The rest of Goa

Ok, I have a lot to say about the rest of my time in Goa but I will never catch up if I write about everything. From the 30th until Jan 2nd I spent my time in Goa with Lindsay and Nigel's American friends. Christina took us on a tour of Old Goa and we saw St.Francis Xavier's cathedral along with other historical buildings and learned a bit about the history. I do remember some of it but if you're interested it would probably be more accurate to just look it up on Wikipedia. :)
Our nights were full of more great food and parties. There were fantastic Italian and French restaurants that we went to and in 2 short weeks not only have I started eating seafood but also drinking beer and tea as well. Crazy, I know! New Year's Eve was great and spent with lots of friends and family at a small club with live music for dancing and of course more fireworks.
On Jan 3rd Lindsay, Joel, Charles (Nigel's friends) and I went on a bit of an adventure to go white water rafting and on a safari. It was a 4 hour drive to Dandeli in Karnataka on the craziest roads I've even been on. There are no street signs anywhere, lots of dirt roads and even when they are paved there are some of the biggest potholes I've ever seen. Combine that with all of the big trucks, crazy turns, constant passing and of course the monkeys, cows, dogs, pigs and goats everhwere and it's bound to be an interesting drive. I actually saw my first stop sign and I tried to get a pic of it but unfortunately, we didn't actually stop at it so it didn't turn out too well.
We did make it to our Jungle Lodge and that afternoon went white water rafting on the Kali River. It was a lot of fun but honestly, if you want to go rafting just head to the Ottawa river...bigger rapids. The next morning we were up at 5am to go on our "safari". Apparently, there are black panthers and elephants that live in this area but we were warned that we weren't all that likely to see them because of all of the poachers. Needless to say, we sat in the back of an open jeep, driving around in the dark and cold and I saw more animals on my drive to the lodge than on the safari itself. But it was all part of the experience and the ridiculousness of it still made it fun.
That afternoon we took a relaxing trip down the Kali River to spot crocodiles and birds. Our boat was a circle made from bamboo with a tarp wrapped around the bottom. I will post pics on facebook when I can because it's something you just have to see to understand. The tour was great though, and we actually saw a few crocodiles, one about 12 feet long and tons of birds. I never thought bird watching could actually be interesting.
The drive back to Goa seemed less crazy this time because you get used to everything here and that night we were ready to go and ended up crashing a wedding of a friend of Nigel's. Well, we not only crashed it but also left quite an impact. Joel played the sax with the band and had a collection of groupies afterwards, Lindsay caught the bouquet (again), and we were definitely all a presence on the dance flo0r in the wedding video.
On Jan 5th I said goodbye to Lindsay as she headed home to Canada and I headed off with Christina, Nigel, Joel and Charles on our trip to Jaipur and Agra.
My time in Goa was amazing and I would definitely suggest it as an alternative vacation destination to the carribean. If you want an easy introduction to India it's the place to start. Great food, lots of parties, perfect weather....what more could you ask for?