It's A Hard Life

Our bus to North Goa took us through several small villages. Actually it took so long it must have taken us to every village on every small road, but I loved it. You got a sense of what Goa is like besides the tourist resorts. It is an odd place, tropical, but at the same time with a very European architecture, Portuguese.

Some of the houses reminded me of my grandmother's back in Galicia. So while in the bus and seeing all the children coming out of school, memories of Cuba's countryside kept coming back.

Goa, as opposed to Rajastan, has got an almost 100% literacy level, as like Cuba they have placed great importance on education. As we drove through the countryside we passed several schools with the children coming out for lunch. We also stopped at a school for mentally disabled children, their mothers collecting them and getting on the bus. It was a much more encouraging picture than the one seen up North.

Here's the view from our room....

On our first day here we went down to the beach. I even did an 8am morning swim. Here 's Charles with the lake behind him...

We also went down to the freshwater lake, and upstream, as we read about some sulphurus mud that's meant to be good for the skin. So off I went to get myself a mask...I couldn't stop myself.

It smells as bad as it looks, but hey, it was free...

We chose a resort in the very north, Arambol, as it's meant to be less touristy, less party orientated. There are still people here, and sadly there's quite a bit of building going on. However, the locals have stopped any large resorts being built, so it's managed to keep a more relaxed air to the place. I have also managed to have chicken breast with garlic sauce and chips...topped up with two doubles of the local liqueur, at 25pence a piece it's a winner.

So here I am relaxing, and trying to learn to the meaning of the word...compromising. I have never been that good at it, but I've come to realise that as much as this is my one year trip, and that my money has somehow to last, it's also Charles' holiday.

He doesn't like roughing it, it must be something from his upbringing, so I have to compromise (I had to ask him what was that word that started with comp...).

Some of my issues though are not to do with money. For example I dont want to take tuk tuks, as they mostly run kerosene and are terrible polluters. I also like walking, just to see how people live their lives, not to be driven around, but it's not all, i accept, about me.

We have decided to start our malaria drugs. We were going to wait til we were going off to keralla's backwaters, but there has been a sharp increase in malaria cases near here so we've decided not to chance it. Also I'm getting eating alive by the local insects. I'm even showering in bloody DEET.

I decided in london I was going to mix Malarone with Doxiclone. The first one is too expensive for long periods (it's over £3 a day), but I need it for my whole time in Laos. I'm just hoping that I dont get any wild side effects. I don't tend to, not even with the yellow fever one that's the strongest.

Anyway, I'm off for now...