Volvo, Sevas and Palolem

Time for a post from Palolem... It's hot, it's humid, it's beautiful. I said Arambol was hot, then I said Hampi was hot, but Palolem is HOOOOOTTTTTTT!!! (and HUMID!) The kind of hot where your front and back torso drip when you're sitting still in the shade. And the kind of humid where, despite the scorching heat, you put clothes out to dry and the next day they're still damp. Blaire and I have had plenty of wonderful conversations, some serious, some funny (great ab workout level of funny), but here in Palolem, we've had a few long silent walks, because the exertion of speaking is just too demanding. So yeah, it's hot.

When I mentioned our AC Volvo luxury sleeper bus to get here, you probably got a mental image which is, well, far from reality. The word luxury should always been taken very lightly when refering to Indian transportation. Sure, it was a notch above the previous overnight bus we took, but not quite what we secretly wished for. After finding the bus parked on the side of the road after a long walk through the dark streets, we shared a single-size bed, with brick-like, tough plastic covered pillows, with just barely enough room to sit up without hitting our head on the bunk above. And the AC was a warmish weak stream of air coming from tiny vents. We were surrounded by obnoxious weed-smoking foreigners (have realized we much prefer traveling with a bus full of locals than one full of western Europeans), who kept being told by the bus attendant that smoking was prohibited inside. We hunched over and ate our hastily purchased bus dinner from road stall (finally found the bus 2 minutes before it took off, so no time to be picky about food). Dairy Milk bar as the entree, Ketchup chips as the main, and cookies for dessert. We'll have a healthy breakfast. So, with the help of my eye-mask and earplugs, I managed a few short spurts of sleep which, combined, added up to probably about 2 hours for the whole night-ride. And even with all that awake time, we still managed to miss our stop. We were scheduled to arrive at 5am, so that's the time I set my alarm for, since buses are consistently behind schedule, but when I got up and went to ask the driver about our stop, we were in Margao, a town 40km north of where we wanted to be. So I went back to the bunk, shook Blaire, we rushed off the bus, then sat for ice coffee and pastries (so much for the healthy breakfast) at a hotel shop that was open at 5:30am, playing loud rap music that was very irritating after a sleepless night, then found a local bus to get on that would bring us back down to Palolem. 

Here, we checked in to our favorite accomodation yet: Sevas Huts and Cabanas, an eco-friendly habitat that reminded us of the other-wordly Yoga Magic in Anjuna, but not quite as other-wordly. Have been here for 4 days, staying another 2, then heading a little ways up the coast to Benaulim. 

I'll write about our week here before leaving on Wednesday. Off for breakfast on the beach :)