OK, so yesterday I returned to Margao from Base Camp Palolem to meet with Suriya and try again to buy our train tickets to her brother’s wedding. The wedding has been brought forward a few days to the 1st of May so that the prospective brother-in-law (who is to be the best man) can actually be there – he couldn’t get the leave he’s asked for.

bubble bubble toil and trouble
I met Suriya at a cafe she’d taken me to before: this involved a long wait and some toilet-anxiety: Suriya had phoned my lodgings (and woken the owner!) at 7.50 to wake me and to meet her at this cafe at 11am. I’d had time for breakfast and to wonder if Kadamba (Goa State bus company) was running on Easter Sunday: two other brits were in the same fix so we hired a taxi for 500 rupees between us (the bus would have been 20 each) and spent the journey to Margao insisting to the driver that we had plenty of time and would like to arrive in one piece!

By the time I arrived at the cafe in Margoa I was desperate: and then most dismayed to learn that this cafe didn’t have a toilet. Frantic panicking found me a posh cafe with a (far from posh) toilet just in time. Suriya arrived about 11.50 – her friend’s daughter had appeared to go into labour and that, understandably, took precedence.

Wrong side of the tracks?
We then walked to the station, which involved walking across the tracks and tried to buy our tickets. I don’t think Suriya’s done this often and I didn’t have much of a clue. We took ticket-application forms from the pile and filled in as much as we could, assuming that the ticket-sellers would tell us which trains we’d need to take to get from Margao to Salem: WRONG! He just said “there’s no direct train – enquiries will tell you”.

So we queued at the enquiries counter and were told that the only possibility was to travel overnight to Mangalore and take a train the next night to Salem. Still at least we now knew the names of the trains and their numbers and so could rejoin the ticket queue, in the hope of getting something slightly better.

After a conversation between three people who all speak radically different versions of English, we have tickets: Suriya, her family, her friend Laxmi and I are all departing Margao on 28th April at 13.35 to arrive in Mangalore around 5 hours later. About an hour after that, we’ll take a sleeper to Salem, arriving there about 9.30 on 29th. This is costing us 500 rupees each – about a rupee a mile. Even Richard Branson can’t offer that!

Lady in waiting?
Flushed with success and a thali from a local cafe, Suriya and I went to the Hospicio Hospital to check on the progress of the birth I mentioned at the start of this entry. Rechsma, the mother-to-be, was utterly exhausted – the apparent onset of labour had been a false alarm but it had kept her awake all night Her mother (Reunkar) and father (Bhaskar) were in better spirits but still anxious – this baby is Rechsma’s first and may be R&B’s first grandchild.

Party Party Party!
With nothing doing and visiting time over (not that I felt entirely comfortable being there), Suriya and I returned to Colva where Bobby (I mis-spelt this last entry), Ravi and their children (Goutami [daughter, age 7] and Dhanush [son, age 4]) were still visiting Suriya. We told them about our success in ticket buying (Bobby, Gautami, Dhanush and Laxmi are also travelling with Suriya and I). Then I was asked to stay and have a few drinks and a meal. Friends of Suriya (George and “Mr Silent”) also arrived and Ravi and I went to a nearby wine-shop and bought a few beers, some palm wine (14%) and some brandy, a few nibblies and some soft drinks. (Ravi paid for all of it!) We also encountered Surekha and Thanuja (T is Suriya’s youngest daughter [Priya]’s friend and S is her mother – are you keeping up?) who Ravi also invited along.

Lots of banter, a few drinks (Bobby can hold her own with the palm wine), some utterly adorable antics by the kids and a good time followed. Bobby insisted I eat with my fingers (the meal was “drumsticks” [think of something like celery but tasting like sweet gherkins], flavoured rice and “bubble-and-squeak”) and I am so proud that I only got three grains of rice on the floor. Thank you to many friends – above all Adriani – for showing me how!

Pimp my [b]ride?
Before this, George had asked me what I thought of Indian women and I’d replied that they are often pretty. On my way to the toilet (well, both men and women urinate in the garden), he’d cornered me to say that if I wanted an Indian girlfriend, he could fix it but I’d have to agree to marry her. I told him the truth – that I am unable to marry anyone just now and really unsure whether I would want to get married again if and when it becomes possible – and further difficult conversation was avoided when Ravi and Bobby came out to announce that food was ready. (They’d guessed what George was likely to be talking about – he soon made his excuses and left, after insisting I should see him tomorrow. However, I had no wish to do so, especially after Ravi, Boby and Suriya told me that they’d expected something like this and that George would want a cash ‘thank-you’ for arranging this relationship. As I told them, this event had made me feel a little queasy and insulted: I don’t like pimping and I don’t think I’m so repulsive that I can’t attract women all by myself!

Three’s company
By now the last bus to Palolem had long ago departed, we were all suitably fed, watered and pickled and sleep was on the agenda. To complete the context: Suriya’s rented house has two rooms, each about 4 metres by four metres. The bedroom/lounge/day-room contains Suriya and Priya’s beds one either side of the room. The kitchen/workroom/pantry has a shower area inset into it and Suriya cooks on a two-ring gas burner. She washes dishes and clothes in a conrete area outside the house and has a non-flush squat toilet at the end of the garden. What the hell is someone who has this little doing being so lovely to me? I can’t help crying a little as I type this: I find it hard to think that I deserve to enjoy myself at their expense!

Anyway, Suriya and Gautami slept on Priya’s bed, Dhanush, Ravi and Bobby slept on the floor (insisting that they liked being cool from the tiles and being directly under the fan); they all insisted that I slept in Suriya’s bed. Again, I can hardly believe how I’ve been treated – far too good! Suriya’s bed was lovely and comfortable but I didn’t sleep well because of the noise from the fan. I think I dropped off around 5am, just as Suriya woke and started her daily routine.

Don’t say a prayer for me now. Save it for the morning after.
By 9am, life was returning to the rest of us: chai, water and savoury vermicelli were consumed in sufficient quantities to get us back to vaguely human status. (Ravi and Bobby should both have been badly hungover but weren’t: grr!!) I braved the squat toilet after Suriya cleaned it – this was her choice but she used phenol, so I gave gave a her a gentle, concerned her lecture about this being a poison that absorbs through skin. I’m going to buy her some marigolds and make sure she uses them!

Suriya and I went back to Margao to check on the birthing process: no news yet but a lot of thought about how I would feel if I was waiting for the birth of my own child or grand-child – I think I’d go mad with worry in 10 minutes. Suriya then took me to a bus-stop to get a bus back to Palolem and is now either back in Colva with Bobby and family or back at the hospital with Rechsma and her folk.

I think that’s enough tediousness for now: see you later space cats!

The party failed to materialise but that probably wasn’t a bad thing. I went to a beach bar and sat, listening to two sorts of music (from CDs and the whisper of voices mingled with the crashing of the waves) for a couple of hours, then went to bed.

Today’s trip back to Colva was uneventful, even fast and once I got there, pleasant indeed. I met Suriya’s middle daughter (Bobbi), her husband (Ravi) and their two children. Ravi’s a horticulturalist and whould love to work in the UK – anyone know of any such jobs back home?

However Suriya’s wages hadn’t arrived today and so she couldn’t buy her train tickets. I don’t think she can book mine without me being there, because the authorities will want to note passport and visa numbers (There are at least three pieces of paperwork every time I book into a hotel: the register, another form with two carbon copies, one of which goes to the police, and a receipt.) before issuing a ticket to a foreigner. So I’m going to try to meet her at Margao station tomorrow at 11am, assuming buses run early enough on Easter Sunday!

We also went to sort her glasses. She had arranged a certain price with her actual optician. However he wasn’t present and the assistant at the store didn’t appear to have the authority to accept what Suriya was telling him without written proof. So Suriya’s going to try again next week. However, she has her prescription and we’ve found frames that suit her and I’ve given her enough cash* to cover what she says they should cost. I know her glasses can be made up in a a few working days so she should be right soon.
*1000 rupees – this is 13 UK pounds and is probably not much more than what I’d have paid for food if Suriya hadn’t fed me so often.

So, I’m off to find a bar for the evening, then get an early night so I can sweat my way back to Margao early tomorrow.

Last niht, I ate at a beach-cafe and met a group from London. We met up by chance again today and swam, then lounged on the beach for a bit, before heading to a much less crowded beach-let to do more of the same.

I’m slightly sunburnt on my houlders and my right hip but it’s been fab to sit and read:

• a detective novel (got bored wiht it halfway through – may return to it)
• Ian Banks’ Consider Philebas (I read it about 10 years ago and it’s worth a revisit now.)
• A brief history of time (at last!)
• Dorris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist.

Shuld be a party tonight (last full moon of the season) so I’m going to sleep for a couple of hours, get my glad-rags on and inflict myself on it.

I’m heading back to Margao tomorrow morning to meet up with Suriya and buy our train tickets to Tamil Nadu for Raj’s wedding. Thereafter, I’ll probably come back here for a few days.

Gacked from

I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want*, I’ll answer – but my answer will be a lie. Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including me) to ask you 3 questions to which your answers will be lies.

* Under the condition that you are not a butt about it. 🙂

So yesterday afternoon I watched England bat and actually win a match. I got talking with a bloke who seemed to know a lot more about the sport than I (this isn’t hard!) and it turns out he’s semi-pro, having once had a trial for his home county.

Yeaterday evening, he and I and some other bods met up for a meal and then decamped to a bar on the beach, where he went on and on about how he was going to do irreparable damage to someone here who’d ripped him off. I agree with his desire not to let ‘get away with it’ but there was no convincing him that there are better ways than wrapping his bat around the ripper’s head. I think it was the vodka talking but I have no idea how to warn the ripper to be ready with this chap’s money if the cricketer turns out to be serious about it. (The cricketer did say that if he got his money back, he’d leave the ripper alone.) However, the cries of ‘bullshit’ and ‘you’re full of shite’ from the irishwomen across the table made a vaguely amusing game of argument-tennis.

I could go and sit in a bar and watch Australia polish off the first test against Bangladesh but since they only needed to get 95 runs today, it’s very likely to be over. So time for me and a book to meet the beach.

OK, please explain the “you have a mole on your back in between the shoulder blades” question!

You scored as 1st Doctor. 6th doctor 92% 10th Doctor 92% 1st Doctor 92% 5th Doctor 67% 2nd doctor 67% 3rd doctor 67% 7th Doctor 67% Davros 67% 8th Doctor 67% 4th Doctor 50% 9th Doctor 33% a Dalek 0%

What Doctor Who character are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

So I’m at a beach resort and I’ve spent the first morning lying in bed with the curtains closed: of course it’s a one-day-international cricket match keeping me there.

A strange morning, not only because of how I woke myself: Dhoni batted at number 2, staying at the crease for a long time and getting 95 runs before being caught. (I really wanted him to make his century.) Then Kevin Pieterson bowled an over and bowled out Harbajan Singh with his second ball. The Turbanater stood in the crease, as if in shock or disbelief, while Iron Bottom fulminated in the commentary box about the Laws of cricket! Truly extraordinary, vastly entertaining to me and probably of no interest whatsoever to most of you.

OK, I’m off in search of water, tea, breakfast a book and a place on the beach near to a TV!

Arrived at the first of my must-do destinations: Palolem Beach. I arrived around 6pm, to late to do much other than find some munchies and a place to stay (got a room for 250 a night for a room with an en suite set and a double bed.

The friendly cybercafe owner who suggested the place I’m at suggested I then look for someone to take up the rest of the space therein but wasn’t offering to undertake this arduous task herself (not that I was **really** asking). So I intoduced her to my porcine travelling companion/bed-mate and a few giggles were shared.

Laughter truly is the best medicine, and I’m the doctor, here to dispense it.

Adios amigos

Yesterday I met a couple of folk who work in education/child-development areas which are vaguely close to my,ahem, career so far. Today I met a special needs teacher from Leicester (hardly a blink from Worcester) who knows and raves about the software produced by SEMERC, one of L&L’s sister companies under Granada Learning.

Is this today’s lesson in humanistic holism or am I just imagining things?

Been a strange couple of days. I’ll probably blog in full about it later but just to let you know that I finally got to DudhSagar waterfalls today after staying last night in Mol(l)em, a truck-stop village on the main highway heading east out of central Goa into Karnataka and beyond.

After a few drinks with a bloke from Norway and his mate from Mission Vieho in Orange County (but who has Irish ancestry and works in an Irish pub in Oslo), then hardly sleeping due to being bitten all night, then being prevented by the ‘comptroller of jeeps’ from going to the falls with the driver I’d promised to go with, the falls were wonderfull, as was swimming in the pool/lake (30 metres by about 100 metres) at the foot. One of the weirdest feelings was letting the water fall hard (from 310 metres) on my head, face and tum as I fried to float there.

Then a visit to a spice-farm (bit touristy but hell, I AM a tourist, finally getting back to Colva about 6pm. Suriya’s found me a much cheaper and just-as-nice room but the owner has not impressed me at all. He seems a bitter old man and I do not like people who create broken glass where thier pets, collegues and guests might walk on it, even less so when they tell me not to sweep it up.

So tomorrow I’m moving on to Palolem, come what may. See you later, space-cats!