Monday 20 October 2008

Hippies, scooters and cows on the beach

Can you guess where it is yet? Managed to find my way to Goa on a 10 hour train from Mumbai. Enjoyed a couple of days being a tourist in Mumbai, which is an exciting, cosmopolitan city that made me feel quite at home. Sometimes it feels like New York or London and at other times it could only be India.

Spent my day yesterday driving around Goa on my scooter with an American girl that I met a couple of months ago. Sat on the beach and watched the musclebound russians with their beautiful topless girlfriends sitting next to a couple of cows and ageing hippies. Don't suppose that's a scene you'd see anywhere else. It's difficult to escape the cliched Goa things; tie-dyed t shirts, long-haired folk, trance parties and drug-addled youths, but at the same time if you spend a bit of time exploring the island you realise it's a beautiful place with a rich culture of its own.

The police are good fun too, stopping tourists on scooters most evenings and demanding bribes, so I've kept to cabs or walking in the evenings. A young swedish kid lost his phone and 4000 rupees on one such occasion so he learnt the hard way.

I'll probably end up staying here for christmas because I'm succumbing to the luxuries of a hot shower and some western food and cheap beer, so send all relief packages to Guy c/o Arambol beach, Goa.

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