Winter Wonderland (Palolem, India)

Such A long Journey

Well, as you all know, I'm in Goa right now enjoying my Christmas holidays. Its like I'm on vacation away from the rest of India. It took quite a while to get here. I had to take a train ride from Udaipur to Ahmdebad where I arrived at 5am. There was this awful, chemical like smell lingering around all night in my cramped upper bunk as I tried to sleep. I asked this Israeli guy what he thought it was and he came back at me with this cocky response "that's the smell of India!". I know what the smell of India is like you idiot, thanks anyway! Well, thanks to that smell, I ended up being quite nauseous and felt quite ill and feverish. I was intending on going to this Gandhi Ashram for a couple hours while I waited for my next train at 11:30am. That was no cigar. I ended up just going across the street and slept in this hotel for 4hrs.

The next train ride, I was originally waitlisted as #127 and made it down to #29. Either way, I didn't have a reserved seat/bunk on the train. I got on anyway and ended up sitting with this nice Indian family. I waited all day for the ticket collector to come around, but he never showed. The family ended up feeding me dinner and let me sleep in on the floor of their compartment. Phew... I don't know where I would have slept otherwise. The floor wasn't so bad.

Beach Bum

So needless to say, for the last week I've just been sitting on the beach mostly and doing a whole lot of nothing. Its so relaxing not having to worry about what sights to see and what city I should go to next and finding a new room to sleep in, etc, etc. Allen says that travelling in India is hard work, I'll have to agree. My vacation is a nice treat to myself. I guess its my Christmas present that I've bought for me.

I spent the first 3 days at this beach in a village called Benaulim but have now been at Palolem for the last 3 nights. I was able to meet these nice English girls, Alex, Sanne, Kay & Cat. I've been hanging out mostly with Alex and Sanne. We arrived here a couple days before Cat and Kay and got a cool little hut right by the beach.

A place to call home

So our huts are these tiny little rooms that are made out of bamboo sticks, blue tarps, beach mats and some palm leaves. We're actually on these stilts that make us about 6 feet off the ground. Every time you walk up the wooden stairs or even just turn in your bed, you feel the whole fixture wobble! I'm not too worried about it though. We've even got a balcony with a couple of chairs that we share with Paul, our neighbor from Vancouver. The hut is only costing us Rs-200, whereas some of the huts on the beach are like Rs400-Rs800! That's crazy. I guess its what happens every year at peak season. We've got a mosquito net, electricty, a fan, two large beds, a little mosquito repellent and a little table. Its amazing, all the stuff we can fit in there. Alex and Sanne are sharing a bed and I obviously get one to myself.

Deck the halls with boughs of holly...

Even though we're in a foreign country where's there's no snow and no Christmas commercialism, we were still able to decorate our place to make it feel like home.

Last night I made about 10 different sized snowflakes out of paper and hung them all around our ceiling. Everytime you walk in the door, its like a winter wonderland! As well, Alex received a couple xmas cards and she's hung them up for decor on the wall. She also bought a big colorful star that we've hung up at the top of the stairs. They're actually supposed to be put over top a light bulb and look really cool at night time (many of the restaurants have them, its really beautiful actually). I bought some cinnamon incense and we burn them to give us that smell of Christmas. I've even got some henna done on me (Alex and Sanne have taken it up as a hobby), so right now I've got a band on my arm that is made out of stars and little pine trees. On my chest I've got the symbol of Ham, a chakra or something, we took it out of a reiki book. This isn't for Christmas decor though.

A celebration

This evening, (Christmas Eve), there's all these parties going around and some nice dinner deals along the beach. I on the other hand am going to be a good boy and go to midnight mass. Each year, my siblings and I always try to find an excuse to not go, however, we all end up going anyway. I figure this year, I should go voluntarily on my own. The family that owns our huts, has offered to take me with them, since I have no idea where the church is. I hope that once I arrive back at 1am or whatever, I can find a place to have a midnight snack, in the tradition my family follows.

Tomorrow night (Christmas day), there's going to be 6 of us all going out for Turkey Dinner at this restaurant on the beach. Its a little pricy, but Christmas is always expensive isn't it? We've got some festivities planned. I took the liberty of printing off "T'was the night before Christmas" and a bunch of Christmas carol lyrics. How typical of me. As well, we're going to each buy a generic present for Rs-200 and do a gift exchange. I have yet to do my shopping!!! Oh well, I've only got one to buy. How typical of me.

Cheeky!

One night in Benaulim, Alex, Sanne and I all had a bit of a night out. We had a great dinner (by the way, the food in Goa is the best I've had all over India. There's seafood everywhere, and chicken, beef and pork. I've yet to try the beef and I don't intend to.) and then we were off to "Pedro's" where there was a "beach party". Well, it started out with just this duo on the keyboards and this girl singing some Western songs. She actually had a nice voice. After some port wine and a few other drinks, the dance floor filled up quite nicely. Mostly with Indian men dancing together, a sight you normally don't see in Canada. There was a lack of women at the party (you would never see an Indian woman there), so Alex and Sanne became very popular. We were trying to just dance with ourselves, but the men kept taking them away and wanting to have a dance. It was good fun, I haven't danced in a long time and it was well deserved. I just wish that the band and the restaurant had a bigger music selection. They only had like 7 or 8 dance type songs that they played over and over. One of them was the Cheeky, Cheeky song. I did a bit of booty dancing!


Anyway, I'm off to do my last minute, or my first minute shopping. I hope that all of you reading this have an excellent Christmas! God bless!