22nd March - Patnam to North Goa

Up at 6.30 to make sure I got to Panaji for 1 (so that I could get a replacement screen for my laptop). I was on the road for 7.30. There was no where open to get breakfast and I felt groggy and slow for the first hour of the ride. After I managed to find a little place to get some fresh bread rolls and some Somozas and some hot milk and water to make my coffee, I felt much better and headed on.

I remembered from a couple of years ago that the road from the South to the middle of Goa went over the Western Gants and was very hilly but I had forgotten quite how lovely it is. The road goes through the jungle for about 30km. It reminded me of Tamil Nadu. I really enjoyed this part however, after about 50km the highway became very busy and the area quite industrial.

I saw this on one of the lanes of the major highway. It is obviously the best place to dry grain....

It took me about 1 hour to find Capricorn Logistics on the Verda Industrial Estate (20km South of Panaji) and I arrived there about 11. I picked up the parcel I had requested to be delivered from the UK with new cycling components. I now have 2 new sets of brake pads, 2 new Marathon Plus (the best tyres in the world!) Tyres, new gloves and I was supposed to also get a pair of cycling shorts but these where nowhere to be found (even though they were on the invoice). It was great that the delivery from the UK from Evans Cycles was free but I had to pay 3500RS in import tax!!! Arrggg - that's £50. Oh well, I could not get these things in India otherwise.

I then headed into Panaji and round the Samsung service center. The correct screen had arrived and it only took 1 hour to fit (while I went for lunch and to check my email at an internet cafe). I was really happy to have my laptop back and working again. They only charged me 3200RS - just under £50 for the new screen and the labour! I was really happy. Often in India this sort of thing can be very difficult to get and I have heard horror stories from various people about post arriving 3 month late etc.

My next job of the day was to post some important paper work back to the UK. You would have thought that this would be an easy thing.... but no... this is India. At the main post office (of the capital of the state of Goa) there were 20 desks with people sitting at them but only 1 desk open to serve people and a queue of about 50 people waiting. It took 2 hours to post a letter home!

I left Panaji and biked on the back roads along the coast and to Baga and Calangute. I did not really enjoy it around the Baga and Calangute area. There was far too much traffic and so many obnoxious westerners! They were rude on the roads. Goa is totally different to the rest of India.

As I was biking through I did stop off at a lovely Coffee Day. I had not had a good coffee since leaving Johnie's house. It was sooooo lovely to have a treat of coffee and cake. I got chatting to a English couple that have an apartment in Goa and live here for about 6 months per year.

Coffee Day Treat!

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I arrived in Vagator just as it was starting to get dark. I remembered part of it from a couple of years before but got confused between Arombol, Ajanta and Vagator. I had wanted to stay on the beach with the huts but Vagator is on the cliffs. Oh well. I watched the sun set over the cliffs with a load of other people and then headed back into town. I was standing in the middle of a cross roads between 2 very small lanes wondering which way to go to find somewhere to stay when I got chatting to an English carpenter called Jerry. He seemed to think it was funny that I had stopped in the middle of the road. He seemed like a nice guy and he invited me to.join him and his friends for dinner at the Moon Dance Restaurant and bar.

I thought it sounded fun but I needed to find a place to stay and shower etc first. I found a lovely hut over looking the sea. I was feeling decadent and paid slightly more for the sea view (a whole £1.50). It took me about a hour to get organised and walk to Moon dance and I thought that Jerry might have moved on but fortunately his friends were no shows and he was thinking of ordering some food. We had a few drinks and chatted and ordered a feast. His friend Nicole then joined us. She is a complete butter. She was drunk and high on something and talked shit the whole time but was funny with it. She is a nurse back in the UK.

She desperately wanted to get into Jerry's pants but he was having none of it! Jerry has a lovely saying of "No negativity at the dinner table" which.he used through the evening when anyone started to be bitchy.

He introduced me to Honey Bee brandy which was very drinkable. Somewhere along the way we started drinking shots of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce as joke shots.... and then ended up mixing it with the brandy.... bad idea. By the end of the evening the idea of any more sauce made me feel sick.....

Another friend arrived after Nicole had left to get high. He is another Brit in Goa for 6 months. He was off his trolley. His nickname is sausage said as "sausarge". We all went on to Shir and met a load of other people and chatted till late. It was a fun evening.

It was not until we then stopped off at another bar and picked up some more people and then went back to Jerry's that the evening really started though. We got chatting with a friend of Jerry's, an Indian guy called Raj in the bar and Jerry invited him back for a few drinks. When we got back to Jerry's I then met the 2 crazy Russian chicks that Jerry lives with - and I do mean crazy! One of them was dressed as a dominatrix and the other one a rich tramp. They were both extremely rude and obnoxious. It was actually very funny quiet how rude they were and me, Jerry and Raj just kept on laughing at them and they did not get why it was so funny.

The dominatrix girl is really into fire dancing and got out her stick thing and started doing some (its 3am at this point) and Raj joined in. It was very cool to watch.... I did not try it.

It turns out that Raj used to be employed by Loreal as one of their trainers and was a top class hairdresser. He offer to cut my hair and of course I thought that as it really needed cutting that it was a fab idea to let a drunken Indian man cut my hair at 4am. Actually it was the right call and he did an awesome job and I was really grateful to him for offering. One of the Russian girls then demanded that he did her's. She did it in such a rude way that Raj did not exactly do his best job at her cut.....

Raj gave me a lift back to my hut on the cliff top (it took a while as I could not work out how to get back there as I had gone to 3 different new places through the evening and I lost track of the way back) but by the time we got there it was about 5.30a, and we decided to walk up to the top of the cliffs and watch the sunrise. It was a really lovely thing todo. The first all nighter I have done for ages. I went with Raj for an Indian breakfast and coffee. By 8 we were feeling really tired and he dropped me back off at my room and I went to sleep....