The beaches...

Oops. This post is a touch late, but I'd started, so I'll finish, it's the old, caught up having to much fun again, combined with not wanting to go near a computer.

Our week of 'leisure' on the coast was justified by Laura and Patrick being on holiday, we had to enter into the spirit of things and if you can't beat them and all that....
The beach can be summed up in three bullet points:

Om beach, Gokarna - a headland of tropical beaches, populated by cows, the odd gringo and Indian holidaymakers. Great waves for Patrick and good beach walks. The main downside was the chef at our spot had departed two days previously, leaving what can only be described as a joker in charge. Unfortunately, we didn't become aware of the joker factor until the synchronised loo visits started at 2am on the first night. The joker malaise over the next 36hours was also not helped by humidity that would have laid a Kenyan marathon runner low. Despite all that, we give Gokarna the thumps up for the best beaches in India.

From Gorkana we headed for Panaji, the former Portuguese capital of Goa; remembering you can't please all the people all the time, the highlights were: great food, great wine and Old Goa, none of which are likely to make Patrick's list of trip highlights. Old Goa is best described as a park for churches, imagine a giant had set out to collect Southern European cathedrals and decided to keep them all in one place, with only grass and palm trees for company, that hopefully gives you some idea of Old Goa. If the British 'gave' India the civil service, the Portuguese appear to have focused exclusively on God.

From Panaji we went to Goa's famous flea market at Anjuna. The positive for me was you had to struggle to spend ten pounds on anything, the negative was you had to struggle even harder to find anything worth five, so famous tourist tat market would be a better name. The highlight was our hotel pool, Patrick spent three hours a day in it and that probably sums up the quality of Anjuna's attractions.

Next stop Hampi and the elephant stables (which I think sound pretty cool).