Back to Base
For some reason we always consider Colva as our base. Maybe it’s because it’s the first place that we stayed the first time we came to Goa. I know that most other people that we talk to that come back lots of times, even if they travel like us, always consider the first place that they stopped as their Goan home
. I remember my college days, you always continued to sit in the same place for a certain lesson that you sat in on your first day. Sometimes you might use the same classroom for a different lesson and you may sit in a different place in that lesson, but always the same place for the same lesson. I guess it suited the teachers as well, giving them another handle on who was who with so many kids to teach. One day when it was getting cold and the 
college heating was off we decided to move to a room nearer the centre of the block. Although the room was a different shape and layout everyone sat down in relatively the same place to everyone else as much as possible. Nobody thought about it consciously, it just happened on its own. We checked into the Star beach re
sort where they have 2 basic types of rooms; ones with aircon and ones without. The ones without have balconies that are overlooking the swimming pool, whereas the aircon ones are in the gardens. We have stayed in both types several times before but for
us, the ones around the pool suit us best. Not just because they are about Rs200 cheaper a night at Rs1050 but we always feel a bit out of it in the gardens and its also nice to have a balcony. We were pleased to see that they have upgraded, at least our room, to flat screen tv’s this time. We had to pay Rs200 extra a day for a fridge so it’s the same price but a fridge seems to be more useful to us than aircon somehow. Last time we stayed here in March 2009, these rooms were Rs875 so there has been a little inflation, but it’s not as significant as our exchange rate change. We settled into our room, which didn’t take long because Claire would
n’t put our clothes into the wardrobes as they stink of mothballs. Back in England, I haven’t smelt the smell of mothballs since I was a kid, unless you go on holiday to Germany or India, but here it is a pretty poor Guest house without them. We do use the wardrobe to
put our valuables in, and we always bring a chain to wrap around the handles and padlock with one of our backpack locks. Generally, the staff are so frightened of their employers that they wouldn’t dream of breaking their property just to find out what’s in there and there is very little vandalism over here anyway. Another essential to bring when travelling around Goa is a universal plug. In fact two; one for the sink as there is never a plu
g in any bathroom that we have ever stayed in, and one for your electrical equipment. We always bring a short 4 way electrical socket with one adaptor so we can plug in 4 of our normal devices like, hair dryer, charger, computer etc and all into one of their sockets. You’re lucky if you even get one spare socket that you can use, normally we have to put a combination of adaptors into the tv power point so as to somehow wrangle one extra socket for our things. They either use continental 2 way sockets or the three pin round ones we used to have until the war. We stoppe
d off at our favourite internet café siffy i-way to put the blog on and headed towards the beach to walk along towards Benaulim and track down the Blue Corner where our engagement party is on Thursday evening. We got invited to this on B
etty’s boat trip and on our way we stopped at the very first beach shack Domnick’s. Those of you that have followed our blogs might remember our first when Domnick’s was our favourite shack. The owner Domnick is a bit grumpy, our favourite was his brother, Ludvick that died but all the other staff are still the same. Every year they have a lottery to see who gets the best patch, nearest to where people first come in, and every year Domnick 
gets the number one spot. I said to him upon our arrival that he is the luckiest man in Colva. Maybe he just knows the right people. Anyway, we had a light lunch and headed off to find the Blue corner. I said in a previous entry that there were more cows in the north than the south, but this year there are cows around every corner in both halves. They were all along the beach, maybe it’s because it was a little overcast today with even a light drizzle w
hile we were in the shack. The Blue corner is one of the first shacks as you approach Benaulim and they have proper beach cabins that were quite sweet with en-suite facilities but made out of organic material that the mosquitoes can get through. For that reason, they have a complete net around the beds that in some way make them even more attractive to westerners b
ut at Rs1400 a night we were not persuaded. We had a drink there and headed back but not without saying hello to Dave and Alison who were on a couple of sun beds. They are getting engaged on Thursday and we may have a wander on to it if we can. We headed back towards Colva and spotted a couple of locals training their water buffalo ready for the next bull fight. We also saw a few ladies carrying large boxes on their heads. I dropped Claire off at the internet café as Hotmail were busy this morning and she hasn’t checked her emails for a while. This gave me chance to run a few errands. We needed water, lemons and another electrical adaptor. You get through adaptors like crazy over here with the rubbish supplies over here 
with fuses only lasting a few days. I can’t understand why its not easier to buy fuses anywhere. You always have to buy another adaptor; we have about 5 of them now. I think the only place that you can buy them is in Margao but it’s a nightmare on the bike. There are lots of local shops in Colva, but you have to go up the hill past the church to find them. While I was writing this, my pc just shut itself down having run out of battery. I found this 
strange as I had our new adaptor plugged into the mains and the fans and lights were still working so it wasn’t a power cut. The adaptor neon was on but not the little light on my pc by the socket so I wriggled the adaptor until it came on again. Within a few seconds, it’s gone off again so I plugged it into the tv socket and its ok again. I hadn’t saved for a long time so expected that I would have lost most of my words but luckily the computer must have done a temp save before shutting down and I didn’t loose anything but time. I have a new voice message on my phone but can’t pick it up over here, only text and email once a day. I thought it might be Georgina as she is taking her driving test today so I texted to say don’t phone. It couldn’t have been her as she texted back to say that it is this afternoon so good luck Georgina!
For some reason we always consider Colva as our base. Maybe it’s because it’s the first place that we stayed the first time we came to Goa. I know that most other people that we talk to that come back lots of times, even if they travel like us, always consider the first place that they stopped as their Goan home
. I remember my college days, you always continued to sit in the same place for a certain lesson that you sat in on your first day. Sometimes you might use the same classroom for a different lesson and you may sit in a different place in that lesson, but always the same place for the same lesson. I guess it suited the teachers as well, giving them another handle on who was who with so many kids to teach. One day when it was getting cold and the 
college heating was off we decided to move to a room nearer the centre of the block. Although the room was a different shape and layout everyone sat down in relatively the same place to everyone else as much as possible. Nobody thought about it consciously, it just happened on its own. We checked into the Star beach re
sort where they have 2 basic types of rooms; ones with aircon and ones without. The ones without have balconies that are overlooking the swimming pool, whereas the aircon ones are in the gardens. We have stayed in both types several times before but for
us, the ones around the pool suit us best. Not just because they are about Rs200 cheaper a night at Rs1050 but we always feel a bit out of it in the gardens and its also nice to have a balcony. We were pleased to see that they have upgraded, at least our room, to flat screen tv’s this time. We had to pay Rs200 extra a day for a fridge so it’s the same price but a fridge seems to be more useful to us than aircon somehow. Last time we stayed here in March 2009, these rooms were Rs875 so there has been a little inflation, but it’s not as significant as our exchange rate change. We settled into our room, which didn’t take long because Claire would
n’t put our clothes into the wardrobes as they stink of mothballs. Back in England, I haven’t smelt the smell of mothballs since I was a kid, unless you go on holiday to Germany or India, but here it is a pretty poor Guest house without them. We do use the wardrobe to
put our valuables in, and we always bring a chain to wrap around the handles and padlock with one of our backpack locks. Generally, the staff are so frightened of their employers that they wouldn’t dream of breaking their property just to find out what’s in there and there is very little vandalism over here anyway. Another essential to bring when travelling around Goa is a universal plug. In fact two; one for the sink as there is never a plu
g in any bathroom that we have ever stayed in, and one for your electrical equipment. We always bring a short 4 way electrical socket with one adaptor so we can plug in 4 of our normal devices like, hair dryer, charger, computer etc and all into one of their sockets. You’re lucky if you even get one spare socket that you can use, normally we have to put a combination of adaptors into the tv power point so as to somehow wrangle one extra socket for our things. They either use continental 2 way sockets or the three pin round ones we used to have until the war. We stoppe
d off at our favourite internet café siffy i-way to put the blog on and headed towards the beach to walk along towards Benaulim and track down the Blue Corner where our engagement party is on Thursday evening. We got invited to this on B
etty’s boat trip and on our way we stopped at the very first beach shack Domnick’s. Those of you that have followed our blogs might remember our first when Domnick’s was our favourite shack. The owner Domnick is a bit grumpy, our favourite was his brother, Ludvick that died but all the other staff are still the same. Every year they have a lottery to see who gets the best patch, nearest to where people first come in, and every year Domnick 
gets the number one spot. I said to him upon our arrival that he is the luckiest man in Colva. Maybe he just knows the right people. Anyway, we had a light lunch and headed off to find the Blue corner. I said in a previous entry that there were more cows in the north than the south, but this year there are cows around every corner in both halves. They were all along the beach, maybe it’s because it was a little overcast today with even a light drizzle w
hile we were in the shack. The Blue corner is one of the first shacks as you approach Benaulim and they have proper beach cabins that were quite sweet with en-suite facilities but made out of organic material that the mosquitoes can get through. For that reason, they have a complete net around the beds that in some way make them even more attractive to westerners b
ut at Rs1400 a night we were not persuaded. We had a drink there and headed back but not without saying hello to Dave and Alison who were on a couple of sun beds. They are getting engaged on Thursday and we may have a wander on to it if we can. We headed back towards Colva and spotted a couple of locals training their water buffalo ready for the next bull fight. We also saw a few ladies carrying large boxes on their heads. I dropped Claire off at the internet café as Hotmail were busy this morning and she hasn’t checked her emails for a while. This gave me chance to run a few errands. We needed water, lemons and another electrical adaptor. You get through adaptors like crazy over here with the rubbish supplies over here 
with fuses only lasting a few days. I can’t understand why its not easier to buy fuses anywhere. You always have to buy another adaptor; we have about 5 of them now. I think the only place that you can buy them is in Margao but it’s a nightmare on the bike. There are lots of local shops in Colva, but you have to go up the hill past the church to find them. While I was writing this, my pc just shut itself down having run out of battery. I found this 
strange as I had our new adaptor plugged into the mains and the fans and lights were still working so it wasn’t a power cut. The adaptor neon was on but not the little light on my pc by the socket so I wriggled the adaptor until it came on again. Within a few seconds, it’s gone off again so I plugged it into the tv socket and its ok again. I hadn’t saved for a long time so expected that I would have lost most of my words but luckily the computer must have done a temp save before shutting down and I didn’t loose anything but time. I have a new voice message on my phone but can’t pick it up over here, only text and email once a day. I thought it might be Georgina as she is taking her driving test today so I texted to say don’t phone. It couldn’t have been her as she texted back to say that it is this afternoon so good luck Georgina!
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