Goa, Goa.... Gone

We have been out of internet service for the past few days so let me catch up. First, Goa is awesome. It's an astounding collection of hippies - old and young. It's been on my bucket list for years and I was so excited to finally get here. We ended up staying two days in Anjuna and even timed it just right to be there on Wednesday for the famous Anjuna flea market... miles and miles of color & trinkets and everything cheap that you could ever think of needing. And booths filled with buckets of spices of every color and smell. It was great sights and even better people watching. Savannah got a henna tattoo on her arm at one of the stalls.

For some reason my photos will not load in the right place tonight... so I've put them all at the end in the order of this blog... sorry

A quick observation: India's version of drip irrigation cracks me up.... a cut off coca cola plastic bottle with 2 small holes in the cap. Fill it with water. Your tree is drip irrigated all day.

We stopped at a fort town on the way into Goa and spend some time exploring ... Great views from the fort's walls of the bay below.

Then disaster struck.... India Delhi Belly (also known as unrelenting vomiting with diarrhea at the exact same time so you end up on the toilet with a bucket in your arms as everything comes back up both ways) swept through us like a Tsunami. It hit me first while we were all walking and playing cricket on the beach at sunset the first day after we left Goa. By 10 PM, we had to take Savannah to the hospital and by midnight Chloe was down for the count. Whatever parasite got ahold of us was having a field day. Savannah's vomiting got so bad (she was literally getting no more than 5 minutes break between attacks) that we woke up the manager of the VERY humble place we were staying that night and had him drive Savannah to the hospital .... And what a facility it was... there are no words to describe this place. Suffice it to say that rats and cockroaches are well-acquainted with it, every wall is black with mildew and mold, you are forced to remove your shoes to enter so - with every step - you are convinced you are inheriting some antibiotic resistant communicable disease and a night there at the "deluxe" hospital room plus 6 shots and 4 bags of IV drip cost 1800 rupees ($30). Savannah took one look at this place and started begging for an air ambulance .. but to say that we were in a remote part of the world would be a gross under-statement.. there is not only no air ambulance, there is no airport in sight. For sure no westerner had ever set foot in this "hospital." And yet the nurses - all dressed in plain pink saris (and of course barefoot) were kind and sweet and rubbed her feet and patted her head and tried their very, very best. The people here are so very nice. But there is really nothing worse than being sick when you are staying somewhere awful. The night Delhi belly hit we had ended up in a tiny town and got the last available rooms at a local hotel where some of us were staying in wood huts on stilts and others in concrete dorm rooms. It was right on the beach and a pretty setting but had no amenities, not even hot water. By the time dawn broke I had broken down, was flat out crying and freely admitted to Rainey that I had lost all sense of adventure (you'll be glad to hear that my spirit has since returned but I was beaten at that point). All I wanted was America OR an American-style hotel OR really any sleeping establishment with a name written in english and an actual bed (instead of a 2 inch slab of wadded up cotton on a sheet of plywood - which passes for a bed in any "local" or "indian" hotel) OR any place with real indoor plumbing (my wish list was steadily getting simplified as I got sicker and sicker).

After 24 hours of hell, we finally limped further south and gradually got to feeling better. We ended up in a town with a huge Hindu shrine and temple. Literally thousands of Indians are on vacation in this town today. The women are not allowed to wear swimsuits.. so they walk into the waves in full saris...!!!

We are now on our last few days... we cross the finish line in Kochin in just two days. So far our Tuk Tuks have held up great (no major issues... knock on wood) so we're hoping for an uneventful ending.. We have really been on some adventures over the past two weeks...Stay tuned for our finale...