Evening in Palolem Patnem, India

Patnem, India

Walked down to the beach for about 9am. A lone cow was standing plumb centre at the village crossroads daring all traffic to take abortive action! I had a great day sunbathing, walking the beach and multiple swims. Bob, Gloria, Mick and Maureen got into a gaming mood and spent all day in the shack playing cribbage and scrabble. Rather missed the girls today as they are always great company on the beach.
This evening we went into Palolem in two tuk tuks organised by Shuresh. So cheap – just £1.60 return per tuk. Palolem is about 10000% more commercialised and lively than Patnem and whilst I really really wouldn’t want to stay there, it is fun to go there in the evening and look at all the shops. They sell a wide variety of goods from leather sandals, woven textiles from all parts of India, Kashmiri items, spices, teas, fashion clothing… bags…. there is just little shop after little shop. I bought a couple of things in a little boutique run by an English lady who has great little dresses and things she buys in Rajasthan. They normally sell in Italy but she has them here for a low low price. Afterwards we ate in a new restaurant which is run by Israelis and specialises in Middle Eastern food. The room itself was not very inspiring but the food was absolutely great as were the cocktails. I had two frozen lemon, mint and vodka cocktails. Rather like blended mojitos but with vodka. The mains were epic and a nice change from our standard Goan fare. I had lamb kebabs with salad, and dips and a roti bread. Bob had 3 sliders. Both came with proper made-from-scratch chips. I gave Bob mine but sampled one and it was fantastic. Such good value. 3 cocktails and 2 huge mains came to £14. Quite expensive by Goan standards but well worth it, considering the cocktails were double measures. We will undoubtedly return!