On/Off-season

The hottest tourist season begins in November, at least around Goa. You can notice the starting by watching the action around beach shacks. Everywhere they are rebuilding and refurbishing shacks and new restaurants are opening almost daily with huge discounts and offers when the clubs are fighting for the just-arrived tourists. For me it is a good sign to get out of the beaches and head north. Yeah, Kerala will be at the end of the trip - depending on the schedules of course. I'm trying to get a train to Jaisalmer via Mumbai to do four-five day camel safari out in the desert. After that maybe to Pushkar to see the camel fair before heading to Agra and Varanasi.

The train tickets are a bit scarce but since the travel agencies can't book from the tourist quota, I guess I'll have to try my luck in Mumbai and see if they have some tickets available there. Otherwise it would have to wait a week and I'm really not eager to stay in the sun for that long. 10 days of settling in is quite enough.

I'm currently sharing my room with the french guy I met on the plane from Helsinki to Mumbai. 150Rs or 2,5e a night certainly doesn't put that much strain on my budget and you could live here with under 5 euros/day easily in a shared room. That is if you eat in restaurant every night, true penny-pinchers would probably manage with even less but that sounds a bit too spartan for my taste. Especially since you can get a good meal for 2 euros on a nice restaurant at the beach or good food in not-so-pleasing environment for around 1e.

And a cup of delicious chai costs 5Rs in a nice booth close to the entrance of the beach. A new addiction definitely.

Palolem beach is quite popular amongst western tourists but the atmosphere is something totally different than in Calangute for example. A really nice place, but Colva for example was a lot quieter beach with very little western tourists and lots of Indian people celebrating diwali. But the beaches of Goa seem to offer something for everyone. If it's raves and parties you are after, head north to Anjuna or Arambol, tourist hell would be in Calangute-Baga, Backpacker ghetto in Palolem and some more quiet beaches somewhere in the between. At least during the start of the season.