Beautiful Goa

We left Udaipur in Rajasthan on 5th Dec and got the train to Ahmedabad, in Gujurat. My friend and ex-colleague Darsh is originally from Ahmedabad and he kindly offered us a night's stay at his parent's house there, as we'd be stopping there for one night to catch a connecting train to Mumbai. After being ripped off by a rickshaw driver (as usual) we finally managed to locate Darsh's parents, who saved us from being hounded by taxi drivers trying to get our business! (Not matter how many times you tell them "No, I dont need a taxi" they will never accept it, and consistently hound you until you walk away in anger!
We spent a great night in Ahmedabad - Darsh's house is like a hotel, absolutely enormous! It was by far better than any place we're used to haha! We ate with his family and then his parents took us for a zoom round the town on their scooters, which was hilarious. It was really nice to spend a day in a proper Indian household and not in a hotel for once.

From Ahmedabad we caught a train to Mumbai. Jon wasn't too keen about going to Mumbai as we'd had enough of big towns, but I wanted to go for at least a couple of days as I'd heard good things about it.
Well, we arrived after a 10hr train journey, tired and hungry and without a hotel room. I checked in our Lonely Planet for cheap rooms and we headed for a hotel. What we found out is that a room that costs you 600INR in Rajasthan, and a room for the same amount in Mumbai will be TOTALLY different! In our budget the only places we could get were serious dumps. In the end we reluctantly chose a sweatbox of a room with no windows, let alone air con, and no toilet. We had been walking around for so long we just wanted to get rid of our bags. It wans't the best start to Mumbai!
We headed out and thankfully Mumbai turned out to be just what we needed. After eating we walked along the main street... Pepe, Gucci, Levis, Nike etc.. all shops we love.. and it was very tempting not to buy anything there because the stuff was SOOOO cheap! A pair of Pepe jeans were about 8pounds, but we had no room in our backpacks for anything other than necessities :o(
We also found a great little bar playing cheesey rock classics - just what we needed after almost a month of no alcohol and no music! We had a few drinks in there and began to unwind.
Once we got back to our hole (I wont even call it a hotel room) we realised with horror that we werent the only ones staying there. A family of cockroaches were crawling over our bags, and on the floor. YUK! We toyed with the idea of leaving there and then but it was 11.30pm and we didnt fancy our chances on the dark streets so we stayed for one horrible sweaty night in that room (after going on a bug-killing spree) then checked into a better establishment the morning after!!
The next day we visited Elephanta Island, which is about an hour's boat ride from Mumbai harbour. This island hosts several ancient caves, which have sculptures of Hindi Gods in them from centuries ago. It was very interesting seeing the caves, and we ate a nice lunch overlooking the beautiful tropical island before getting a boat back.

After two days in Mumbai we decided to leave and head for the light at the end of our tunnel - Goa! We had another mammoth 12 hour train journey (delayed as usual) before we reached our destination. Goa has lived up to all it's expectations and we are having a brilliant time. We're staying in a tourist complex of little cottages in the Benaulim Beach area. It's on a peaceful road and every day we wake up to a herd of buffalo wading through a pond that's outside our hotel.
All the restaurants here serve fresh fish. Infact we have watched as the fishermen bring in their catch from the beach, the restaurant owner then comes up with a tray of wriggling fish and you choose the one you want! I wasn't a big fish fan before but eating it fresh like this is amazing - we haven't had a bad meal yet!
So apart from lying on a beach all day ;o) we have also hired out a moped and explored a bit of the area. I have ridden one before but Jon hasn't. However he didnt want to dent his manly pride by riding on the back of one with me driving so I had to risk life and limb and get on with Jon in the driving seat! After a few wobbly starts we finally set off. We had a great time, save for one scary moment when we ran out of petrol and were chased up a road by two scary dogs with me screaming at Jon "START IT!! HURRY UP START IT!!!" It could only happy to us.
Thankfully the Gods were kind to me that day and I made it through despite Jon's dodgy driving skills ;o)
Today we had the best day... we met up again with a Swedish couple who we first met in Kashmir (they made it out alive too!). We went up to Dudshagar Waterfalls, about an hour and a half away from Benaulim. It's the second highest waterfall in India and it was beautiful. The place is out in the middle of a nature reserve and you can only get there by jeep. The drive takes you through rivers and up a rocly terrain, but once you get there you can see snakes, monkeys, butterflies etc. We swam in the pool at the bottom (which was absolutely freezing!!) and took some great photos.

So this is our last night in Benaulim. Tomorrow we are getting a train to Hampi (recommended by James amongst others) so hopefully that should be good also. We have been here for eight days now and feel like a change from the beach. After that we are heading to North Goa for Christmas. Really looking forward to this as I've heard the nightlife up there is pretty good, and me and Jon have been living like Saints for the past month so we need to let our hair down!