Changing room’s

We moved from the Majorda on Saturday morning into the “Soul Vacation”, then on Sunday into God’s Gift (Palm View). It was a good job we booked as they put us in the last room available (room 3). As it was the last it was probably their worst room and not a patch on the one they had showed us to persuade us in here. It took ages to get the hot water to come on and the tv didn’t work so I told the top man and he said he could move us the next day into room 7 as they were moving out. In fact, when he saw the tenant walking into town he showed us around while he was out and we said yes immediately. The room was so much better and also in a better spot. The floor tiles in the first room were black and the small window facing North so it was very dark and dingy; whereas the next room has white floor tiles and the larger window is facing West so at least we get some sun. So we moved again on the Monday making it three nights on the trot.

Anyway, back to the Soul Vacation; what a lovely room and hotel, we will definitely try and stay there a bit longer another time. We liked it better than the Majorda so I have a new favorite. They have a lovely pool out in the sun wit shady parts if you prefer and even little double beds with a calico cloth surrounding to keep it shady and private. We had room 503 which was perfect for us having a lovely balcony facing south west, a huge window making the room filled with light; the opposite to most places out here where they try hard to keep out the sun.

We unpacked and lounged around for a while testing everything out then off to the Tait for lunch as we fancied English food. Claire had steak and mushroom pie with mash and veg while I had chicken and mushroom pie with chips and sweet corn. Yumee, it’s nice to have a change from all that lovely curry. Claire washed hers down with a large Kingfisher while I was good and had water. Just as we finished but who should walk in but Stuart and Maurine that we met 2 years ago here in Goa. They have been coming to Goa since 1989 and have seen tremendous changes. He had popped in for the first time as he noticed that they served draught beer. Bang goes my “good boy day” and I joined him with a large one. Stuart and Maurine started helping 2 small girls when they first came here as their father abandoned them for drink. They have helped them all the girls’ lives and now they are helping their families too. Ever time they come they take all the children down to “lucky Star” for dinner as their Christmas treat. If you want to find out more about Stuart and Maurine look back at our blog, www.philandclaireingoa.blogspot.com .

After they had left we were back around the pool relaxing off our meal for a few hours then decided to move into our room for a bit more relaxing and a shower. Wow, our shower is better than the one we fitted in Rothersthorpe back home. I used the hotel soaps and shampoo as they all looked better than the ones I had brought from England. Even the soap was those little hand made ones that cost a fortune but smell nice and have funny things in them. I even used the body lotion instead of our after sun; all this seemed to work as I had Claire all over me later. We slipped on our provided white dressing gowns ready to relax and watch tv on our luxurious bed. There were several film channels, Nature and Discovery channels so we decided on a night in. We had previously bought 3 bottles of Sula from the local which was already chilling in the fridge. The Sula in the off-license was 500 Rupees apposed to 1100 rupees in the Majorda Beach Resort. We glanced through the room service book and noticed that their Sula was only 650 Rupees so we had one just so we could have the ice bucket that came with it. We had a selection of appetizers and watched 3 films; we didn’t even need to get a dvd from the library that were all listed in the room service booklet. They were charging about £1 a dvd which is cheap for us.

We awoke after a fabulous nights sleep on the best mattress I have ever used feeling really relaxed; we really did feel like we had a “Soul Vacation”, even after only one night. At check out I told her how much we had enjoyed it there and that we might be coming back in April before our visas ran out. She gave me a card and said that the rooms were really cheap in April. I can’t wait to find out how cheap, we may even break with tradition and stay there the whole two weeks if it’s cheap enough.

Back to reality in “God’s Gift” having just moved rooms again. Monday we had booked a boat trip on Betty’s boats and so we could enjoy a drink we sensibly booked Julius our driver for the return trip. We got there for 9.15 as instructed but realized straight away that there was a problem as we were the only ones there. He said it had been cancelled and that he had tried to phone us on Sunday at the hotel we gave him the number for. Even if we had given him the right number he wouldn’t have got us as we were having our Soul Vacation. Never mind, the taxi was still there to take us straight back home again. We decided to catch up with the internet at Colva and walk back along the beach for some exercise.

The beaches are almost deserted and those sand bag constructions that I mentioned turned out to be military bunkers. They have one outside each expensive hotel so as to protect their clients from a sea attack. All I would like to say about the matter is that Churchill would be proud of them!

Palm View (or Gods Gift) is quite a nice guest house with a nice pool and a restaurant which we had already sampled a local Indian lunch there which was very nice and really cheap. We had rice, a chicken jalfrazie, aloo gobi and japaties washed down with a large and small beer a liter of water and a lassie all for 365 rupees. Having walked back from Colva we unpacked our stuff in our new room and came back to the pool to catch up on a bit of relaxing. I have now started to understand why people like to relax when they go on holiday. They have 3 lovely little puppies here at the hotel which all seem to like Claire but don’t ever seem to want to come to me. We decided that we would eat at our pool as we had discovered that the restaurant serves there. They do add on 10% service charge, but 10% of not very much, is even less not very much; if you follow my math. They seem to do quite a lot of Thai food on the menu so we had a full blown Thai meal served at the pool which was lovely but very tiring so we need to get straight back into relaxing it off.