Toilet Timeshare!

Arriving at Goa we were exhausted but looking forward to some beach, fresh fish and just chilling. It was still hot and humid but near the sea was great. Goa is more like Europe than India. The beaches are filled with restaurants and locals selling different things. On the beach you can buy anything from a mango, have your ears cleaned (?), get a pedicure, massage, buy sunglasses or necklaces. Goa itself has little more to offer than the beach and seafood and is packed with tourists. It is also way more expensive than any other parts of India we have been to.

We spent the first two days in Benaulim, in the South of Goa, swimming and eating all the delicious fresh fish, before heading North to Baga Beach where we had booked a week of timesharing. It was not your usual concrete mass but a set in beautiful palm trees, with bamboo massage rooms and a hammock area with cushions under the shade of the trees. There were two swimming pools set in these great gardens with waiters bringing you drinks and snacks when you wanted them. It was exactly what we needed and were so up for some luxury.

Another big excitement was that we had our own little kitchen which meant we could eat at home some nights. Three months of restaurant eating gets a bit much when you can't even make coffee for yourself. So the first day we went to the local market to buy fresh vegetables and things to make our own salad at home. The veggies were all soaked in mineral water and salt before we began the salad making. Chilling on our balcony and loving styling it for a bit, I started to get really bad stomach cramps. I'll leave the details out but it was an entire night of both Ant and I in the toilet. The throwing up was so violent that it must have been food poisoning and we had even joked: "imagine if we get sick from our own food." There have been times when we have had no choice but to eat in some dodgy places but usually we are okay so not sure how we managed to make ourselves so sick.

Coming to India we had been given so much advice: don't drink tap water, brush teeth with bottled water only, ask for no ice in drinks, eat in places that are busy, don't eat anything raw, peel all fruit etc etc. Initially were stuck to this but I soon was desperate for salad and just always make sure its in a decent place. The problem isn't always the place, its the water. Anyway up until Goa we have had on and off upset stomachs but never felt sick and were doing well with the different food. Until Goa, both of us felt so sick for 4 days and resigned ourselves to antibiotics to kill all the bacteria in our stomachs.

We spent the timesharing week mostly in the room, in the toilet really, with occasional visits to the pool for a swim. We rarely ventured far from the hotel as either of us could need the toilet at any time.

The toilets in India are an entity in themselves. We were told by friends about the Indian style toilets and that we should get used to it. This is usually a whole in the ground which you squat over. There is always a bucket and jug for washing as they use this for cleaning rather than toilet paper. This is why many people in India will only shake hands with your right hand. They also eat with their right hands and use the left for toilet washing. All our guesthouses have had western toilets but most local restaurants will only offer Indian Style. The train toilets, also Indian and Western style, aren't so bad. Everything falls onto the tracks. Sometimes the Western ones are so manky and gross that its better to just squat. You get the hang of it. The key is to hold your breath as the smell in itself is often enough to send you out. There have been some toilets which I have literally felt so sick just going into, the floor filthy with who knows what everywhere, but when you have to go you have to go. Anti-bacteria gel has been a lifesaver!

We didn't set foot in our kitchen again and named it the "Bacteria Zone" and still do not know what we ate that was bad. It might have been something on a plate or cutting board, who knows. One of our few outings. we managed to go to the Goa market which was great and our first real outing from the hotel in a week.

We left our toilet timeshare at the end of 7 days and flew on a local airline called spicejet, to Delhi. The temperature was between 38 and 40 degrees so we went from the airport to Delhi train station where we caught an overnight train to Rishikesh. We decided to leave out Rajasthan due to the heat and will return one day to travel those parts of india. Its a very common route and easy to travel so we thought we would head for the mountains to get some cooler weather. Rested, healthy and having moved on from boiled rice, we were on our way . . .

ps. The lack of photos in this section is reflective of how little time we spent away from the hotel room! Oh well. at least we had air con and sattelite tv!