So here we are on the road again!

But first please indulge me for a few moments and let me share a couple of very special pictures. The first is of our brand new Grandchildren, Samuel and Roman, both are doing well now and Samuel is home from hospital:

and the second of Toby, a good friend of ours who, twenty eight months ago, suffered a serious head injury during a cycle race which left him paralysed and in a coma. Toby and his support team have worked really hard to get him to the point where he can enjoy a little rough and tumble with his children:

 Well done Toby!

Anyway leaving England wasn’t difficult given the stark choice between wind and rain in London and sun, sun, sun in India … easy.

I came back with my luggage full of brake discs, callipers, pads, glue guns, multimeters, etc. Incoming luggage is screened at Mumbai so I wasn’t too impressed when at 1am, after two flights and a stopover in Doha, an over-eager Customs inspector decided the vehicle spares should have been shipped cargo. He passed me on to a far less eager lady who couldn’t have cared less what I had in my luggage and waved me through – which was nice 🙂

I devoted the next few days to getting Elsie sorted. She is now in the best shape she has been since we left the UK in October. Leishia devoted her time to relaxing and being spoilt – she’s in pretty good shape too!

On our last evening in Mumbai we finally met Taruna (sister of Sumeet, a very good friend of ours) and her partner Anand. They took us to a wonderful Keralan restaurant, Trishna:

 Taruna and Anand

The company was terrific and the food was so good we’ve already planned a return trip!

In the morning we left Mumbai heading south and it wasn’t long before we saw a sight which we see every day in India:

We seem to see truck accidents all the time, most of them are vehicles running into ditches beside the road or turning over. This one was carrying a load of rolled sheet metal which worked out well because they had rolled right off the road!

Perhaps the drivers would do well to pay more attention to the road signs:

There are two main routes south from Mumbai towards Goa, the first is the route 4 motorway and the second National Highway 17 (NH17). We decided to ignore both of them and instead drive down the coast wherever we could. That choice took us to some very pretty places, this the Janjira island fortress offshore from Murud Janjira:

We spent our first night at Mahad, this was the view we woke up to:

The next day we were driving through beautiful scenery for the entire day – the Sayhadri or Western Ghats, yet another of India’s thirty UNESCO world heritage sites. We loved the orchards where every tree had a separate growing area marked out by a low stone wall:

We crossed several tidal rivers:

and arrived early at our second stop at Tarkarli beach:

Tarkarli beach is several miles long with beautiful sunsets:

We left Tarkarli soon after breakfast and drove the short distance to Goa and Panjim. Panjim is a coastal town with a beautiful church:

a colourful cow:

and not much else! That said our hotel served excellent food (Goan fish curry) and was blessed with a very creative waiter. We had finished dinner and retired to our room with a cocktail leaving instructions for them to bring the bill up when it was ready. The waiter arrived with the bill which somehow had a pot of tea added on.

Me: “We didn’t have a pot of tea”. Waiter: “I can’t change the bill now Sir and I have to close my accounts”. Me: “Do you expect me to sign for a pot of tea I haven’t had?” Waiter: “No Sir, may I bring you one?”!

The next day we went to Old Goa, once the capital of the state. The churches and convents of Old Goa are a UNESCO world heritage site and are very impressive.

Leishia seemed to think it very amusing to get me to pose for a picture next to this sign which reads “A world heritage monument”:

So, to matters more serious …

These are the remains of the Church of St Augustine, a huge convent built in 1572:

And this is Leishia imagining life as a nun:

This the view from the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary:

I could drown you in pictures of churches now, but I’ll resist. Suffice to say that there are several huge and imposing churches, you’ll get the idea from these two:

 Church of Se Cathderal Church of St. Cajetan

The fascinating thing about the whole complex is that it seems entirely out of place, it really is a little piece of Portuguese culture transplanted to Goa almost five hundred years ago.

So that’s it, we’re on the road again!

Or almost it, here’s one last picture for anyone missing Leishia and her sashaying!