We arrived a couple days ago to beautiful village called Benaulim....

We arrived a couple days ago to beautiful village called Benaulim. After two days of sightseeing we felt exhausted and too tired to continue. Benaulim turned out to be the perfect escape. White and empty beach just a few meters away from our coco hut made this very enjoyable place.

Ponda- place we went to before we arrived to Benaulim was another loud and busy place but only 2 km from it we found a spice plantation where we went for a tour on which we found out many interesting facts about spices and fruits growing there.

Center of Benaulim is quite far away from a beach but that didn’t discourage us to go there every day. It was a tiny place with only a few streets. Much quieter than Arambol and any other villages in Goa. The path to the center was surrounded by green fields with rice.

On of the many walks to the village we found a quiet cafe where we stop by to have a coffee and pancakes. The owner invited us to join him drinking his homemade alcohol fenny. We spent a nice evening listening to his plans about travelling.

Jirka and his biggest fan- Trilok

Our days could have been quiet without any noisy locals bothering us while sitting on the beach if we didn’t make friends with Trilok or more precisely if Jirka didn’t make a friend with him. This particular Indian was very special. He knew a few words: beach, hotel, bike, sun and he kept repeating it over and over again with some gestures just in case we didn’t know what is he talking about. Whenever Jirka was coming out of a hut Trilok was following him to have a conversation with him.

When we were leaving Benaulim,early in the morning, he run after us with tears in his eyes to walk us to the rickshaw. 

After the big disappointment that we met in Anjuna...

After the big disappointment that we met in Anjuna we are in Calangute. It’s our third and last day here.

Anjuna was tiny, messy and quite unfriendly village. There was no place to escape the heat and we couldn’t even hide anywhere since our temporary home was a tent on top of the roof.

Our roomate

After a sleepless night I woke up sick. Feeling nauseous I had to spend an hour in hot and bumpy bus to Calangute. While trying to find an accommodation we stop next to the hotel where I was resting and Jirka negotiating the price. It was too high and I was willing to keep going and then owner of the hotel showed up again. He saw me nearly dying in front of his property. He offered 600 RPS that we could accept that.I could rest in the spacious and chill room.One day and I was completely fine. 

The next day I had an energy to go for a day trip to Panaji where we got disappointed again, “the cutest city of India” as the guide book described turned out to be nothing more than ordinary. The pick of a day  was a visit to the Mahalaxim Temple. We are leaving Calangute tomorrow and we are going inland to Ponda.

Chilli prawns in our favorite dhaba in Calangute

 

Panaji

It has been a week in Arambol....

It has been a week in Arambol . I will miss that place and people we came across like Sona- our cook, waiter, housekeeper, receptionist. His laugh  made me smile every time. This tinny toothless man was one of the most warmhearted people I ever met. Seeing him every morning brought to our life a bit of sunshine.

Sona

But the queen of a laughter was Lina.  This 50 years old Norwegian rail worker from Bodo with a husky voice and crazy hair had many stories to tell and we loved to listen to her. Our friend accompanied us many times during our meals providing us entertainment.

Being a woman in this country is difficult....

Being a woman in this country is difficult. Men treats you like an object. If you have white skin you are an exotic creature and Indian men won't hesitate to take a picture, touch you or even kiss you. I have witnessed or experienced myself their way of being. Several times I found myself feeling rather uncomfortable or disgusted. I was always a tough independent woman but here I feel like a small girl that needs a protection. My respect for single girls that travelling a world has raised. Good that I have Jirka with me, without him I would probably need to sit inside of my hut to avoid situations like those I have described above. Evenings are especially challenging here, it's a time when men coming out to fish for girls that are on the beach without male company.

During nights I feel safe as I'm never left alone, even when Jirka is not around I have a guardian- ginger dog that  always comes every night to sit with us. He won't let anyone near us, barking at everybody who is passing by.

Meet Pepe

Pepe is a walnut. Yes, correct, he is a walnut. That's what happen when you have nutcases at your work and you one of the biggest one among them. Things like that happen on a daily basis and no one in the office was surprised when he appeared in our life.

Pepe was a great companion, he never asked for food or money, he pretty much never asked for anything. We had great hopes and expectations related to his presence. At the end he spent most of his time in India closed inside of my bag. 

Below some pictures from the time he wasn't a prison of my bag:

                        Big thanks to aunt Luisina who gave him a name, before he was nameless. 

We arrived to Arambol late....

We arrived to Arambol late but we didn't have to look for a hut too long. The very first sign "FREE HUTS"  we saw was our lucky one. The owner and his brother took us on their bikes to our lovely hut. We dumped our backpacks on the floor and run to the beach. Happiness that accompanied us is difficult to describe and only we could measure it. While sitting on the sand and watching the sea we heard music coming out from the distance. We decided to check out what is happening. We saw a crowd surrounding the Russian artist singing Hindi songs. I felt so distanced from reality. People were dancing around the fire and the energy of this place was so powerful that I wanted to stay in this state forever.

Next morning we woke up and we went discover our beach in the daylight. People were meditating and doing yoga. It is really peaceful here and if only Indians could leave us to enjoy that.  The moment we sat on the towel someone would come and try to sell jewelry, clothes, DVDs etc. Occasionally someone would like to clean our ears or offer the message. As a newbies we were very polite but still strong enough to refuse.

After loooong breakfast time for relax

In the evening we went swimming in the sunset and pretty much we did that every day since it was a part of our daily routine: morning swim, long breakfast, some relax with a book, walk, nap, dinner, sunset swim and sitting in the night with our ginger dog drinking beer and listening to Nada Surf.

                               

On our way to Goa

Today was our last day in Mumbai and what day would that be without a bit of adrenaline and a pinch of craziness.

When early in the morning we went to Churchgate we found that it is not a station from where we expected to take our train to Goa. Not loosing a time we got a rickshaw to the Mumbai Central Station. We had only 15 minutes to reach the correct station but our driver almost like a race car driver sped through the streets of sleepy Mumbai.

At the place we found that the Mumbai Central Station was also not the station where our train departs and unfortunately we had to continue our crazy race with a time.

Our driver didn't speak much and his response to our constant question: "Are we going to make it?", was: "Shhhhh!!!".

Cover in sweat and completely exhausted we reached the station from where we took the train to Goa.