Palolem Beach, India

The hut we stayed in the first night was not great! The fan kept cutting out in the night and it was so hot anyway even with it on. The bathroom was dark and full of mosquitoes and other insects. Fabien bought some bug spray and fumigated the room before bed, but we woke up in the morning and there were two upturned - but not yet dead - cockroaches in the bathroom, waving their legs in the air. We were both too grossed out to use the bathroom and couldn't stand the thought of showering in there. We spent the day walking up and down the beach finding out prices of other huts and speaking to the lady about getting the money back on our accommodation which she refused, in the end it was agreed we could upgrade to a fancy hut with air-conditioning for a night and get 200 rupees of our money back. It meant we were forced into staying in an expensive room but it was better than losing our money altogether or being forced to stay in the gross room.

I also had a funny turn yesterday, my rash is getting worse and more painful, we were sat at the restaurant and I got heavy and dizzy for a while and almost blacked out. I told Fabien I thought we needed to go to hospital but after a lay down in our air conditioned room I started to feel a little better. On the walk up and down the beach looking at other beach huts we realised it might be shingles which makes sense because I was so stressed before we left.

Today we moved to the nicest of the huts we found on our walk. We made a deal to pay 700 rupees per night for four nights but pay at the end. That's roughly £7.80 per night for a private beach hut. They aren't air conditioned and can get a bit hot, but they're so clean. No bugs. And brightly day light filled bathroom.

We saw fireworks on the beach tonight, only about three, but it was fun. Also there's a cute little puppy and it's parents at this section of huts and restaurant. They play all the time.

The yellow hut is the fancy upgrade, the tropical area is our new hut.Read more