"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.

Palaces, pretenders and puking: Part 2

Trying to lose the bad taste the Jaipur boys had left us with, we made a bee line for Jodhpur, the famous Blue city, with its closely packed houses, narrow streets and wonderfully preserved fort looking over the city. Rajasthan’s history is its main attraction and we thoroughly enjoyed looking around the fort’s incredible collections of Moghul and Raj-era palanquins, elephant seats, weapons and beautiful miniature Rajasthani paintings.

Our last stop in Rajasthan was Udaipur, the White City, and touted as India’s most romantic place; home to the famous 18th century Lake Palace, which looks as though it floats on the surface of the water and whose biggest claim to fame was housing James Bond’s harem in the film Octopussy. The Lake Palace is now a top hotel, and although our travellers budget wouldn’t stretch to staying there, we had a beautiful room overlooking the lake from the other side of town.

The city surrounds India’s largest artificial lake,

recently refilled after a dry spell by the heavy monsoon rains of last summer, and is a wonderfully relaxed place to explore, occasionally stopping for a mango lassie or to wander into one of the many artisan’s shops or artist’s workshops. We rented bicycles and cycled around the outskirts, ending up at Sunset Point, where the view over Udaipur was gorgeous but was almost eclipsed by the ‘musical fountain’, complete with a DJ playing Britney Spears and simultaneously operating dozens of water spouts and coloured disco lights.

On our last day in Udaipur, we did a cookery course, which involved less cooking and more observing our teacher (a nutritionist from the local hospital) pouring copious amounts of oil and ghee into a vegetable curry, inexplicably served without the vegetables. When we asked if this was authentic home cooking, she replied, with no hint of irony, “No, this is a hotel curry. I wouldn’t eat this – its far too fattening.” On our way back to the hotel, I began to feel quite sick, which was very annoying, as we’d planned to go out for dinner at one of the lovely Havelis (colonial mansions) surrounding the lake. I struggled on and a few hours and a short nap later I thought I’d be ok. Jonny had booked somewhere and I didn’t know where, so I just got into a rickshaw and allowed myself to be led.

When we ended up at the dock by the lake, I still hadn’t guessed that Jonny had in fact booked us into the famous Lake Palace Hotel of Octopussy fame. When he finally told me, I was so excited I almost forgot how sick I’d been feeling, but half way down the causeway I stopped and projectile vomited over the wall and into the lake. This was the third time I’d thrown up either just before or just after eating an extremely expensive meal, and Jonny’s face was incredulous: not again! He asked if I wanted to pull out, but I wasn’t about to forgo my chance to see one of India’s most beautiful attractions.

When we got there, it was indeed absolutely stunning, with three different restaurants, an interior garden with twinkling lights, lily ponds and terraces overlooking the lake. Although Udaipur’s winter temperatures drop sharply at night, I chose to eat on the terrace as the menu looked good and it was an amazing view. Nobody else was up there – only mad dogs and Englishmen would choose to eat somewhere which needed a hot coal bucket to help warm their feet! But my choice paid off… 20 minutes after we started our meal, to my surprise and delight Jonny got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, producing a ring which he’d carried around for four and a half months, just waiting for the right moment.

So, despite me puking up, and Jonny’s crestfallen face as he thought the whole thing might have to be called off, it was a magical night for both of us.

Palaces, pretenders and puking: Part 1

Rajasthan: a desert land of Maharajah’s palaces, elephants, camels and fortresses. Having returned from our brief sojourn to South Africa, and after making a surprisingly relaxed pit stop at the Taj Mahal (which was worth every penny of its $20 entrance fee), arriving in Rajasthan was an assault on the senses. Where else in the world could you see a neon painted elephant, a tattooed camel and a brightly costumed ‘wedding horse’ (of the kind every self respecting Raj groom rides to his big day), lolloping, lurching and cantering in amongst the mopeds, rickshaws and honking Tata buses, along the same main road?

Jaipur hadn’t been on our list of ‘must do’s’ – in fact we’d wanted to avoid the heat and hustle of Rajasthan’s main town and concentrate on the smaller places such as Bundi and Mount Abu. But what you want from India and what India actually gives you are sometimes very different. We went where the available trains could take us, and all roads led to Jaipur. In a fairly salubrious backpacker hostel later that night, we were somewhat surprised to meet some well dressed and charming middle class Indian guys, of a similar age to us, who offered to take us out. Why not? So we thought, and thus started a night of free drinks, dancing and driving around in smart cars – not your average backpacker night out in Jaipur. We had fun, and by the time we got back to our hostel we felt like we’d made some new friends. Although we’d planned to leave Jaipur the next morning, they persuaded us to stay by offering to take us for lunch the next day, would send a driver to meet us and see some sights, and in the evening we’d all go to a local festival – the ‘real deal’ and not at all touristy. Just what the independent traveller yearns for.

Strangely, when their driver picked us up the next morning, there was no sign of them. When we dropped by their rather unimpressive ‘office’ – they apparently worked in the gem stone import and export business (one of Jaipur’s biggest industries) – they were out on business, and, looking back, there wasn’t much sign of any work being done at the office. We had a tour round the city and were taken for a nice lunch by the driver, all of which didn’t cost us a penny. By five o clock we went back to see if the guys were there and to ask about the festival (the real reason we had stayed). Sure enough, all the guys were there and we sat down with them for some chai and chat.


All seemed innocent enough until the crunch came with a request for us to consider helping them with a tax ‘loophole’ which involved posting €50,000 worth of gemstones back to England and picking them up for them. They offered us a lot of money – it was tempting and vaguely plausible – and we said that it was an interesting offer, but obviously being a finance lawyer, Jonny would have to check out the legality of it all with a law firm back in London.


We left the office feeling extremely unsettled – gem stone scams are famous in Jaipur and we both knew deep down that this felt all wrong. Not long after we left the office, the driver arrived to take us to the festival, but this time he was with a taxi driver, who would apparently take us there and everyone would meet us later.

In the taxi we began to dissect the day’s events – after a great night the night before, nothing really seemed to hang together properly. When we arrived at the festival, half an hour later, it was no more than a tourist ‘Rajasthani Experience’ which wasn’t bad for what it was, but was so far removed from the local festival we’d led to expect we were kicking ourselves for not pulling the plug earlier.


Needless to say, the guys never turned up and we never saw them again. The strangest thing about it all was that we hadn’t given the guys a definitive answer to their undoubtedly dubious scam – and what had they gained? They’d given us a free night out, a free lunch, and a driver for the day. The only thing we could think was that ultimately they knew we were highly suspicious and would eventually work them out. In the end we hadn’t lost anything, except, unfortunately, our trust in a few more Indian people.