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This is a Catholic church steeple with some palm trees in Arambol, in northern Goa. Since Goa was colonized by the Portuguese for about 470 years, there ended up being a lot of Catholics here by the end of their tenure, hence, there are a lot of churches and cathedrals around, quite setting it apart from the rest of the subcontinent.

This is a wonderful addition to my 'Stray dogs at Indian landmarks' collection. It was so perfect! I was sitting on the beach enjoying the sunset and this dog (one of many on the beach of course) just walked right over and sat down in front of me. I didn't even have to move to snap the picture.

There was a fresh water creek and inlet very near the main Arambol beach, that made for a nice side trek. I think it was a regular bathing spot for the locals as well, since the rocks made a nice chest-deep pool near where I took the picture from. Several of them came poking their heads out of the bushes or coming up the creek, holding their towels and soap, while we were there.

These are the boats used by the local fisherman. After looking at them up close, I'm really astonished that they go so far out to sea in these things. Some are fiberglass hulls and some even have a motor that they put on the back, but most have the planks laced together with some kind of rope or string and sealed somehow. They also did a lot of fishing from the shore, where they would wade out, extend a big net, and then drag its contents up onto the shore. Strangely, I don't think I saw a single fishing pole.

This is one of the restaurants that we hung out at in Arambol. I really liked the sit-on-the-ground set up, with the low tables. That made it really easy to take a nap after you ate. Sweet. Also, almost everyone of the restaurants bordered the beach, and so had an excellent view too.

I'm so so sorry about the Jeff Foxworthy reference, but...You Know You're in India When...there are almost as many cows on the beach as people. This was in Arambol, but it was pretty standard for most of the other beaches I visited as well. In Palolem, they all came out for the sunset, just like the people. So strange.

Here's a nice sunset photo with a german girl I was haning out with there a bit. Ironically enough, her name was Annika.

This a small section of beach in Palolem, though pretty much the entire beach looks like this. Since it made it into the guidebooks in 97 or 98, the semi-locals who spend the season there said it has just exploded with tourism. There is a lot of local resistance to development though, so they resort to only building temporary structures like these bamboo huts, that will be torn down at the end of the season. I rather like it, since otherwise, the beach would be full of garrish concrete monsters of buildings like the rest of India.

Sunset in Palolem. This was the view directly from the restaurant at Pelton's, where I was staying. Sweet. Everyone turned out for sunset every day. I suppose that's one of the great things about vacation is that you can make that your priority for the day.

This a small view of the beach at Agonda, ten km north of Palolem. We got a group of about twelve to rent scooters and drive up to check this place out for an afternoon of I won't say cliff diving, but I guess rock diving and of course beach lying. It was especially nice because in addition to being really beautiful, there was virtually no trash and no other people.

These are the north and south views from Cabo de Rama, a ruined Portuguese fort, situated high up on a cliff. I took a little solo excursion here to check out the view after our trip to Agonda, since I already had the scooter for a day.

The drive to and from Cabo de Rama had some really nice scenery as well. There were some jungle covered hills that were nice, in addition to some palm tree lined rice patties in the flatter areas.

On my last full day in Palolem, a few of us took a boat ride up the river at the end of the beach. This is me and the 'boat' that we rode in. It was a good thing we stayed relatively close to the ends of Palolem because I was completely sure it was going to sink at any minute.

Here is a daytime view of the island from the beach. It was separated from the mainland by just a small straight, so you had to swim about 20 yards to get there. The jungle on the island was seriously dense, so I only ventured in there once. There were some monkeys to be seen running about, so that's always nice. The rest of the times I went out there, I stuck to the rocks around the edge. I wasn't brave enough to try to get my camera out there and its kind of a shame because the ocean side of the island was so gorgeous. The rock formations were made of three different colored and textured layers of rock, and so were quite nice looking alone, but then of coures, there's the jungle and the waves coming into the picture as well. So, wow, it was nice. I rented a mask and snorkel one day but unfortunately the visibility was not that great, so I couldn't see a lot. Although I did manage to see a nice sized morey, two electric blue trigger fish, a school of gobies and one of shrimp. Good snorkeling was really the only thing that Palolem was missing.

This is the court yard behind the bar/restaurant at Pelton's, where I was staying. My place was the one just to the right of the little bathroom building. I had planned on going 2 or 3 more places in my remaining 10 days of vacation when I arrived in Palolem, but almost immediately nixed those plans and gladly finished out my time here. It was so amazing. At this particular colony (not sure what else to call it) all of the other travelers were super friendly and open, quite a strong contrast to the rest of India, so everyone kind of formed a family that was constantly getting new members and losing old ones.

This is the view from the restaurant at Pelton's. Talk about prime location. Another thing I loved about it was that the floor in the restaurant was just a continuation of the beach, and it was completely open air, with just a roof to keep the rain off. There were several 'locals' staying there, who mostly facilitated the great atmosphere. Some of them have now joined my list of heroes, since they are veterans of several seasons in Palolem. Many of them stay here 6 or 9 months of the year and then go back to France, England, or wherever to work during the monsoon. I'm pretty sure I could never stay that long, but I could have surely stayed longer than the 9 days I did. It was really hard to leave, actually. It's not often that you get to dwell in a place that beautiful. I don't think I put on my shoes for longer than 20 minutes the entire time I was there, which is always a good sign. I definitely got some excellent travel advice from the old timers for my next India trip.

The Mumbai Metro Rail. Just in case you wondered what it looked like. Well anyway, this is what it looks like on an unpopular line in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. If it's a tall busy, you seriously have to take a running start to push yourself into the car. There are usually people bursting out of the doorways. I can't actually recall ever having less personal space than that. The really funny part was when I had all my horribly over-packed bags and tried to take the metro at rush hour. Man I wish I had a picture of that!