Pizza Picture courtesy of Google Images!

India Part 2 - A Tale of Woe

Apologies for the lack of picture action in this brief but dramatic 'upload', but in the end, I think you'll agree pictures might have been a mistake...

Our eleven-hour train from Mumbai left at six thirty in the morning. We’d purposely picked a daytime train for this leg of the journey, in order to take in the stunning scenery beautifully described in the book. Unfortunately, it appeared that the window cleaners had gone on strike, so we could only catch glimpses. It looked smashing though, and the weather was fine - no sign of any storm clouds on the horizon…yet.

As the train left the station, it became clear that our tactical move of getting a carriage next to the train’s pantry car was going to pay off. We got first dibs on all the delights coming through the train. Breakfast consisted of a chai, two very sweet coffees and a three-egg omelette sandwich. Early elevensees (which tagged onto the coat-tails of breakfast) consisted of more tea and some vegetable samosas. Late elevensees was a couple of packs of Bombay / Mumbai mix, and this was quickly followed by the standard veggie thali lunch. Bon Appetit! The sum of our day’s scoffing was less than £1.50 each - roughly equivalent to a Pringle on SouthWest Trains.

After a couple of donuts mid-afternoon, and a snooze on my bed above our seats, the train finally pulled in at Madgaon at half past five in the evening. We managed to wobble off and got a tuk-tuk to Colva Beach, our first destination in Goa. We merrily wandered around looking for a guesthouse, completely unaware that in roughly thirty-six hours, disaster was about to strike.

The guesthouse we found was hidden away along a dark path - at one point, we found ourselves into someone’s back garden by mistake before being pointed in the right direction. As we approached the wide-open front door, I got a nasty shock and quickly had to cover Lauren’s eyes from the horror within - a rather podgy middle-aged Indian gentleman sitting watching the cricket…in his Y-fronts. He was so engrossed in the India v. Sri Lanka match that he hadn’t heard us approach. Even after saying ‘hello’ a couple of times he hadn’t registered our presence, and I wasn’t really sure what to do. Finally, at the end of the over, he got up, gut hanging over his grundons, and cheerfully greeted us. Then he shouted for his elderly mother to show us to our room so that he could continue with his cricket and pants party.

We rose early the next morning to have a look around town, and suss out how long we thought we’d like to stay in Colva. We checked out the beach, which was quite nice and found a fish-drying place which stank something rotten!

Aside from the beach, however, there really wasn’t a lot to keep us there, so we decided on one more night, then we’d catch a bus to Palolem, about 40km’s down the coast, the next morning. As the day wore on, and the heat grew more and more oppressive, I decided that a gin and tonic would be just the ticket to get me through to dinner time, and by the time my dinner of kingfish steak and salad was over, I’d had a couple more - a very pleasant evening indeed. Had I looked out of our window before I lay my weary head on the pillow, and drifted off to sleep, I would surely have noticed the fully-gathered storm clouds were ready to unleash their fury.

It was still dark when my eyes sprang open. I think it must have been about four in the morning, but couldn’t find the light button on my Casio, so am still not sure to this day. The time wasn’t important, though, as my attention was being drawn to a rather strange sensation in my gut. A mixture of cramps and stabbing sensations had woken me from my slumber, and were threatening to write-off the rest of my night’s sleep. The ‘Health’ section of our Lonely Planet was still fresh in my mind, having read it a few days previously, and this knowledge helped me to narrow things down. I was pretty certain that the answers to what was going on in my stomach would be found under the ‘Infectious Diseases’ topic. However, not being one to make a mountain out of a molehill, I assessed whether any immediate ‘action’ was on the cards - which it wasn’t - and rolled over back to sleep.

“You must have what I had in Agra”, Lauren smirked the next morning as she got dressed whilst I shivered in agony on the bed.

“I don’t think so Petal, this is something serious”, I thought, whilst letting out a gentle whimper. My mind was racing - which one was it? Rabies, swine flu or bird flu? Or perhaps a hybrid of all three? The one thing I had ruled out was what Lauren had suffered in Agra - too much suffering for that.

Anyhow, as the disease took hold, I bravely battled on and got dressed, sharing my time equally between packing my bag and managing my symptoms. I was determined to make that bus. Twenty minutes later, after Lauren had munched through her breakfast, we were on the bus with me looking like Casper the friendly ghost sitting in a pool of sweat. The bus journey was agony. It took about an hour and a half, but I swear it was closer to four. I had positioned myself next to a window - a tactic that had clear advantages, but also hidden drawbacks which revealed themselves every time we passed a fish-drying farm, bad drain or dead animal. Just as things were about to get all too much, the bus pulled in at a station and I was out of the door like a whippet. “Don’t let it leave without me!”, I yelled back to Lauren, just as the first diced carrot made its dramatic bid for freedom.

Ten minutes later, I was back on board and feeling a lot brighter. And as the bus pulled away from the station, I knew I may have won the battle, but the war was far from over. Thankfully, a few minutes later we were finally in Palolem.

Having a disease, as I did, brought with it some unexpected bonuses whilst searching for accommodation. Not wanting to let on that I was feeling just a little better, I garbled sentences such as, “mm…must hh…ha…have air…con”, and, “s…sa…satellite tv”, to Lauren. A short while later I had my feet up on a comfy bed watching the NeoCricket channel, whilst Florence Nightingale was in the local market trying to work out the Hindi word for Lucozade. The rest of my day was spent quietly in the room as Lauren explored the town, diligently remembering to return frequently with sustenance such as grapes and water. As the sun went down over the horizon and day turned into night, I continued my courageous recovery by venturing outside for a plain chapatti before quickly returning to the room to recuperate and sleep (after the live Premier league action on the satellite tv).

Incredibly, by the next morning, things had taken a turn for the good and I was bravely able to wander down to the beach with Lauren and have a light spot of breakfast. Although there was a slight grumble of discontent from my guts, it appeared that they had learnt ‘not to bite the hand that feeds’ and were now accepting the small offerings I was passing down. The rest of the day was spent wandering around town trying to avoid the incessant clamour for all the stall holders and shopkeepers trying to get you to buy something.

We hit the beach in the afternoon and I decided to give the stomach a proper workout by playing a game of beach cricket with some locals. Obviously still under the weather and very unfamiliar with the pitch, my performance wasn’t the best, but it was great fun. I told them I’d be back in the New Year and would look forward to another game.

Thinking I was all in the clear disease-wise, we went for the traditional Indian dish of pizza that night - something stodgy to give the tummy something to think about. All plans of having something plain went out of the window when I saw the ‘Seafood Extravaganza’ on the menu. Not only did this beast have tuna, prawns and calamari on top, it also boasted kingfish, cockles and mussels (alive, alive, oh). The perfect pizza. Still in a weakened state, I couldn’t manage the whole thing, but the waiter kindly gave me a take away box to pack the rest in. This was consumed lukewarm an hour and a half later in front of a film on the telly.

The next day was mostly spent in bed.

!!Final update coming soon!!