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January 9-15, 1999

If you read the schedule below the following story, you will notice that never in the timeline is taking pictures mentioned...sorry! The pictures on the left are various pictures we liked from this leg of the journey (Mumbai back to Nepal).

In Mumbai we spent three days in the cyber-cafe working on the website. Mumbai, which is an expensive place to begin with, was particularly draining financially when you add in the fact that Josh had to buy a plane ticket from Katmandu to Thailand, and Mike's camera was stolen from our room. The latter caused Mike a great deal of distress. We accepted the circumstances as incidentals of travel, and spent the afternoon in Mumbai's nicest hotel, the Taj. We sipped martinis while absorbing a view of the city and harbor, trying to make the misery of a lost camera disappear as quick as a gin soaked olive at the bottom of a glass. (This all turned out to be needless worry and sorrow because Mike’s camera was discovered in his toiletry kit 2 days later.)

We went to the train station our very first day in Mumbai, in order to avoid ticket troubles by booking well in advance. While we were waiting in line, the man behind the tourist booking window took a half hour lunch break, and not one of the other fifty employees behind the counter bothered to take his place. The weary tourists just had to stand there and wait. To help pass the time, Josh went across the street to McDonald's, and purchased two cheeseburgers, two hamburgers, one chicken sandwich, three large fries and three Cokes. During our wait, we heard some rumors that the train to Goa (our next destination) was sold out until the ninth, and indeed noticed a small piece of paper taped to the ticket window that read: Tickets available to Goa on January 9. We found out that many people in line were trying to get to Goa as well, but most of them wanted to leave that day (January 5). Thus, they exited and we moved forward. We finally got to the front and purchased our tickets. Following, the man un-taped the sign in the window and changed Jan 9 to Jan 10. Rama was with us. Our luck was changing.

It was a night train that dropped us off in Goa at 8:30 am on the 10th. We booked a room in the capital city Panjin, which we found out was 15 kilometers away from the ocean and beaches. Therefore, we took a rickshaw the following day to the beach town of Calangute, and booked a hotel just 5 minutes away from the beach. For the first time on our trip we made it a priority to book a room with cable TV and ESPN in order to watch the Vikings in the NFL playoffs. Unfortunately, the only game they showed was the Jacksonville Jaguars vs. the New York Jets. (As you all know by now this would be the last time we would need cable TV - Vikings "finis.")

Goa was very relaxing, warm and sunny. Our plan was to sit on the beach and chill for a few days and that was about it. As beautiful and relaxing as the beaches were, we would not escape yet another new and peculiar Indian phenomena. As we would lay in the sun, trying to tan our milky white bodies, Indian men dressed in long sleeve pants, shirts and leather shoes, who were also on vacation, would come up and ask to take photos with us. At first we thought they wanted us to take a picture for them, but what they really wanted was us to be in the picture with them, with all of our white flesh exposed. We later conjectured that this wasn't so different from us taking pictures of ourselves with a traditionally dressed Rajistani or an Indian vegetable seller.

The highly acclaimed sunsets of Goa received only mixed reviews from us. Although the sunset was very vibrant and beautiful most of the way down, the sun would be engulfed in a hazy cloud of smog just before it dropped into the ocean

"Goa is best explained like this"

Written on January 15, 1999 1:20 am waiting for the 2:28 am train that's delayed until 3:18 am.
Goa is best explained like this:
--  Day 2,4 and 5 --
9:00 - wake up
9:40 - eat
10:30 - lie on beach
15:00 - happy hour and sunset viewing at Typsie's bar on the beach
18:30 - relax in room
19:00 - street food snack
19:30 - eat dinner
20:30 - relax in room watching cable TV movies that were to bad too be released in the states and went straight to video
2:00 - sleep

Some variations include mid-afternoon snack, and shopping for cheap tee-shirts in between the street food snack and dinner.
--  Day 3  --
8:00 - wake up
8:30 - take rickshaw to Panjin bus terminal where (?) train tickets can be purchased
9:00 - get in line
9:20 - told we are in wrong line
9:21 - get in new line
9:40 - told our first train option had no available seats until the end of the month
9:43 - realized there is a second train option
9:45 - get in line
9:58 - told "tickets for second option must be purchase at Margoan train station"
10:07 - get on bus to Margoa
10:47 - arrive Margoa bus station
10:51 - get rickshaw to Margoa train station
11:00 - arrive Margoa train station
11:03 - look for reservation office
11:08 - find office and get in line
11:15 - told wrong line
11:16 - get in line
11:30 - told second train option was full until January 19th
11:31 - ponder existence
11:33 - scrutinize train schedule and make list of all trains going to Cochin
11:40 - get in line
11:57 - told option 3 had seats costing 1180 rupees each ($30.00 U.S) and option 4,5,6 and 7 had a waiting list 51, 111, 41, 61(meaning that 51, 111, 41, or 61 people were waiting ahead of us for that particular train)
12:08 - change plans
12:13 - get in line
12:20 - book tickets to Mangalore (half way to Cochin) for 180 rupees each
12:25 - rickshaw to Margoa bus station
12:40 - get on bus to Panjin bus station
13:20 - arrive Panjin bus station, where we could have bought tickets to Mangalore!!!!
13:23 - rickshaw back to hotel
13:45 - arrive hotel
13:50 - eat
14:30 - change into beach garb
15:00 onwards- see day 2,4 and 5