2024 India – Palolem
7th January 2024
There was a lot of traffic on the way to Palolem where we were staying for a week. During the journey, our driver announced that he wanted to make a stop which immediately sounded alarm bells so we both firmly said NO! This happens a lot in India but more so with tuk-tuk drivers who insisted on taking us to a “special government tax-free store.” We only fell for it once which was why we were so firmly against stopping but it wasn’t until he insisted, that we discovered he was delivering some urgent drugs to a friend of his who had been very ill. Of course, when he explained that to us we felt terrible and it didn’t help when he kept apologising for not making himself understood.
We were staying at the Oxygen Palolem Hotel which consisted of a lot of wooden chalets scattered around a large area. Like so many mid-priced hotels in India, it was good but badly managed. There were no bedside lights and yet they had hung coloured light all around the outside of the chalets making them look like garish Christmas trees. It was three days before we discovered the rooms weren’t serviced unless we left our key at reception. There was a lovely strong shower curtain rail in the bathroom but no curtain so the sink area got covered with water when we showered. No hand towels, no hot water in the washbasin, and areas in the gardens that were partitioned with builders’ boards that hadn’t even been painted, let alone finished. In front of all the chalets, there was badly laid fake grass which looked out of place but the many dogs and cows were grateful for somewhere to relieve themselves without getting sand on their arses. 
There was a cow turd about the size of a small town on the main path to reception and a member of staff must have thought it would be less visible if they covered it with sand. Eventually, someone cleared it up but didn’t think to wash down the path afterwards so memories of it lingered for days. However, as I have said many times before, it was all part of the fun of visiting India and we really enjoyed our stay there.
Outside our chalet, there was a one-metre-wide border on one side where patches of real grass were poking out from the dusty earth. One day we woke up to find a cow crazing on that patch. A couple of days later they replaced all the fake grass with new fake grass. Heaven knows why because it looked exactly the same as before with the joints clearly visible and the odd bump here and there where it refused to lay flat. The new fake grass covered up our real grass so we never saw our friendly cow again.
Soon after ordered our glasses in Panjim I received an SMS saying instead of the promised four or five days, the delivery date would be a few days after we left India, so I was really pissed off. The next day I had a message saying our glasses would be delivered that afternoon. A young man on a scooter delivered them as promised and they were all perfect. It just goes to show how you have to expect the unexpected in India.
The hotels around us were strangely situated in that people used to walk through our hotel to get to theirs and we all had to go through various restaurants to get to the beach. We liked the restaurant we had to walk through and ended up eating there every day. In Mexico last year we had to pay $20 for two sunbeds and an umbrella. In India, you pay nothing for the sunbeds as long as you eat in the restaurant that owns them and that costs $15 for a glorious fish lunch with all the trimmings. One thing I loved about this restaurant was that every day at the same time a cow strolled up to the counter hoping for a titbit and then strolled down some steps to the beach. I managed to get a video of it one day rustling around in a woman’s handbag as she stood by the side of her sunbed horrified. Her husband gathered up the courage to ask it to move and then it went to a man who was rudely awakened from a deep sleep by a cow licking his leg. Indian cows don’t generally show any interest in us mere humans but this one had a mischievous streak. 
There were also lots of dogs running around freely and most sunbeds had one sleeping underneath in its shade. The woman in front of us was lucky that we saw one piss on her sarong so we were able to warn her before she wrapped it around herself.
Every night we strolled through the town and found somewhere to eat which wasn’t as easy as you might think. We both felt the need for a change from curry but although a lot of restaurants offered pizza and pasta, the only time I could remember it being any good was in Agonda where an Italian family owned the restaurant. We usually ended up eating curry and enjoying it anyway.
I was pleasantly surprised when pottering around the shops that we weren’t as hassled to buy stuff as we used to be as the shop owners were more interested in watching videos on their mobile phones than touting for business. One thing we were in the market for though was a good tailor. On previous holidays, Federika had some beautiful silk nightdresses made, so she hoped to get some more made. I liked wearing gilets but they were hard to find in anything other than puffer jacket material and I wanted one made of fleece. We walked into a tailor and before we knew it, the salesman had whipped out a dozen rolls of silk and cashmere and slammed it on the counter. They wouldn’t give us a price until they knew how many items we wanted and they had measured us up. As always, we insisted on a price before we started, and as always, they said not to worry as they would give us a “special price.” We were in there for ages and having gone well past the point of no return, we made an order. My gilet was the most extravagant piece of clothing I have ever bought considering I didn’t even know if I would wear it much. We went for a fitting a few days later and mine was perfect. There was no doubt my gilet was impressive but I had no idea when I would wear it and it didn’t look that warm. Who knows? It was one of those things that would either be a treasured possession or a white elephant that I wouldn’t wear and wouldn’t have the heart to throw away. In my defence, I had rarely ever bought clothing that was either expensive or not needed. 
One morning we went on a short boat trip down an estuary at the end of the beach. We did something similar a few years ago where there was a wide variety of birds but on this trip, it was mainly eagles. It was very hot as we punted slowly along to a little clearing where our guide took out some chicken pieces. He started by throwing a chicken head and neck. It was quite a big piece so it was only the large eagles that were interested and came swooping down to pick up the chicken with their talons. It was amazing how they appeared from nowhere. Sometimes another eagle would chase it and try to steal the chicken whilst still in flight.
Then our guide tore some chicken into small pieces and threw them a few metres away. Within seconds there were dozens of brown kites swooping down to pick up the pieces. He did it several times and it was thrilling to watch.
After a slow and peaceful punt back to the beach we made our way to our sunbeds and continued our lazy day. 
One night we were walking through town and a cow was standing by a shop waiting for people to go in and buy food. A young girl bought some crisps and made the mistake of giving one to the cow so of course it wouldn’t leave her alone. At one point she turned her back to it to protect her crisps so the cow put her nose between the cheeks of the girl’s bottom and lifted her six inches off the ground. It was hysterical and all her friends were laughing, with a little tinge of concern because who knows how far a cow will go in its pursuit of pringles.
We booked a private boat tour one day to take us to Butterfly Island and a couple of other beaches. We turned up at 2.30 pm as arranged but the girl swore she said 2.45. A young man turned up at 3 pm and the girl told us to follow him. What was supposed to be a boat tour was turning out to be a car and boat tour and he walked in front of us for ten minutes without saying a word. We arrived at an empty car park where he talked to a young man who grunted and returned to his mobile phone while our guide just stood there without any explanation. Federika asked him what was going on and he said we were waiting for a car and it should be along “soon.” We were both really pissed off by now and agreed to abandon the trip as we had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I only mention this incident as India has a strange combination of people who are desperate to get your money and others (usually younger) who had recently graduated from the college of shoulder shrugging. I thought when we walked away he would pester us to stay but no, he shrugged his shoulders and went back to his mobile phone.
2024 Nepal and India
