Melanie and Gavin's Travels

Going to Goa....

We are in Mumbai, or Bombay as it was once called. It is smoking hot here, about 33 degrees C, and I haven't been somewhere this hot in a few years. We arrived after another eventful bus journey. I usually try to avoid the bus and take trains but the train was going to be much longer. So we got a bus with semi reclining seats and it wasn't too bad. Halfway through the night I awoke to a loud noise, just another day in India with a spare tire in the middle of nowhere! Luckily the driver was adapt at changing it, so Gavin went out to offer my headlamp and 45mins later off we went again. (By the way my headlamp is a real novelty here in India and sparks excited gasps whenever I pull it out.)

Our bus arrived at 11am, a mere 4 hours late. It took about 3 hours to get through Mumbai traffic, this city is massive! And along the way we saw more slums then I've seen in one place before. There are a lot of homeless people here. We found a half decent hotel for 500 Rupees ($12) which is an absolute fortune for what we got but that's this city I hear.

The city is quite pretty architecture wise. A lot of old English style buildings in Colaba where we are situated. I'm impressed. Since we are in a big city we of course had to go see a movie, and THE GUARDIAN won out. Nothing like an English movie, A/C theatre and popcorn to put a smile on our faces. We walked to our hotel after and enjoyed the buildings in the moonlight.

We have decided to go to Goa. Thanks to all who have emailed me back after my panicky email. I have checked the US and Canadian travel advisories and there are none for Goa. The Israeli government has the warning to its citizens and the Indian government apparently has no intelligence on it. Gavin was looking online and they have made statements like this before too. I think of course it's likely it might happen BUT Goa has a lot of beaches and only a few that are the large party types the Israelis say are likely to be targeted. Anjuna for example. We would want to stay away from there anyways but now we definitely will until after New Years when a lot of people clear out. So we'll stay in a quiet area and out of large crowds and if we feel it's unsafe we will leave. We are going on the overnight bus tonight and will arrive in Goa tomorrow on Dec 17th. Once we get there I will write where we are staying and stay in touch frequently. Goa is a pretty small state but it's not just one city (as it sounds like) so we can definitely avoid the areas the Israeli's are suggesting to avoid. We won't be out clubbing at 2am with thousands of people and I feel good about us going. If anything changes I'll update you guys.

I must say I am excited for the beach. I think it will be the only time in India that Gavin and I truly relax (terrorist threats withstanding of course). The photos of the beaches look gorgeous and we plan to laze the days away swimming, reading, eating seafood and going for runs. We bought some new suntan lotion today and opted for SPF40 as our legs are pasty white. The Christmas spirit has arrived to Mumbai with snowflake stickers in shop windows and gingerbread cookies in the bakeries, so I'm sure it will be the same in Goa.

posted by melaniewilkes @ 7:29 PM