Close encounters of the insane kind

So in my last blogs I have been raving on about all the great people I am meeting, people from Chille to South Korea. This blog is going to shed light on the people who are one sandwich short of a picnic.

You have your run of the mill nutters here, they generally have been living here for many seasons and are normally very friendly sometimes borderline over friendly. Jeff is probably the unofficial Palolem welcoming commitee and he is by far the nicest. There is also the Indian Ozzy Osbourne who I think has had his brain turned to mush from all the weed and mushrooms he has been taking. I remember having a conversation with him where I didnt understand a word he said and had to limit my responses to yes, no or maybe depending on what it looked like he was saying. Today however he told me that I was stupid for not having a lighter on me as fire is the start of life then he told me my face was shit ha ha ha I laughed as he was shouting other stuff in the distance.

Now there are the complete weirdos. My first encouter with James came before the night of the headphone party whilst having a beer waiting for friends, he proceeded to tell me about how he has lots of money tied up in gold Kruger Rands (South African gold coins) to be exact, I said that was a good idea, I asked when he intended to sell. "Never! I may exchange them though for a gun and a bullet proof vest" my first responce was WHY?? He then told me he is expecting anarchy and for the world to be like Mad Max, I chuckled to myself thinking of putting him in the Thunderdome with Tina Turner ha ha ha. Last night I had another conversation with Norman Bates, he enlightedned me that the Holocaust that killed around 6 million Jews never happened. "So where did they go" I asked, "To Palastine" I argued about this and tried to counger up some facts like Auschwitz and Dachau the famous concentration camps but according to him they were built after. He then went on to say that the IRA bombings are from Jews, so was Pearl Harbour, 9/11 and that Jesus hated the Jews, this one I maybe could side with him as they did crucify him on a cross. I have a feeling if this guy carries on taking these Hitler youth views he wont last long, the reason being that 50% of the tourists here are people from Isreal and most of them have come out of their national service and have a 'devil may care' attitude and if they hear him saying all this about the Jews then he wont last long. He also has that face you just want to slap!

That night of meeting the patients didnt end there, I met Clive and I had previously seen him on the beach, well you couldnt miss him as he was the one carrying the bucket over his head with a shade umbrella into the sea for 10 minutes then staggered out of the surf still bucket on head then took 10 mins to try and stand in the bucket and hold the umbrella up high, when he achieved this I felt like giving him a round of applause and expected something to happen like it does in Indiana Jones, maybe he was trying to find the Idol!? The Indians sometimes do circus tricks on the beach and most people just ignore them, Clive however had the whole section of the beach glued to his every move, if he went round with a collection I would have gladly gave him 10 rupes. Well the person I was with wanted to know where he was from so when I saw him come into the pub just after playing imaginary golf down the street I asked him. His name is Clive and him comes from the moon. I spat out the drink in my mouth and tried not to laugh, I made small talk asking him whats it like there? Well its got a lot of craters but its ok as he lives there with his pet cockroach Oscar! I wanted to ask some other questions about economy on the moon has it been affected by the credit crunch or what the weather is like there. I also wanted to burst out singing Ground control to major Tom but I was already on the verge of collapsing in fits of laughter. When my friend posts the picture of Clive I will add it to the next blog as he does look very weird. He kind of looks like what you will see in the paper when a serial killer has been caught, he has that look!

This is my last post from Palolem as I am leaving on Tuesday morning for Hampi.

Peace out

Motorcycle Diaries

We decided it was time to move out from Palolem for the day so we hired some scooters and hit the road well I wouldnt actually call it a road as they are amazingly awful. Another problem on the roads are the obstacles you face, basically Old McDonalds farm wander the roads and cause chaos, I had buffalo, dogs, cats, cows, millipieds, hens and tramps wandering in the middle of the road. To get to some of the places we also had to go down dirt roads, I say dirt roads but that does not really do it justice of how bad the back roads were. So we travelled North on these 'roads' and the first stop was Agonda beach. Agonda is totally different to Palolem, it is very quiet and not much there, there are not as many palm trees either, it is also not ideal to swim as the current is strong although we did go in the water and I was taught how to Body Board by Geoff who is from Melbourne. Imagine Geoff as a sort of Wave whisperer ha ha. Many of the people I am meeting are from all different parts of the world and have travelled to many many which is why I think they relished in telling me the worst parts of travelling in Australia. Tales of bites from White Tails (Spider) where Hally's hand rotted and could see through his muscle, crocs, sharks, currents with names 'Backpacker express' and also the infamous drop bear, bears with massive claws that drop from trees and maul backpackers! This turned out to be a massive lie that all backpackers are told. From Agonda beach we travelled to Cola beach where we had to take this dirt road that was basically not fit for scooters but the views were breath taking (Sorry no photos didnt take camera but will steal friends to show you all). Cola beach is again not fit for swimming and even the Wave whisperer didnt venture in but they had a 'blue la

goon' near by which we cooled off in. It was more green lagoon than blue but again this place had no other people on the beach and looked every bit the paradise beach. From there we travelled another 10 km to Cabo de ramma fort which is a massive fort situated high on a hill where the Portugease would look out for invading countries, from here we could see another beach that looked contained but there were no roads leading there so we bi

ked across this type of field and found the route down. Betul beach (I think) was the best one so far, palms 15 deep line the 300 meter beach and there were only a handful of locals there. We went into the sea which was strong but after 20 minutes or so we didnt realise we had been washed into the path of a rip (under current) until it practically dragged us back, smiles and laughing turned into shepheards pie in our pants as it took a lot of effort to get out of this as we were swimming we were staying in the same spot but not swimming we were moving out to sea. We survived and Geoff told us that if we had got into more trouble we would have had to ride the current out and swim across!

I have bought some more clothes as I am feeling like a tramp, from the evolution of tramp to man I am at stage 3! I smell like a mountain goat and I have the beard back! Although I have been given some highly sort after supplies from Gavin who has headed home today. I have some proper hair styling products!!!!

Palolem is the most social place I have ever been to and I would highly reccomend it to people looking for a holiday. I am meeting people from all over the world with hundreds of different experiences but I am finding the funniest and most fun people are from good old England! e.g. I have been told of some really fun extreme travelling- Ramboism: Dress as Rambo and see how far you can make it across Bhurma. There are also some others, Bin Ladin: Dress as Osama and trek across America and my fav Coleism where you have to dress like Ashley Cole and travel across North London.

2012 London are hosting the Olympics and I think they should include Jenga! We had a World Jenga game with participants from Sweden,

Finland and Australia. Team GBR let us down!

Well im off now but I am hoping to get up early one day and Kayak to Monkey Island to see Monkeys and Dolphins! 0700 early!!!! Might be easier to stay out all night and do it straight from the beach bar!

Diwali Wipeout!

Last night the Indians celebrated Diwali with fireworks and firecrackers all buzzing down the main street and the beach however I had what has commonly become known as a 'Brodie wipeout' and spent the entire day/night in my room recovering!

Brodie Wipeout - When you drink so much the night before you miss the entire day after.

Let me (Wiki) tell you what Diwali is first before I describe why I celebrated it from my room.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

Well the day before yesterday after entering a pool comp and failing we all decided to go on a boat trip the next day, I almost wiped out that day too but I managed to make it but the boat trip never went ahead as circumstances changed however to cut a long story short as I have to pay to use the internet we decided to go to a silent rave, this for those who have never heard or witnessed this is a club with no sound but they supply you headphones so you can listen to the DJs playing. This was a very sureal and great night and morning and didnt actually get home until 0900 in the morning which is why I missed Diwali.

I am going to go now as I am still hung over and I need to book my trip to Hampi which is basically like a set from an Indiana Jones movie. One part of Hampi is the monkey temple where before you go there they give you sticks to beat monkeys that get too aggressive. Im taking fez hats and waistcoats for them too.

An English man, a Brazillian man, a Swedish man and an Indian walk into a bar....

.....No this is not the start of a joke this was one of the most random but brilliant nights ive ever had. All started by meeting a Swedish man born in Iran and it then quickly escalated as we met a Brazillian married to a Swiss girl and we then go to the local hotspot in Paloeum Beach 'Cocktails and Dreams'. Much beer flowed and the highlights of the night were a little Indian 'self claimed biggest man in Paloeum' wearing a trilby dancing 'Bollywood' style and grabing stray dogs and dancing with them. A 50 + year old British hippie who has been in India for 12 years painting a sleeping Japanease guys face in blue paint. The Japanease guy scratched his face and was truely shocked to find blue paint on his hand and even more shocked when he looked in the mirror to see he was a smurf! We were the most random bunch of nationalities as usually people stick with their own. Meeting all these people from around the world makes you realise how ignorant English people are as we mainly speak one language where most if not all Europeans speak many types.

Not all has been good, people back home even myself have complained about major companies outsourcing their helpdesks to Mumbai or Delhi but if you dont know when they set these up English people go out there and teach them what to do. I have now experienced an Indian helpdesk that has not been trained by anyone with a brain and I can tell you it was about as useful as Ann Frank's drum kit!

I treked yesterday to the otherside of the beach to see the Goan sunset from the rocks which was an amazing sight. See pictures. I have decided to try and stay a bit longer here but am trying to negotiate a better price for a room. 2 weeks in India is a very long time in terms of learning curve as they often offer prices 5 or 10x what it should normally be which is why I have come up with my top 5 tips to haggling in India:

1. Never say you are from England. I tend to say Somewhere in Eastern Europe and if they spot your Passport when you check in just say you have Dual nationality.




2. When asked how many times in India never say first time.




3. When asked how long in India never say 1st week etc




4. Laugh at their first offer




5. Cant think of a 5th tip.

I have also found a book store that is fairly well stocked, you may or may not know that I am travelling very light so I have room for one book and one guide so I was quite pleased to see this book shop however I tried to find the 'Where's Wally' book but I could'nt find it. Well played Wally well played!

I have been enjoying watching and playing cricket on the beach with the local street sellers. There is nothing more relaxing than eating fresh coconut and pineapple whilst watching cricket on the beach.

I hope everyone is jealous because you should be it is paradise here. Speaking to the 50 year old hippie I think he will have troubles when he goes back to England. Not being a national he needs to keep renewing his visa and to do this you need to be outside the country and thus he has the nice big Pakistan stamp in his passport, I told him he may as well convert to islam.

As I am staying in Goa until the duration I dont think there will be many more blogs unless something happens but stay tuned because in November I will be hitting Kuala Lumpor and Vietnam.

Till next time

Chris

Im a celebrity (in mumbai) get me out of here.

Well I am here until November 10th and im already bored of India, I would travel further south but they are having their second monsoon which will make it impossible and also quite difficult to get my flight to Maylasia so I have had to book 2 internal flights so I can get to Trichy to get my flight out of here. I have decided to stay a week in Paloleum (spelling may be wrong) and then go to north Goa and see what is there. Paloleum beach is where they filmed the Bourne Supremacy in 2003 to which they shut it down for 3 days while Matt Damon ran about a bit. It is very busy here and it is not peak season yet (Nov-Feb), the beach is arch shaped and linned with palm trees, if there wasnt so many people this place would be beautiful. Prices here are much higher than Benulim beach which is not good. I may go to the south to find a quieter beach on Tuesday.

It has rained quite a lot since I have been here and the day I go to walk down to the beach I take the brolly and then the sun came out, I was burnt!

Along the beach women try selling you cloth, bangles and other shit and there are droves of them each asking the same questions, where you from? what do you do? I have passed time by amusing myself and serveral other people by coming up with the most random answers e.g. I was from Chille and I was captain of the USS Enterprise or I was from Nepal and a gold smuggler with a perchant for human traffiking or best was I was Gavin from Stockport and I worked for autoglass and would she want me to inject my special resin into her crack ha ha ha ha, she didnt understand that one. The best way is to just 'pretend' to be asleep until someone said "excuse me" (the tag line of the sellers) about 5 times and I then shouted "cant you see that im prettending to be asleep" It was a German girl who wanted the time ha ha ha. I did apologise and explain.

Cows roam the beach and I have seen a few occasions where they decide to just lie on peoples stuff and eat it ha ha ha.

The bus ride here took 2hours and cost 50p where the scenery was amazing.

Not much more to say, see photos below. Or above as they seem to be up there. Looking at the photos they look like what you get when you google paradise.

Chris