October 11 and 12 - Arambol beach

Plan: Enjoy the sun!

The next two days consisted of exactly what two days at Arambol Beach should: vegging on the beach in the sun. We ate breakfast both days at this little café that served huge and delicious chocolate croissants and massala tea. Next we would find ourselves a lounge chair on the beach, order a drink, and enjoy the view. Things to watch for included the local fishermen hard at work pulling in their nets from the sea and then extricating the many fish. Next people from all the local restaurants would come up and barter for fresh fish and take away their haul. It was a very interesting sight. Other activities included swimming of course, diving into the waves, and also wake boarding. I’d never done this before and rented a board for an hour. A nice Israeli guy taught me the gist of it and by the end I could comfortably ride a wave (on my stomach of course) for about 10 meters. Pretty cool stuff. Lastly, opportunities for shopping from your lounge chair are just incredible here. Local Indian women would often stroll by, ask if you wanted any jewellery, and if you were remotely interested, they would proceed to unload their entire stash on your lounge chair. We got a pretty good deal on a hippie necklace for me and a toe ring for Em this way. Other shopping opportunities we were less interested in included fresh coconuts, trance music CDs (very popular in Arambol), and drugs (also quite popular). We also decided to take care of ourselves a little bit on the beach. Em got a really crappy pedicure and I got a only slightly less crappy love mom henna tattoo (thanks for the idea Maxime!).

And by crappy pedicure, he means that a 4 year old could’ve done a better job!!! And as for his tattoo, it looked fine until the “artist” drew the heart...it was all downhill from there!

After the sun went down we would head up the main street (the only street really) which was of course lined with shops, and do some more shopping for presents. I also checked out a beach party at one of the local restaurants down the beach but it was mostly a place to chill and not so much to dance. Overall though, we had a very productive 2 days in Arambol evening our tans, relaxing, and shopping. It wasn’t easy to head back on that bus to Mapsa, then Panaji, and finally the night bus to Pune, but somehow we did, because that’s just what 2 studious students like us do.