So I finally said goodbye to Goa.
Goa was a wonderful place to start my journey of India. The beaches are golden like the fine silk thread woven into the prettiest sari's and the ocean glitters like blue topaz under a bright buttercup sun.
The people are like the food, spicy and delicious and you can not help but surrender to the aromatic, majestic energy of Goa that envelopes you in her seductive charms.
I left feeling sad because I had fallen in love with Agonda. I felt I had betrayed my old lover Palolem who I'm sure would be jealous but Agonda left me mesmerised and under it's spell from the moment my tuk tuk dropped me at the beautiful white church in the centre of town all those weeks ago.
I never expected to fall so head over heels in love with the people as I did. I thought the friends I had made in Palolem would be perhaps the favourite of my trip but the more time I spend in India the more I can see that the people are like the sunsets, every day they become more beautiful and leave you more enchanted than they did the day before.
I boarded my flight to Chennai on time and wiped my tears away as I saw Goa disappear like a beautiful dream under a blanket of white fluffy clouds.
The flight was pleasant apart from all the throat clearing that went on. I was glad my sister wasn't on that flight she would have gone straight over to the gentleman in his creased suit and dusty sandals and grabbed him by his creased lapel and told him about himself. I know it is a cultural thing and to be honest I have lived in Egypt and God knows there is a whole lot of throat clearing and spitting and dragging lumpy matter from nasal pipes and firing it across pavements, so to be honest I had heard it all before, it is unpleasant but then again I am just an up tight chick from the west.
We touched down briefly in Bangalore to collect more throat clearer's in dusty sandals and then we were back on track for Chennai. I had a tight connection so as soon as I got off one flight I was pelting through the airport to board the next. I had been given my boarding card already in Goa for my connecting flight so I just needed to know the gate from which I would be boarding. Well it was like trying to get blood out of a poppadom, no bugger could tell me where to go.
My flight was on the board but there was no gate allocated. I was told by one gentleman to go and wait upstairs and watch the TV monitor. I waited for about 15 mins but still no gate allocation was showing on the board and it was 20 mins prior to departure.
I asked some young girl in a uniform and she said with a vacant look and a lot of head wiggling that she didn't know and just to wait, nice one luv. I decided to go back downstairs to where I started and noticed that my flight was nearly finished boarding through one of the gates on the ground floor, good bloody job I didn't listen to that daft bird upstairs who wouldn't know her arse from a hole in the ground.
We boarded the smallest aircraft I have ever seen in my life it looked like a hairdryer on wheels. There was a stunning air hostess, she really could have been on any catwalk in Paris, London or Milan. She was tall, slender with pale skin and perfect features. Angelina Jolie lips, Kate Moss's upturned nose, Halle Berry's cherry chocolate eyes and instantly I felt frumpy in my baggy ali barba trousers and floaty linen top.
The flight was only 1hr and 30min so before I knew it we were advised of our decent into Thiruvananthapuram Kerala. I was dead excited and was relieved that I was being met at the airport by a driver who would take me straight to Bio veda so I didn't have all the hassle of arguing over the fare with taxi driver after taxi driver that I knew would be waiting for fresh meat outside arrivals
I was told that someone would be waiting with a sign saying Bio Veda but as I came through there was no sign. There was loads of eager taxi drivers but i told them I had a friend coming to meet me and they backed away lining up their next prey. I sat down and got talking to an Indian girl who had been away in Saudi Arabia for 11 months working as a nurse. She had 2 enormous suitcases and 4 huge cardboard boxes wrapped up with orange string. I wondered if she had decided to take some camels home with her an a Bedouin tent.
She told me her whole family were coming to the airport to meet her, that they had hired a bus especially. Her mother and Father were coming her brothers sisters and their partners and children, her uncles and Aunties and grandparents and her next door neighbours and their two goats and five chickens. I was so looking forward to watching that lot arrive and tumble out of the bus to meet their very missed relative but my driver arrived so I had to say good bye.
Jose helped me into his very flash 4x4 with AC i might add and asked me to jump in the front so I could have the privilege of using his laptop. We zoomed through the streets of Thiruvananthapuram Kerala's capital with Jose pointing out temples and colonial buildings and he laughed at my jokes that it was a good trade to get rid of the British but keep the nice railway that they built.
Jose is a lovely talkative man and told me all about his life here in Kerala. He is a christian and holds a very strong position in the church. He loves God and talked with pride of the charity work he does with under privileged children in his community. He told me to look through the photos on his dash board that were of all the Karate tournaments he had taken part in. There were photos of him smashing through pieces of wood the size of 5 telephone books and smashing through wood with his head. I realised that if Jose turned out to be a kidnapper and murderer there would be no point me trying to fight him off I may as well just throw myself from the moving car right now and have done save all the hassle later.
We were met in the darkness at Bio Veda by Sunhill the owner and a man that works at the resort. Sunhill escorted me to 'my cottage' which was nestled beside a rock face with a temple perched on its summit. We were surrounded by beautiful trees and gardens which were lit by twinkling lights
The cottage was made of mahogany wood and had a huge double bed with crisp white sheets a thick mattress and plump white pillows. It was so so pretty and I was eager to unpack my things and make my self at home. The first thing of course is placing my Roland Rat on the bed, he always checks the bed out first making sure it is up to scratch. Then once unpacked I lit some incense and a candle and sat and thanked God for my safe arrival in Kerala and for the wonderful people I had met in my first few hours.
I never sleep well anywhere the first night so I lay in the darkness listening to the sounds of the mountains, the rustle of the warm night breeze through the trees and the sound of the animals enjoying the peace of the moonlight.
I eventually slept but was woken by a lions roar. I had been told by my friends in Goa that there was a lion sanctuary on an island across the lake. I wasn't to happy that they sounded so close and so hungry and I really hoped that they were not into vegetarians as I was full of spinach and lentils and surly they would be better off with someone who had just had a nice piece of steak and I also wondered how well lions could swim.
I got up to go to the loo but couldn't find my flash light so I just used the light from my phone which was pretty dim but i didn't want the brightness of the room light as I was still half asleep. I made my way to the bathroom and was about to turn around to sit myself down when in the darkness I thought I saw something black in the loo. Now I knew i hadn't graced the loo with anything of such a description, a chance would be a fine thing but I am still officially the only constipated person in the whole of India so I knew whatever was down there shouldn't be so I was forced to put on the light and to my horror a great big bottle green toad was looking back at me with his bulging greedy eyes. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I screamed and i hoped I hadn't woken the whole lion pack who would come looking for the root of the disturbance.
A bloody great big toad was jumping about in the loo and then jumped out and started jumping all over the white tiled floor chasing me away into the next room. I slammed the doors behind me and bolted them for good measure and had to relieve myself ever so gracefully into a mango juice can.
I am so glad I looked first can you imagine what could have happened had I not taken my phone with me into the bathroom, what if I had just sat my unsuspecting behind on top of the seat entrapping the toad inside the loo. Oh my god what a terrible thought he would surly want to escape and the only way out would be up it really gives a whole new meaning to Toad in the Hole!!!!!!
Goa was a wonderful place to start my journey of India. The beaches are golden like the fine silk thread woven into the prettiest sari's and the ocean glitters like blue topaz under a bright buttercup sun.
The people are like the food, spicy and delicious and you can not help but surrender to the aromatic, majestic energy of Goa that envelopes you in her seductive charms.
I left feeling sad because I had fallen in love with Agonda. I felt I had betrayed my old lover Palolem who I'm sure would be jealous but Agonda left me mesmerised and under it's spell from the moment my tuk tuk dropped me at the beautiful white church in the centre of town all those weeks ago.
I never expected to fall so head over heels in love with the people as I did. I thought the friends I had made in Palolem would be perhaps the favourite of my trip but the more time I spend in India the more I can see that the people are like the sunsets, every day they become more beautiful and leave you more enchanted than they did the day before.
I boarded my flight to Chennai on time and wiped my tears away as I saw Goa disappear like a beautiful dream under a blanket of white fluffy clouds.
The flight was pleasant apart from all the throat clearing that went on. I was glad my sister wasn't on that flight she would have gone straight over to the gentleman in his creased suit and dusty sandals and grabbed him by his creased lapel and told him about himself. I know it is a cultural thing and to be honest I have lived in Egypt and God knows there is a whole lot of throat clearing and spitting and dragging lumpy matter from nasal pipes and firing it across pavements, so to be honest I had heard it all before, it is unpleasant but then again I am just an up tight chick from the west.
We touched down briefly in Bangalore to collect more throat clearer's in dusty sandals and then we were back on track for Chennai. I had a tight connection so as soon as I got off one flight I was pelting through the airport to board the next. I had been given my boarding card already in Goa for my connecting flight so I just needed to know the gate from which I would be boarding. Well it was like trying to get blood out of a poppadom, no bugger could tell me where to go.
My flight was on the board but there was no gate allocated. I was told by one gentleman to go and wait upstairs and watch the TV monitor. I waited for about 15 mins but still no gate allocation was showing on the board and it was 20 mins prior to departure.
I asked some young girl in a uniform and she said with a vacant look and a lot of head wiggling that she didn't know and just to wait, nice one luv. I decided to go back downstairs to where I started and noticed that my flight was nearly finished boarding through one of the gates on the ground floor, good bloody job I didn't listen to that daft bird upstairs who wouldn't know her arse from a hole in the ground.
We boarded the smallest aircraft I have ever seen in my life it looked like a hairdryer on wheels. There was a stunning air hostess, she really could have been on any catwalk in Paris, London or Milan. She was tall, slender with pale skin and perfect features. Angelina Jolie lips, Kate Moss's upturned nose, Halle Berry's cherry chocolate eyes and instantly I felt frumpy in my baggy ali barba trousers and floaty linen top.
The flight was only 1hr and 30min so before I knew it we were advised of our decent into Thiruvananthapuram Kerala. I was dead excited and was relieved that I was being met at the airport by a driver who would take me straight to Bio veda so I didn't have all the hassle of arguing over the fare with taxi driver after taxi driver that I knew would be waiting for fresh meat outside arrivals
I was told that someone would be waiting with a sign saying Bio Veda but as I came through there was no sign. There was loads of eager taxi drivers but i told them I had a friend coming to meet me and they backed away lining up their next prey. I sat down and got talking to an Indian girl who had been away in Saudi Arabia for 11 months working as a nurse. She had 2 enormous suitcases and 4 huge cardboard boxes wrapped up with orange string. I wondered if she had decided to take some camels home with her an a Bedouin tent.
She told me her whole family were coming to the airport to meet her, that they had hired a bus especially. Her mother and Father were coming her brothers sisters and their partners and children, her uncles and Aunties and grandparents and her next door neighbours and their two goats and five chickens. I was so looking forward to watching that lot arrive and tumble out of the bus to meet their very missed relative but my driver arrived so I had to say good bye.
Jose helped me into his very flash 4x4 with AC i might add and asked me to jump in the front so I could have the privilege of using his laptop. We zoomed through the streets of Thiruvananthapuram Kerala's capital with Jose pointing out temples and colonial buildings and he laughed at my jokes that it was a good trade to get rid of the British but keep the nice railway that they built.
Jose is a lovely talkative man and told me all about his life here in Kerala. He is a christian and holds a very strong position in the church. He loves God and talked with pride of the charity work he does with under privileged children in his community. He told me to look through the photos on his dash board that were of all the Karate tournaments he had taken part in. There were photos of him smashing through pieces of wood the size of 5 telephone books and smashing through wood with his head. I realised that if Jose turned out to be a kidnapper and murderer there would be no point me trying to fight him off I may as well just throw myself from the moving car right now and have done save all the hassle later.
We were met in the darkness at Bio Veda by Sunhill the owner and a man that works at the resort. Sunhill escorted me to 'my cottage' which was nestled beside a rock face with a temple perched on its summit. We were surrounded by beautiful trees and gardens which were lit by twinkling lights
The cottage was made of mahogany wood and had a huge double bed with crisp white sheets a thick mattress and plump white pillows. It was so so pretty and I was eager to unpack my things and make my self at home. The first thing of course is placing my Roland Rat on the bed, he always checks the bed out first making sure it is up to scratch. Then once unpacked I lit some incense and a candle and sat and thanked God for my safe arrival in Kerala and for the wonderful people I had met in my first few hours.
I never sleep well anywhere the first night so I lay in the darkness listening to the sounds of the mountains, the rustle of the warm night breeze through the trees and the sound of the animals enjoying the peace of the moonlight.
I eventually slept but was woken by a lions roar. I had been told by my friends in Goa that there was a lion sanctuary on an island across the lake. I wasn't to happy that they sounded so close and so hungry and I really hoped that they were not into vegetarians as I was full of spinach and lentils and surly they would be better off with someone who had just had a nice piece of steak and I also wondered how well lions could swim.
I got up to go to the loo but couldn't find my flash light so I just used the light from my phone which was pretty dim but i didn't want the brightness of the room light as I was still half asleep. I made my way to the bathroom and was about to turn around to sit myself down when in the darkness I thought I saw something black in the loo. Now I knew i hadn't graced the loo with anything of such a description, a chance would be a fine thing but I am still officially the only constipated person in the whole of India so I knew whatever was down there shouldn't be so I was forced to put on the light and to my horror a great big bottle green toad was looking back at me with his bulging greedy eyes. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I screamed and i hoped I hadn't woken the whole lion pack who would come looking for the root of the disturbance.
A bloody great big toad was jumping about in the loo and then jumped out and started jumping all over the white tiled floor chasing me away into the next room. I slammed the doors behind me and bolted them for good measure and had to relieve myself ever so gracefully into a mango juice can.
I am so glad I looked first can you imagine what could have happened had I not taken my phone with me into the bathroom, what if I had just sat my unsuspecting behind on top of the seat entrapping the toad inside the loo. Oh my god what a terrible thought he would surly want to escape and the only way out would be up it really gives a whole new meaning to Toad in the Hole!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment