"Goa Jonny Goa"

As we crossed the unofficial border into Southern India, the language, food and culture changed into something more relaxed, hotter and altogether smellier. Our first glimpse of Bombay had been from the back of an old Ambassador Taxi – like something out of a 1940s movie – at five o clock in the morning on the way from the airport. After a sleepless night spent waiting for a delayed plane, our senses were awakened by the occasional waft of Bombay's truly awful stench. Our taxi driver was also struggling to stay awake – only his bizarre solution was to hang out of the ancient car with the door fully open, driving with one hand on the wheel and his head and body hovering above the tarmac at 60 miles per hour.

Bombay was fun, but before heading to meet all our friends in Goa, we thought we’d check out some of what the Lonely Planet describes as:

‘superlative beaches of which the Maldives would be jealous’ in Maharastra. Although we knew this would be an area devoid of Western tourists, I hadn’t imagined just how different beach life here could be. As we wandered along the seafront in the quiet fishing town of Murud, the enormous but oil stained beach was almost completely deserted, apart from a few horse ‘chariots’ taking Indian tourists for beach rides.

We stopped for some tiffin (late afternoon snacks) at a food stand, and I turned to see a woman in a burka hurriedly putting her veil back on before I could catch a glimpse of her face, when all I wanted to do was put a bikini on and go and play in the surf. Not exactly the done thing in Maharastra.

The next day we endured a long, tough bus ride to go a few miles down the coast to Ganpatipule, a famous pilgrimage centre whose beach was also described as ‘stunning’ by our Guide Book. Arriving at dusk on the beach, not for the first time I thought, ‘who writes these things?’ The beach, once upon a time, had been beautiful, but it was now covered as far as the breakwaters with litter, cowshit and dozens of mangy aggressive dogs following us as we searched for somewhere to stay. When we turned around to find, literally, 100 or so people sitting closely together on the beach, staring at us as though we had landed from another planet, we both thought the same thing: ‘Go to Goa!’

Arriving in the land of bikini-friendly sand, sea and fun in the sun was a real relief. We had a brilliant time on Palolem beach, spending Christmas Day eating Lobster and Tiger Prawns and giving each other presents of lilos, sarongs, and various beach toys. Although Goa’s trance music ‘glory days’ have long since passed, Palolem still sees plenty of young travellers looking to spend the winter dancing on the beach. Jonny had been hoping to get the chance to DJ on this trip and had endured various technical nightmares, including losing all his music to a broken hard drive, along the way.

But at last Jonny had all his equipment in working order to land a gig for Christmas Eve at the Dancing Shiva club, where you dance in the open air, among the palm trees with moon and stars overhead.

Right: "Put your hands up for Bournemouth"

Needless to say the night absolutely rocked, with about four hundred people dancing until the small hours and another ‘dream fulfilled’ tick to go in the box.

A repeat performance was had on New Year’s Eve, only this time with twice as many people and a dozen of our mates from London there to enjoy the night as well. It was marred only when groups of young local boys (most of whom had been a real nuisance by groping western girls on the dance floor) started fighting up and down the beach, including at the Dancing Shiva, leading to New Year’s Eve being given an early(ish) shut-down at 4.30am. Despite this, a great time was had by all, although maybe Palolem won’t be the first choice ‘world party’ beach in future, unless the Indian lads learn to behave themselves.