Goodbye Mumbai, Yoa Goa

O.k it's been a few days and a fair bits happened. The first day in Bombay was how can I put it, how about Hell on earth! the heat was ridiculous the people stare at you the whole time like you've just crawled out of your own arse, and the worst bit of all is all the poverty and namley the beggars. Hundereds of little kids, OAP's and disabled people accost you almost permenantely asking for change or something to eat, Tan found it pretty hard to cope with initially and after a few hours in the city we both wanted to bail ASAP. We went out for food the first night and we're convinced the grub would guarantee us sh*tting through the eye of a needle the next day, so much so Tan got her sewing kit out so we could prove/disprove this theory. Thankfully the food was great and as yet (touch wood) we've not had any cases of the trots to report. Although as yet meat and seafood are unchartered teritory!

We got talking to lots of different Indians and they all have been some of the friendliest and most genuine people we've ever met, our first impressions were most definately way off the mark. The staring thing is apparantely down to them being inquisitive about us and they also find it strange that 2 white people are on holiday in the armpit of the sub continient! and to be fair they have a point Bombay isn't the most attractive city we've ever been to, in fact Merthyr is more asthetically pleasing, but it does have a lot to see and do and it's impossible to be bored there for even a minute. We're both glad we visited and ended up staying for 4 days.

In our 4 days we visited lots of impressive (some tired looking) buildings from the colonial days, Elephanta island and we got to watch the last day of the England Mumbai cricket match which Tania was ecstatic about, to be honest she's still brimming with excitment even today, 3 days later! we've got quite a few photo's already so will have a go soon uploading them.

We left Mumbai on the train yesterday, we thought as it was our first train journey we'd splash out and get 1st class A/C which was about 18quid each for about a 1000 mile journey which we had been led to believe took 8 hours, 13 hours after getting on the train we arrived at old Goa sweaty tired and suffering slightly with cabin fever, the trains here are straight from the 1960's and are using a different clock to the 24hour one the rest of the world uses. The toilets on board were interesting, basically 2 foot rests and a hole to aim into which evidentally went straight onto the track, nice! (im just suprised that someone has the time to scoop all of it up and take it all the way to central Mumbai to drop off)

Went to our first beach today Mariman wich was really nice only spent 2 hours sunbathing but we both managed (even with factor 25 on) to get frazzled we'd only need to order egg and chips and a pint of carling and we'd be the quintessential British tourists!

We passed a resturant near the cricket stadium which we had to eat in, from what the owner says they do a cracking toad in the hole and the sausage curry is not to be missed.....the photo will explain all.

We're off now to have a go at uploading some photo's then im going to bite the bullet and have some tiger prawns which are a bit of a speciallity down this neck of the woods.

Speak to you all soon, Anthony and Tania.