a swim now, its just cooling down to 24c at 4.46 pm see you on my birthday xx

Here's the plan....

Our beach in Goa

Just a few days to go til we fly to India so for our lovely family & friends who are more worried about it than we are, here is our itinerary
16th Jan  Birmingham Emirates - Dubai - Chennai (Madras) Ramada Hotel
18th Jan My birthday in Chennai !!
19th Jan Chennai - Goa staying for three weeks at Sea Coast
9th Feb  JetKonnect - Goa - Mumbai - Jet Airways Mumbai - Jaipur Flute Boutique Hotel
12th Feb SpiceJet Jaipur - New Delhi - Varanasi Hotel Buddha
15th Feb Indigo Air Varanasi - Mumbai Yogi Executive Hotel
18th Feb Air India Mumbai - Aurangabad Hotel Windsor Castle??!!
21st Feb Mumbai - Goa
15th March SpiceJet Goa - Chennai
16th March Emirates - Dubai - Birmingham 

Indian Adventure 2015

Counting down the days to our new adventure