{"id":138,"date":"2007-01-01T02:50:44","date_gmt":"2007-01-01T07:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2007-01-01T02:53:47","modified_gmt":"2007-01-01T07:53:47","slug":"goodbye-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Paradise…"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 6 days on Panolem Beach, we headed for Candolim, just north, to spend Christmas at a guesthouse we had reserved in advance…<\/p>\n

Things didn’t work out quite the way we had envisioned, considering we walked into the garden and thought we had accidentally ended up in a retirement home.\u00a0 And the blasting Christmas tunes didn’t improve our mood.\u00a0 5 minutes later we had already had our first fight with the owner, amazed that her ‘free breakfast’ included only watery nescafe and two pieces of white toast.\u00a0 All this for ten times what we normally pay for accomodation.\u00a0 We ended up winning the battle for some fried eggs but the next day we set off to find some new, greener pastures.\u00a0 The last ‘kick in the pants’ was when she served us the hard-won eggs and toast but denied us the butter until we had completed another argument.\u00a0 Good times!<\/p>\n

\"imgp2095-medium.JPG\"<\/a>\u00a0This is the sign for the restaurant where we ate our xmas dinner…although we did not bathe or binge, much to the disappointment of the staff there!<\/p>\n

Our Christmas day was 6 hot, dusty hours looking for the perfect spot in the hippie beach town of Anjuna.\u00a0 Our search finally paid off 5 hours in, when a restauranteur called up his friend, who luckily had a suite in her place available.\u00a0 As soon as we saw the brand-new house with green marbled floors, 15-foot coved ceilings, and our own private porch, and realized that it was half the price of our other place, we knew we were home!<\/p>\n

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With the money we saved, we rented a motorcycle for the week (if you happen to be our mothers you can go ahead and skip the next paragraph…) and spent the next 6 days tootling around town and daytripping up the coast.\u00a0 Claire learned how to\u00a0drive the little ‘Red Rocket’ and it was hard to get the driver seat\u00a0back after that!\u00a0One day we ended up at a beach near Arambol, with a freshwater lagoon just 30 feet from the ocean, and a hike through the jungle brought us to fresh mud baths and a huge, sacred Banyon tree with a 50M\u00a0canopy span.\u00a0 Pictures do\u00a0not do it justice! Note in the last picture on the line that Claire is wearing her ‘water safety’ gear, a thoughtful Christmas gift from Seth.\u00a0 Even on holiday, safety first!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"dscf1553-medium.JPG\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"dscf1548-medium.JPG\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"imgp2097-medium.JPG\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"dscf1552-medium.JPG\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"dscf1546-medium.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Probably the highlight of the week was our night out on the town at Club Cubana, an open-air, three tiered club high up on a hill overlooking the Goan coast.\u00a0 We had prepared for our big night out with an afternoon in the Anjuna markets and a few beers at a beach bar afterwards, listening to an aging hippie band that consisted of a sitar player, two drummers, a didge player, a guest accordian brought up rather randomly from the audience, and the star of the show, a mick jagger lookalike wearing skintight black pants two sizes too small, with a hairy belly hanging over the belt.\u00a0 By this time we were PUMPED for our night out!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We’ll be honest, the real draw to the club was that once cover was paid, all drinks were free all night.\u00a0 And even better, the night we went, ladies cover was free!\u00a0 So\u00a0after Seth paid cover, we set off into the club to make sure we drank our money’s worth (not too tough!)\u00a0 We were amazed by the decadence\u00a0of the club, with multiple bars, free massages, and a pool with an incredible view of Goa.\u00a0\u00a0We had a great time dancing and meeting all kinds of people and\u00a0wishing this\u00a0club existed in Vancouver…although the ski club would DEMOLISH it!<\/p>\n

New Years was similarly fun, we got some gin and headed to the beach, where we discovered a bonfire, some good house music, dancing, and fireworks.\u00a0\u00a0All was great until just after midnight when some drunken amateurs were setting fireworks off directly over (and into) the crowd.\u00a0 After Claire found a spark on her foot, we decided to move along.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Tomorrow, onto Hampi and then back to the North to check out the Rajasthan desert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 6 days on Panolem Beach, we headed for Candolim, just north, to spend Christmas at a guesthouse we had reserved in advance… Things didn’t work out quite the way we had envisioned, considering we walked into the garden and thought we had accidentally ended up in a retirement home.\u00a0 And the blasting Christmas tunes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sethandclaire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}