Sunday, October 18, 2009

Eóin's Goan Birthday

I think I was in Goa for 4 days but it’s very hard to tell… Time flew by around us as we did nothing; a trip to the beach here, some food there, drinks at night under the stars… Our group had swelled as well. Now myself and the Swedes were joined by Ryan (a mad Kiwi), Matt (a sometimes quiet lad from Bristol), Damien and Leah (a stereotypical Irish couple!) and occasionaly Antoinette (South African who I’d met in Mumbai) and Faye Holiday (English girl with the best name ever). We all hatched the plan to go to Baga for the night of my Birthday as it’s slightly more built up than Anjuna and that plan turned out to be a good one!

We found a place doing two for one drinks which should have been more than enough to keep us happy. As I awoke the next afternoon face-down on my balcony and saw the bottles of rum and state of our room it all started to come back to me. The attached photos should describe the night sufficiently! It was brilliant though and they even pooled together to get me presents which was very nice.

The following day was a write off but later that evening myself and Ryan were moving on again to a place called Hampi. Now for some advice: Never get a sleeper bus in India. As you can imagine I was looking forward to getting some sleep and since we’d booked an overnight sleeper bus to Hampi I thought I’d get more than enough. I was wrong. First things first; the roads in India are terrible, especially just after monsoon season. We were right over the rear wheels so every bump sent us skyward, every turn flung us across the bed… it was like being on a waltzer… but for 13 hours! The sleeping tablets everyone took worked wonders, but not for me. I didn’t sleep a wink. The night was spent headbutting the people next to you.

Then there’s the people working on the bus who spend the night shouting at each other, at passengers, and at the driver. At one stage, while picking up passengers, the workers got locked out of the bus as it started driving off. They ran after it screaming and beating the windows with their fists. Unfortunately they managed to get back on. To surmise: There is no sleeping on an Indian Sleeper bus.

No comments:

Post a Comment