December 11-13, 2009 – Day 351-353 – Varkala Beach, Kerala, India

After a travel day and not getting to Varakala late afternoon, we spent our afternoon settling into the pretty cliffside beach town and enjoying the sea air.

Varkala beach

December 3-4, 2009 – Day 343-344 – Palolem Beach, Goa, India

Spent a couple of nice days walking around town and going to the beach. Lots of sun, some good samosas for breakfast and fish thali for lunch, and enjoying the rare luxury of a TV in our room during the evenings. We are heading out of Goa tomorrow on the night train and into Kerala.

View down the beach

December 2, 2009 – Day 342 – Palolem Beach, Goa, India

Up to a good start with a hard workout this morning and a good breakfast (eggs, toast, fresh veggies, and black tea—yum!) before hitting the beach. As beautiful as Palolem Beach is, it can be tough to face the reality that it’s overrun with tourists and touts, cows and boats, and more touts!

A little over crowded

December 1, 2009 – Day 341 – Palolem Beach, Goa, India

Wow, we can hardly believe it is December already! It is hard to keep track of the time when our weather is nearly always warm.

Fishing Boats

November 28-30, 2009 – Day 338-340 – Palolem Beach, Goa, India

It has been a glorious few days here at Palolem. The sky is bright blue, the sun feels perfect and the water is just cool enough to reward basking in the sun.

Washed ashore

November 27, 2009 – Day 337 – Benaulim Beach, Goa, India

Benaulim is a very, very quiet beach that seems to attract mostly older tourists and many from Russia. There are so few tourists and virtually no touts aside from 1 or 2 fruit sellers. We walked down to Colva Beach, about 15 minutes down the beach from Benaulim, to see what it was like and discovered Benaulim was the better choice for us.

Indian standard swimwear

November 26, 2009 – Day 336 – Benaulim Beach, Goa, India

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is a dual-celebration for us. We’re celebrating Thanksgiving and our 8th anniversary! Since we are miles from home, we celebrated in an unusual way. We spent the day on the beach soaking up the sun and warm water of the Arabian Sea. Without a bird in sight, our Thanksgiving feast/anniversary dinner consisted of tuna steak and calamari! It’s hot weather here instead of the usual cool weather we enjoy at home this time of year so we enjoyed a pleasant moonlight stroll along the water’s edge after dinner. What a great way to spend any holiday!

Us!

As close to a bird as it gets

November 25, 2009 – Day 335 – Anjuna Beach, Goa, India

The Wednesday Flea Market on Anjuna Beach is a colorful, bustling place to be bright and early Wednesday mornings. Sellers from the surrounding towns come to Anjuna specifically to set up and peddle their wares to the tourists staying in Anjuna as well as the car and bus loads that come in from surrounding beaches and towns to shop. Everything from pillow covers, brass figurines, jewelry, Indian, Nepali, Tibetan, and Western wares, to snacks and drinks to henna tattoos and beggars can all be found at the Wednesday Flea Market.

Deep inside the wednesday market

November 24, 2009 – Day 334 – Anjuna Beach, Goa, India

We started our morning with a long, brisk walk…to the ATM. From town, the ATM is 2.5km, just next to the Domino’s (yes, there really is a Domino’s there). After walking back to town, we walked another couple of kilometers to check out Vagator Beach. We were hoping it would be as beautiful as we had heard it was and, feeling a little disappointed with Anjuna, we were ready for a nice beach. There are two ways to get to Vagator Beach from Anjuna Beach: the road and the path by the water which is supposedly about half a kilometer shorter than the road way.

Vagator

November 23, 2009 – Day 333 – Anjuna Beach, Goa, India

It was a crummy day that was spent getting from Arambol to Anjuna on the uncomfortable, smelly, crowded but cheap local buses and then another hour and a half walking around Anjuna trying to find cheap lodging that did not have spiders or ants in the bed sheets.

Crabs.... just crabs