The end is nigh

Well our lovely traveling time is nearly up. We have had a fantastic 15 months on the road and we can't believe it has gone so fast. It will be great to see everyone again but very hard to drag ourselves away from the fabulous Palolem beach and get back to a cold, grey February in the UK! We have got a month back in Blighty though before the dreaded work starts again, so we'll be able to spend some time with Si's family in Wyrley as well as my family in Torquay and we'll then have a few weeks to get ourselves sorted out and moved back into the flat in Birmingham.

We have really enjoyed being back in Palolem. It definitely wins our award for best Indian beach.

It has just the right mixture of laid back and chill out attitude and some great bars and restaurants. We enjoyed going to the open air cinema again. It is in a fantastic location and setting, even thought the film (Paranormal Activity) was a bit poor. Unfortunately the Silent Disco was canceled on Saturday apparently due to problems with the police, so that was a shame as we really enjoyed our silent boogie last time. Off to the open air cinema again tonight to see Zombieland.

Well it it has been a tough last week here in Palolem. We have been swimming, sunbathing, doing some light shopping, catching up on out last few paperbacks and enjoying having the full range of cable channels. All the restaurants we have been to here have been really good, especially the Cheeky Chapati and Magic Italy. We also had some in-restaurant cow related entertainment the other night. They just couldn't keep this particular cow out of the restaurant and it was fascinated by the open kitchen!

They seemed to have more luck tempting it out of the restaurant with a chapati than by poking it with a kebab skewer. I'm all for fresh produce but a cow actually walking into a restaurant of it's own accord is pretty strange! Perhaps they need to install a cattle grid.

We will miss the whole Indian beach experience. Vendors wandering up and down the beach will sell you anything from a sarongs, to fruit, to stone elephants, to massages, to henna tattoos, to boat rides and fish, to drums and stickers. You have got kids on tightropes, beggars, Indian women swimming fully clothed and Indian men swimming in huge shrieking groups all with inappropriate small brown pants on! The beach cows are always entertaining and will occasionally have a fight with the beach dogs. I don't think it will be quite the same back in Torquay. We will miss it all.