Birthday roundup

Happy 20th, 18th and 40th birthdays to Frances, Isabel, and Mmm Pos.

And here's a pic a friend sent me from Goa

Some more pics of Gosh...

(courtesy of Michael the German Photographer)

Family resemblance:


At one with the world, or constipated?

The Postman Always Calls Twice

In Palolem someone told me the only post office was in Chowdi, about a 20 minute, 100 rupee rickshaw ride away. I bought a heap of bags to sell when I get back to Hobart, and wanted to post them home as I was leaving the next day. So I lugged them up the beach to the rickshaw, but when I got to Chowdi all the shops were closed for lunchtime (it was 3pm!).

Anyway, I go into the Post Office, which was open, and a guy there says they are closed for the day, I have to go back to Palolem, there is a Post Office on the beach, but I will have to pay 200 rupees extra there. So back I go to the beach, stomping around for a while before I find it.

In the beach Post Office, there was the same guy to take my money. He made it back before I did. I felt like I was in a Little Britain sketch where if I went into the butcher's it would be the same guy too, unless the Post Office guy said he was out to lunch

Uncle Gosh

Meet Gosh, ex-monk with an eye for the ladies, a simple way of life and a habit of laying his hands on people and healing them. He spends the summer living at Palolem, doing yoga courses, reiki, 'healing' etc...

I present before the court two pieces of evidence:

Evidentiary fact no. 1:

Alex had an upset stomach his whole time in India, Gosh lays his hands on him and the next day his stomach returns to normal.

Evidentiary fact no. 2:

After spending 200 rupees for a yoga course and getting a bad back that lasts for 5 days (damn that sun salutation posture!), Gosh lays his hands on my back and within a few hours it's better.

Ladies and gentlement of the jury, I ask you to bear in mind that after being in India for a while you tend to get a bit strange, a bit open to ideas you would normally dismiss, a bit, well, hippie-ish.

The General Mindset of Palolem...

I was just checking my email when an English girl, in here with her buddies, asked the owner "how do you say 'hello' in Indian". She wanted to put it in her email to seem exotic.

Now, from previous eavesdropping I knew she'd been here for two weeks.

The guy asked if she wanted to know what 'hello' is in Konkani, the language in Goa, or maybe in Hindi. No, she wanted to know what it was in 'Indian'.

Two things. How could she have been here for two weeks and not know:

a) There is more than one language in India, and 'Indian' is not one of them
b) How to say 'hello' where she's been staying?

But then, that's what Palolem's like.

Goa

Goa is a tiny state that was a former colony of Portugal. National Geographic magazine described it's biodiversity as rivalling the Amazon basin. Inland, it's dense lush green rainforest and luminescent paddy fields. On the coast, it's gorgeous tropical beaches and palm trees. And at Palolem, where my uncle stays, it's a heap of Russian and English 20 year olds on two week package holidays.

Let's just say that I've heard people sitting around campfires singing "Hotel California" enough to last a lifetime.

The beach itself is so ridiculously beautiful it would be a cliche to put pictures up of it, also I can't zoom out on my camera enough to get it all in. But here's a photo off the web to give you an idea (except there are a lot more tourist huts and restaurants now):


These were Gosh's instructions on how to find his place once I got to Palolem:

"Go to the north side of the beach. If the tide is high, wait. Cross the water and walk to just before the restaurant in front of the island."

What was I expecting there? I didn't know. This is what I found:






Oh great, and how long am I staying here for?

It's actually been raining for an hour or so every evening, heavy monsoon rain that's come at least a month early. So after the first night of sleeping out in the rain Gosh got me a hut, and we're helping him move back over to the mainland a few weeks early. Here's what the sunset looks like from the road before the rains:


Yes I know there are no pics of Gosh here. The time isn't right. But here's a picture of a cow on holiday: