Ok, I've finally managed to get the motivation to decide to leave Palolem. We're leaving tomorrow. Only problem is that we can't decice where to go next! I'm not doing very well at this 'travelling' thing...so far I haven't been so much "travelling", as "sunbathing". But it's all good... :) My friend Paul who i know from Singapore is going home to Pune (west india) on 5th march, so i'll be going to visit him soon! I've been a bit more active the last few days. I hired a scooter and have been burning around finding new beaches and sitting on them. It's important work.... ;) Have been getting battered by the waves all day... ears still full of water.... :) Have spent the last few days hangin out with Danell and an English chick called Adel. Man, if I don't go and see some stuff soon this is gonna turn into one hell of a boring blog!....

Day 37: Got up, ate, swam, ate, drank, slept.

Ok, I promise to start doing more interesting things soon......
Right, I'm not sure what else to say, except this: If you are a politician, please can you not blow anyone up while I'm away. thanks.

hello again,

well, still in Palolem, and not a great deal has changed since last time I spoke (except the space bar here works fine). I'm pouring sweat as I type, cos this net cafe is soooo hot! no fan or anything.... But, life is good. Well for me anyway. Maybe not so great for the Iraqis.....

Bizzare really, that my chosen travelling companion is actually PRO war in Iraq! Who would have thought. We sit together, me with my "blood is thicker than oil" t-shirt, and him with his view that attacking Iraq is the best thing america has done since Friends was first aired. But for Israel it is good, because it stops us looking at them and lets them get on with the hard task of blowing up buildings (and ppl) to secure peace in the region....... Danell agrees, however, that Ariel Cheron is a dick. Tricky one really.

Anyway, back to Goa. I tried the local drink last night. It's called Feni and is brewed from cashew nuts of coconuts, nut through some form of distillation, they mange to somehow make it taste like petrol! Amazing! I have to admit, I didn't finish my glass, even after mixing it with a generous amount of coke. Coke....... man I've been drinking a lot of that stuff! It just jumps out at you whenever you cant quite decide what to drink...all those ads come swimming back into my conciousness, and I find myself thinking "hell, why not? just for the taste of it! I mean, it IS the 'real thing'.... so I 'always' and up drinking it. On the other hand, a coke costs 15 rupees (20p) and a beer costs 20 rupees, so it's a hard one...... bargain. :) I've tried almost every restaurant on the beach and finally found one that kicks ass. God bless Indian food! Or ganesh or buddah or whoever's free to do an impromtu blessing at very short notice.....

Right, I am GASPING for a piss, so i'm gonna love ya and leave ya! I hope your all doing ok. I'll try and get more pics up soon!

laters....

good day to you from palolem. I'm afraid the space bar on this keybaord is very stiff, making it very difficult to hit with my thumb, so from the next line I'm not going to use it anymore.

ok,that'sbetter.now,wherewasi? ohyes,iminpalolem,whichisthesouthernmostbeachingoa. it'stotallybeatifulandallthat,andthe sunsetshavebeenawesome.imsharingabeachhutonstiltswithdanell. youcanseehtepalmtreesthruthewallwhichisveryniceinthemornings...

Ok, thats even hurting my eyes. but this is hurting my thumb! god damnit! well, i added to my "sun tan" today. Now I'm as brown as a fox. :) All this spicy food isn't doing my digestion any good I have to say. time for another lassi i think....
Right, this is too much like hard work I'm afraid, so I'm goona do what Should be done. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, so I'm gonna get going! Seeya!

hi guys! well, I've finally managed to get a few pics online.... go to

http://photos.yahoo.com/undercover_hippy

and look in the "India" folder. can't put them in here cos cant link to yahoo photos. cant be arsed to upload to my own website...
Anyway, I've moved on from Vagator now. I'm in Panji again, and heading off tomorrow to Palolem, which is right in the south of goa. It's supposed to be the most beautiful beach here, so fingers crossed... So anyway, the rave didn't happen! It was cancelled because they had already had 2 in the last 2 days, so the police stopped it..... BUT, we still managed to go and party all night at a club in Vagator. We were just abt to give up and go to bed when I stopped to chat to our neigbours, and they told us about this party in the "primrose" bar, so we tagged along with them, and they brough the littluns along, so a very good time was had by all! :) I danced and jiggled and boogied all night. The music stopped at 2am, but ppl weren't really in the mood to leave, so we just stayed and tapped our feet to the rhytmic clapping of an old drunk who just sat there with his eye's closed, swaying from side to side, and clappng rhythmically for about 2 hours.... Then the next day I finally managed to get a bit of colour in my skin! WOO HOO! admittedly the colour is red, which isn't actually what I was after, but hey, it's better than white! :) so anyway, i've just spent the last hour chatting to my gf using 2 webcams, so I don have any time left, so go look at my photos, and i'll speak to y'all soon..... adios amigos!

Hey nonny no! I've moved from my little haven of Residensea chalets! I'm now in Vagator, which is a cool, hip, happening place where all the young things come to party and show off their wild and crazy, yet identical, haircuts and outfits. I'm finally going to a party tonight...... i think..... well the thing is I said that last night, and then I chickened out at the last minute.... But NO! Today is different! Today i have moved to this spot specifically to be closer to the party scene, and start acting my age (20) again! I gonna large it! give it some! have it large! get mashed trashed smashed and de-cashed! I'm gonna rave all night man! Yeah! Well maybe not all night..... maybe just until about 3am......or maybe 2...... perhaps I'll just go to a bar for a some drinks....... or maybe I'll just get a few beers in at home...... or I guess I could just go to bed now....... yes, that's probably the best bet, bed now...... ok, night night all! :)

Hello friends. :) Well, here's my musings for today... When I decided to come travelling, one of the things that appealed to me was that I would meet other like-minded (open minded?) people who would, by virtue of the fact that they are travelling at all, be interesting. However, as time passes I'm starting to realise that this is not the case, or at least not in Goa. I've met some painfully boring ppl since getting here. My guesthouse has more than it's fair share of self obsessed designer hippies desperate to talk about themselves to anyone bored enough to listen... ;) But the guy I'm sharing a place with is a good guy, except he encourages me to smoke in the mornings.... ;) But yeah, it's like a big fashion show here. Everyone has to conform by wearing the uniform of the non-conformist. "longi" trousers, indian cotton shirt, small embroidered bag slung over the shoulder...maybe an anklet or two.... And some of the ppl I've tried to have conversations with...they just open their mouths, and all that comes out is "mememememememememememememememe you mememememememememememe you memememememememememe". It's most frustrating. They're not all like that tho of course. And I have to say all the Brits I've met have been very friendly and down to earth. It's very awkward when I end up with a group of Israelis tho, because they will all speak hebrew even tho they know you can't understand, which is the first time I've experienced that. Most ppl automatically switch to english when they know you're being excluded. Oh well, I guess non-english speakers have to put up with this shit all the time!! :) Anyway, today is my last day here, so I think I'm going to walk to the lake and cover myself in mud. Apparantly the mud has great healing powers..... sounds like fun. :)

Been back in the land of the living for a day now. Damn good to be back! :) Spent the day yesterday just lying on the beach and then went out for drinks in the evening. We went out with this english guy we met, to meet some of his friends. I thought he seemed pretty camp and his friends were too, so I guessed they were probably all gay, but what i didn't realise is that they assumed that me and Danell were actually together!! Oh dear. I'll have to work on my macho walk. Anyway, had quite a fun night. Except for the DJ!! My god! That man must have been employed by satan himself! All night he played a mix of Slovenian rock and funeral/wedding music!!! It was wrist slittingly awful. WHY!? Luckily the power cut halfway through the night, and the rest of the night was spent in quiet moonlight. I've decided that I have to start doing something soon. I've done nothing for long enough! I think maybe I'll climb to the top of the headland and take a picture. That should take me all of 30 minutes! Well, it's the full moon soon, so I rekon that's a good excuse to move down to the party beaches and do a bit of old fashioned raving! :) In fact, I really need to find out exactly when it is.... by the way, happy valentines day everyone! I hope you all get a nice valentines hug/kiss/blowjob/shag (depending on age and experience). I'll be spending it a few thousand miles away from my baby...... :( Anyway, I'd better go...things to do, ppl to see... ;)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! God is punishing me for gloating yesterday!! After writing yesterday, I started getting a bit of a stomache ache, and I've been buggered ever since! I was going to go to the market at Anjuna today, but I feel sick as a dog... Oh well, I'm sure you're all enjoying my suffering no end, so I guess something good has come of it. I've spent most of the day culed up on my bed cluthing my achey tum, but I've ventured out now.... not sure it was good idea mind you, I feel a few rumblings going on down there.....

I got chatting to a guy in the internet cafe yesterday. He's originally from Goa, but has lived in the UK and New York, and sells lingerie... He was so pleased to meet an Englishman that he was inviting me to his uncles, offering me help with everything imaginable, and sharing in my obvious grief at the death of the Queen Mother.... "She was a truly wonderful lady...." Well, I got a nice pic of the sunset yesterday, and I've just found out that I can upload pics here, so maybe tomorrow....

I've been at this beach since yesterday, but it feels like i've been here forever! It really is beautiful. The sun hasn't stopped shining once since i got here (except at night that is) and there's been a lovely cool sea breeze. At night it actually gets quite cold, but I have a sleeping bag so I'm laughin! :) I can sit on the little veranda of my hut, and watch the beach and the sunset, and order cold drinks and food from the restaurant. The life of a king... Sharing a bed isn't ideal, but it's only sleep. I have to admit I got woken up by the bed shaking everytime Danel (the israeli guy I'm sharing with) moves, but I somehow doubt anyone out there is about to feel even a shred of sympathy for me... ;) By the way, thanks for sending me e-mails ppl, I love hearing from you all. Sorry if sometimes I don't reply, but the connection here is so slow that you have to wait ten minutes for each page to load.... I wrote a group e-mail yesterday, but the connection went down just as I tried to send it....

Anyway, I don't have a lot to tell now... So far today, I've eaten, given myself the munchies, eaten again, gone swimming, sunbathed, and then eaten again.... So, for now I'd better sign off. see y'all... :)

I arrived in Arumbol today, which is a beach in north Goa. It's pretty chilled to say the least. Most of the travellers here are Israeli, which was a surprise! I slept with a complete stranger the other night! First time for everything i suppose.... He kept sticking his bits into me while I was trying to sleep...most annoying... before you get the wrong idea, it was on a 'sleeper' bus from bombay to goa. Cos i'm alone, i ended up in a 'bed' next to an indian guy, who luckily for me was thin and clean (as opposed to fat and smelly) so it wasn't too bad. But it is very odd fighting for bed space with someone you haven't even spoken too! I got the bus to panjai, which is the capital of goa. It's a nice city, but the beach was calling me, so this morning i got the local bus to Arumbol. I met an israeli guy getting off the bus and now I'm gonna share a beach hut with him (I'm making a bit of a habit of sharing beds with strange men....). The scene here seems to be to do as little as possible in a haze of smoke and swimming. can't complain! :) I said goodbye to my dutch pals, as they wanted to go to see 'old goa', which is a bunch of cathedral riuns, and i just couldn't face another day without having the sea to jump into when i get too hot.... I met a couple of indian guys in a cafe this morning while i ate breakfast. They were telling me how they are planning on moving to the UK once they get their portugese passports... I told them they must be mad! Why does everyone want to leave there own laid back lifestyles in the sun to get a semi-detatched council house in Bradford??? Oh well, whatever makes you happy..... anyway, times nearly up, so i'd better go

My second day in India, and feeling a lot better. :) I managed to make 2 new friends yesterday, a dutch couple. They were also trying to get to the train station to book tickets to Goa, so we went together. Were all getting the coach to Goa this evening at 5pm (the train was full, gutted). The coach takes 17 hours!!! Thats almost twice as long as my flight here!! It's gonna be a rough trip.... Well, my impressions of india so far are good. From all the stuff I was told, i was expecting a big pile of poo covered in flies with a lady squatting on top having another poo.... But the part of bombay I'm in is clean (by asian standards) and not smelly at all. Obviously there are street kids and beggers, and every stall owner runs out to grab my attention when he see the large dollar sign tatooed on my forehead, but that's just part of the deal when you come to these places wearing white skin. Last night walking back from having dinner, one little street girl came over and gave me the usual "hand to mouth" gesture whilst saying "money", and me being stupid just can't bring myself to completely ignore them, so instead i look at her and say "no, sorry", which to her translates as "yes, maybe", so she grabs my wrist in a vice like grip and follows me all the way home (about 15 minutes) all the way doing her begging routine. So all the way home I repeated the word "no" in as many different ways as possible, eventually turning it into a little song and using the fact that she wouldn't let go of my wrist to perform a little dance with her, which didn't deter her in the slightest. Eventually we obviously reached the edge of her territory and she let me go..... It's really quite hard, but the only way to get anywhere is just to completely blank ppl when they ask you for stuff/offer you stuff, but having been brought up with good manners, I find it almost impossible, as it just seems really rude.... but even offering a smile can be enough to get you trapped in a 20 minute game of "leave me alone please".....

I've just been chatting with my gf online, and she's got herself a webcam! So cool! I can see her now! So now if she uses a smiley face, i can see if she really is smiling... :) Anyway, my back is killing from spending so long at this pc, so i'm off...... See you later!

Well, I'm here! I arrived in Bombay last night at about 2am. Managed to make it to the hotel after a lot of queing at the airport a fairly interesting ride in a refridgerator on wheels. There's something woerd about air-con in cabs. It never seems to keep your whole body the same temperature... most o the journey my head was sweating while my legs froze... My hotel is clean and the room is BIG. And so it should be for 1200 rupees a night! but fuckit, that still only about 15 quid a night, so can't complain, it's just for the first 2 nights. Had a wander round a bit this morning. It's got a good atmosphere here. There's very few foreigners in the streets, so obviously I'm having to spend half my time politely fending off beggers and salesmen (not always successfully...my wrist is so far adorned with a holy pice of string and a bangle of half dead flowers...) Have spent the last hour or more hiding in this internet cafe, but hunger is about to force me back onto the street... It's a bit wierd being on my own. I'm feeling quite lonely. But it's only day one, so that's wat i expected really. Right, I'm gonna go and find some food, and maybe even some friends...

P.S. I got my T-Shirt done.... In the end I opted for a more subtle logo. It says "BLOOD IS THICKER THAN OIL" (blood is in red, the rest black). Already got lots of ppl asking where I got it.... :)