We have moved to a hotel in Margao today to be near to the railway station as we are leaving Goa tomorrow and heading for Hampi in Karnatica. I would have liked to have been in Goa for Christmas and New year but we were both getting bored of the beach life. Even paradise has its drawbacks. There was no point in just hanging around for an extra week feeling restless, so off we go again. Grahame has got his confidence back now after Dehli and we will probably be going our own ways after Hampi, both heading generally south but on different time tables and places. He will be coming back to Goa for a train back to Dehli for his flight home and I shall be heading eventually to Traivandrum in Kerela for my flight to Shri Lanka on 1 February.

Sill no sign of any rain but it's been quite windy today but also very hot in the sun. But this cyber cafe is air conditioned, so it's qite comfortable here.

I breifly mentioned on the previous page that we had problems in Dehli, but did not go into detail. It was Grahame who realy had the most trouble, having arrived first. I had a soft landing realy. He arrived early morning and took a taxi. That's where your problems start. Taxi drivers the world over try to rip you off but they usually take you to the place you want to go. In Dehli they don't. They take you to where they wamt you to go, which is a hotel where they will get commission for bringing you. They can't fleece you on the fare because you pre pay at a booth at the airport. They have all sorts of scams to avoid taking you where you want to go from supposed riots in the city to simply saying they've never heard of your hotel. So Grahame was forced to settle in the middle of the night for a hotel at 3 times the price he would otherwise have payed and in a part of the city he had no idea of where he was. He wasn't able to find the place we were supossed to meet but got a room at a sensible price the following night and decided that the only way he could be sure of meeting up with me was to get back to the airport to meet me on arrival. So I was met with a taxi waiting and a hotel room ready. We got out of Dehli the very next day. Since then we've met several other people who have had similar bad expwriences of Dehli and who did just what we did. There is more to what happened to Grahame before I arrived but I haven't time to go into it here. I'm such a slow typer.

I'll have to end this session now. Best wishes to everyone for Christmas and New Year. I hope your weather isn't too bad. Don't forget to sign our Guest Book.

© Kevin Gilmartin 2001. Page last updated 19 December 2001.