12th Nov:- My little place in the sun.

I went to bed far too early. I guess that's what you get by going to bed early, and having an early bar! I was wide awake at 3:00am, indeed didn't sleep that well before that. I was productive though, getting the blog up to date. I must say, I am quite chuffed with myself. I have nearly caught up. I still need to upload quite a few photographs but as far as the narrative is concerned I've just got a few entries to finish. Even the three entries for Burma from last year are nearly done. Good for me! I'll wait till I get a decent Internet connection before even trying to upload any pictures.

I'm really quite looking forward to the next week or two. So much better than I thought. It looks like I will be spending my birthday in a similar way to last year. I has a fabulous 51st in Puerto Princessa, Palawan, Philippines. On a beach. It looks as though it will be similar this year.

I do appear to have stumbled onto India's little bit of paradise. It is a bit a a strange place. Ernest, my German hippy friend is a fascinating character. He's probably everything you would not wish to have in an employee, very anti establishment and anti capitalism and his value and belief system have probably prevented him from being an extreme successful and perhaps wealthy individual. His knowledge on such a breadth of subjects is absolutely fascinating and in many subjects he is right but, his views are so rigid that you can see how he had 'dropped out' unwilling to compromise his views which are so strong you can imagine why he doesn't fit it with the normal run of the mill person. He is quite complementary of my attitude and view that I have run with a lot of the corporate bullshit and made the most of it. We are probably at each end of the spectrum in that respect. I am doing what I am doing because of the 'system' be is doing what he is doing despite it.

We had a very I interesting conversation last night and I do think he is seriously thinking that a way out of his financial situation may be teaching English as a second language. He is going look into it. I hope he does. As I said he is very very well read and clever and it would be a shame if he is just 'existing' because of his financial situation rather than enjoying things. He Is planning on spending five months in Goa. He does this most years.
It seems, especially Candolim, to be quite. Cliquey. There are people who come here every year, sometimes twice a year. You can indeed see why people do return but that said, there are so many different places to visit. Apparently several British travel companies have package tours here.

There are many russian, all with the similar 'potato head, as Matt calls it, features. It always makes me smile remembering Cyprus several years ago...

I'm not going to do much here and won't add to the blog unless something happened. I may take my chances with a couple of the tours. They are not overly expensive, dolphin watching with a 'no dolphin, no money' guarantee sounds quite interesting...

As I dint need to be back in New Delhi till the 29th November I have decided to stay at the guest house. It is very friendly. When I originally arrived I negotiated a price of 1000 rupees per night. I approached Jessica and enquired if I could stay till the 29th and if the price could be reviewed and she came back with 850. Everyone a winner. I've even bought some sun tan cream!

The beach is nice, the sea is warm, there are not too many beach salespeople and those they are tend to be female and are charming. Today a group of girls came up he beach, sighing five minutes had set up a tight role and were walking across it with things balanced on their heads. Just waiting for the lion tamer to come out of the jungle with a parade of elephants and a couple of clowns thrown in and well have a full circus...

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Location:Candolim Beach, North Goa, India.