Incredible India (Part 5 - Palolem, Goa)

Leaving the peace & quiet of Patnem, we headed to Palolem for a few days. Just a short tuktuk ride over the hill, and we were there!

Palolem is much busier & touritsy than Patnem, although still very underdeveloped in comparison with places like Phuket, or Koh Samui in Thailand for example. There is a law in South Goa that all the beachfront huts and restaurants must be taken down every monsoon season. Although a lot of work, this is a great idea as it stops any big hotels and developers rolling in & spoiling the natural beauty of the area. The beach is still home to many a roaming cow and retains a very honest charm! 

Happy cows.

Before we left London, Su & I had only pre-booked one accomodation for the whole trip, it was to be our little treat before Su headed back to London & work, and I started my intensive yoga teacher training course. We had booked to stay at Ciaran's, a little slice of paradise on Palolem! 

The bed in the room was like one of those big, tall, fluffy, bouncy white beds, I had to restrain myself from actually jumping on the bed like a 4 year old! One of the best parts of Ciaran's was probably the complimentary chai tea & cake every day at 4pm whilst dolphin spotting from the shore!

The view from Ciaran's terrace.

Whilst in Palolem, we did a boat trip to Butterfly beach, and saw lots & lots of dolphins on the way! It is amazing the number of wild dolphins in the sea here, if you look long & hard enough you can honestly spot them from the shore! Butterfly beach itself was nice, but not amazing- we did not even get off the boat, but the trip was more than worthwhile for all the dolphins! If you do go, be prepared to get soaked with the waves (and don't sit right up front!).

Tommy, Lex, Su & I (and our photobomber)!

My favourite time of the day, such a happy time! Coincidentally also the perfect time for a mojito!

Palolem gave us the gift of one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen! The whole sky was awash with colour. In the city it's so rare that anybody actually stops to appreciate the beauty of sunset, sometimes we are too caught up in the daily trials & tribulations of life to even realise the sun is setting. Everyday can be beautiful as long as we choose to see the beauty. Even if it's a dull, grey, rainy day you can still create your own sunshine & beauty! This is one of my sankalpas -  a resolution - from the trip, to choose to see the beauty everyday. If you follow me on instagram (@lisahladnik), you will know that I am participating in the 100happydays challenge, a challenge to find one thing that makes you happy everyday for 100 days. It tries to develop the ability to appreciate and enjoy the moment that you are in: to stop worrying about how stressed we are, and remember how blessed we are! Go on, I dare you to try the challenge too!

#100happydays

Back to Palolem! I discovered a Sampoorna Yoga Shala right next door to Ciaran's - with the course starting in less than a week and my yoga practice for the previous 10 days being minimal at best, I desperately needed to get myself back on the mat. I was almost suffering from yoga withdrawl symptoms! Although this branch of Sampoorna is not a full school, they offer morning & afternoon classes in a lovely little shala just back from the beach. All the Sampoorna team are super friendly & very welcoming, so if you do find yourself there, go & say hello!

Astavakrasana (eight angle pose) on Palolem 

Susan was a yoga virgin before coming to India, but she was a natural. By the end of the two weeks she was even doing bakasana (crow pose). I will turn her into a yogi yet!!

Palolem has a bit more of a bar scene to it then Patnem does - there is lots of live music almost every night. On our last night here, we had heard about a silent disco party at Cleo's and thought it could be quite amusing. We were told it was very close - a few minutes walk from the beach. We followed the directions given and ended up in some very dimly lit, quiet back streets, not ideal for two girls alone in India! Being a silent disco there was not even any music that we could follow. Luckily we bumped into some others who were also heading to Cleo's, although they had even less idea of where they were going! After finally getting there, we were two of approximately 15 people there. We were given headphones with a choice of three channels: The Grease soundtrack, Indian music, or hardcore techno! It actually felt like we were on the set of the Inbetweeners it was that dire! Fortunately for me, unfortunately for Susan, Susan started to feel queasy and we had to make a very quick exit. I can safely say that you will not be missing out on the time of your life if you don't go to Cleo's, but I can highly recommend Leopard Valley on a Friday night (more about that coming soon!)!

Palolem is a great people watching beach, there are lots of restaurants, bars and the most shops in the area (although don't expect shopping malls- more small touristy stalls!), while still retaining the Goan charm, lots of dolphins, and some beautiful sunsets!

Next & final stop, Agonda!

xx

Incredible India (Part 4 - Patnem, Goa)

From Alleppey we caught an overnight train all the way up to Goa's central station Madgaon. Although Su & I have traveled on a tight, shoestring budget through Brazil, this was many years ago and, although exciting, in our older age the thought of an overnight train in India did give us slight goosebumps! In the end it turned out to be quite a pleasant experience!!

We had pre-booked tickets and the only availability was in first class (a real shame!), for £30 each. We were welcomed aboard the Rajdhani Express and into our private 2 person cabin, air conditioned cabin. We were very spoiled!! Even the toilets were much better than anticipated! We settled in for a good nights sleep, and were awoken by a loud "BANG BANG BANG" on our door at 6.30am, we nearly jumped out of the train window we got such a fright! Luckily it was only the morning tea - despite us saying we did not want it on boarding, and them making a note of this. Oh well! It was beautiful watching the scenery roll by being bathed in the Indian rising sun. 

View from the train

If you are planning to travel by rail in India, I highly recommend signing up for a Clear Trip account. Reserving tickets on Indian trains is quite a complicated process, with a very complex system - Clear trip hugely simplifies the process for you for a very small fee (about 30p per ticket). Many trains will sell out as soon as tickets are released (normally 90 days in advance), and you are then put on a waitlist for tickets. Normally as long as you are under 20 on the waiting list you should be fine! Also, be prepared for everyone to ask you for a tip, even people you have never seen and some people will ask you twice!

From Madgoan we jumped on an hour long bus (for 30p!) to the southern beaches. The first thing we noticed on the bus was how much more colourful the saris are here than in Kerla - so many fluorescent colours! Goa is much drier and dustier than Kerla, but there was still some lush jungle along the way.

We arrived in Patnem, and (still not having learnt our lesson) based on a Lonely Planet recommendation we went to 'SeaView Rooms'. The place was a dive and definitely didn't have seaviews, but we decided to stay anyway as we had been basically travelling since getting off the house boat the day before and were in desperate need of a shower! After checking in & paying for the night we almost skipped back to the room to have a shower. Guess what?? Water doesn't work!! And we have a HUGE cockroach in the room too. We tell the lady downstairs who promises us it will be fixed so in the meantime we went for some lunch & a swim in the sea - next best thing to a shower! We returned 3 hours later to find the water still not working and the cockroach still there too. All we want to do is have a shower now, so we politely explain the situation to the lady and say we would like to leave as we have not spent more than 5 mins in the room. Her answer "No". To put this lady into context, she could easily have been Miss Trunchball's twin in Matilda. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of her, but I'm sure you can imagine! We ask to speak to the manager, she says she is the manager but the man next door tells us she isn't, and she then concedes that she isn't the manager and he will be back later. We leave again, and go looking for a better place to stay, we found some lovely little huts which are 100 times nicer, and 100roupees cheaper. Winning! Returning to "Seaview" the manager is still not there and Miss Trunchball is refusing to give us even half of our money back so we went to get our bags from the room and leave. Seeing as they would not give us any refund we decided to keep the room key for the night we had paid for so that nobody else could be ripped off that night. Miss Trunchball then started screaming at us "NO, YOU CAN'T GO, I AM CALLING THE POLICE", excuse me?! After we have paid full price for a room where the water doesn't work and you have done nothing and we are now criminals?! We finally spoke to the manager on the phone who happened to be Miss Trunchball's brother and was just as helpful as she was and actually hung up on us! So we walked out with the key, at this point Miss Trunchball finally managed to get off her behind and come running after us into the street telling us to wait while she called the police, anything we tried to say she just replied "SHUT UP", the icing on the cake was when she screamed "SHUT UP, I DON'T LIKE YOU" whilst trying to grab my suitcase whilst the whole street was watching! We kept walking and she told her restaurant boys to follow us, but they were secretly giving us the thumbs up whenever she wasn't looking, so didn't really pay her much attention! All the tuk tuk drivers said "nasty woman", but we were still on the run! 

We checked into Casa Fiesta (which is a delight, if you happen to be going to Patnem), and explained the situation to the owner just in case the police did turn up and then we headed for some cocktails on the run (yogis like cocktails too sometimes)! 

Criminal cocktails on the run!

Of course, no police turned up, and we got to watch this magical sunset which made everything ok again!

As promised to Miss Trunchball, we diligently went to "check out" of Seaview Rooms the next morning, to which we received no more than a grunt from the ever delightful Miss T herself. Definitely give this one a miss, unless you enjoy the comedy of such situations!!

Aside from Seaview, Patnem is a lovely little beach full of beach bars & restaurants, and lots of puppies too! After the eventful arrival, we spent a quiet few days relaxing here in the sunshine - there is a very shanti (peaceful) vibe, lots of yogis and families too, no crazy wild parties (that we saw anyway). Once again, were joined by Lexy, & Tommy too, for a few days before they headed off on their North Indian adventures. 

Susan almost adopted a few puppies!

Beach-side yoga challenge!

Tough life!

Next stop, Palolem 

xx