India

After kissing Europe goodbye I proceeded to fly from Amsterdam to London, Istanbul, Mumbai, then finally to Goa, where I was to meet up with a close friend of mine along with his girlfriend and family.  Just, never take Turkish airlines or go through Turkey as a stopover.  I suffered a delayed flight (weather) and lost baggage, the staff never gave a sheet and never seem to get it together.  I'm not the one to normally complain about these things, but you need a ton of patience and wit to deal with these...peoples.  Anyway enough of the complaints, here is a taste of paradise under the Indian sun, and eventually a dark Indian sunburn.

 

I was fortunate enough to have my friend and his gracious family take care of me through the entire trip.  It's experiences like these that don't come often enough whether it's cuz of timing or money or lack of interest and motivation.  They owned a large property about 50 meters from the beach, with about 8-10 guestrooms excluding their own living quarters.  The tourists that mainly stay here are retired Europeans generally from England and Germany.  We Canadians like to call them snowbirds since they migrate here during the winter for 3-5 months at a time.  But recently the Indian tourist visa only limits them to a 3 months stay.  Another group of tourists that has recently dominated the area are the Russians.  The place is mostly overrun by Russian families and couples making the winter escape.  So much in fact that the menus and signs are written in Russian and catered especially for them.  There are flights connecting Goa directly to Moscow and obtaining a visa in advance is not required.  

All in all it was two weeks of pure sun, swim, sand.  Eat, beach, drink, sleep.  It was also living amongst the locals, which was my favorite point of the trip.  Although very conservative people their humility allows one to  "peek" into their daily lives and integrate into their culture and religion.  Beautiful.

Again thanks for the family for showing us around and facilitating this trip.