We arrived in madgao about 2.30pm, about 2 and a half hrs after we were supposed to arrive. We've come to realise since then that the trains in India rarely run to schedule. We had phoned ahead and booked accommodation in a village called Benulium, it wasn't a payphone like you'd expect to see in the uk but just a wee hut on a street in Mumbai where they had telephones stilling on the ledge that you could use. The call to Goa only cost 5p. We took a rickshaw to Benulium, they somehow managed to squeeze myself and Kay along with our two ginormous bags into this tiny little three wheeled thing. Our accommodation was lovely, our own room with private bathroom and balcony for only £5.50 for the two of us each night. We had showers and then headed towards the beach in search of dinner. The beach was absolutely stunning with wee restaurants along the sea front. We ate our dinner and decided just to head back to the accommodation as we were both pretty tired after our very long train journey. The train should have taken 11hrs but ended up taking almost 14!! On our way back along the beach all the lights went out which meant that the 20min walk back to the accommodation was a bit of a mission and neither of us that thought to pack torches with us ( they are now firmly situated in our bags at all times). The lights came back on a wee while after we arrived back at the guesthouse but went off again another three times between then and us falling asleep. The worst part about it was that our fan wouldn't work during these times and the room became unbearably hot very quickly.
The next day we decided to just have a relaxing day on the beach. We got some supplies ( fruit and water ) for breakfast and headed down early, we both got a wee bit sunburnt but thankfully this is now turning into a nice golden tan. There are a lot of Russians in Benulium so much so that all the signs are in Hindi and Russian rather than the usual hindi and English. We spoke to a Thai/Swedish guy who was travelling around india too, he had already been here a few months and thought he would probably stay a few months longer. He was a chef so was just working his way around. He told us that if we wanted to meet other backpackers we should head for a beach just 150km south of where we were called Gokarna. It's not actually in Goa but in the next state. While we were having our lunch we decided to take his advice and started searching ways to get down to Gokarna. There was a passenger train leaving at 1pm the next day that would take 2 and a half hours. Because of the type of train we weren't able to book in advance so we would just need to check out the next morning, head to the train station and hope for the best.
The next morning we went into the village and got some supplies for the train journey. Getting a ticket at the train station was much easier than we anticipated and only cost around 60p for the two of us. In true Indian fashion the train was late, over two hours late. This meant that we arrived in Gokarna much later than we thought we would, about 5.30pm. The sun goes down around 6.30pm so we had to be quick to try and find accommodation. We took a rickshaw to the main beach which we had read about ( there are 4 within walking distance), the driver dropped us at the top of a big hill with a dirt road leading down to the beach. This was a horrendous task with our big wheeled bags. About half way down some guys took pity on us and lifted our bags the rest of the way down. Accommodation that we had read about was luckily very close to the bottom of the path. They only had one room left which he advised was only a simple room which meant we had shared bathroom and showers. At £3 a night for both of us it did the job just nicely. We inspected our bags once we were in the room and they were both manky and mine even had some small tears in the bottom, thankfully not all the way through though....one week in, I wonder how long my bag will last at this rate. We walked along the beach looking for a place to have dinner and eventually decided on the busiest looking one. It was pitch black by the time we had arrived so we just went back to our room after dinner to relax and look forward to seeing the "paradise" beach the Thai/Swedish man had told us about....
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