India

We arrived at Goa late last night and by the time we got through immigration it was about midnight. We had thought it would be a half hour journey in a taxi to the hotel we had booked in Agonda but when we met the taxi driver he told us we were an hour later than he expected and that the drive would take an hour, getting us to the hotel at 1 in the morning. We asked if the hotel would still be open for us to check in, he didn't really respond. We sat through the long journey not really sure what would happen when we got to the other side.

On the route we were stopped for a police check. The taxi driver wound down his window and the police officer playfully flashed a torch in his eyes repeatedly without really saying anything, just like he was jokingly being annoying and blinding our driver. After that he stood back and let us drive off. It was mad. When we arrived at the hotel we checked in fine and had a couple of beers while sat outside in the courtyard. At bed time we attempted to put up a mosquito net my parents had given me but there was nowhere to hang it from and it turned out it was only a single bed net anyway. I tried pretty hard but eventually gave up.

This morning we got a rickshaw from Agonda to Palolem, it was about a 15 minute journey and cost about 300 rupees which is roughly £3.30. We were dropped at the end of a street with markets and walked down with our bags with people shouting "taxi" at us from every direction. Quite a few guys came up trying to get us to rent their beach huts, eventually we followed one guy and checked into a place for 4 nights for 500 rupees per night (£5.50sh).

We sat about and had beers all day. I couldn't go swimming in the sea because I had a rash with blisters forming and I didn't know what it was and didn't want it getting infected or anything. Fabien got his first paneer tikka masala which he had been so excited about. It was fun 😊🏝️Read more