New Arrivals in Patnem

Today our friends Mick and Christine arrived.  They were our neighbours in Cyprus until the middle of last year but hopefully they will still come back tot he island often.  Anyway, they were flying in through Mumbai overnight with an early connection down to Goa, due to arrive at 0630.  The Eve Resort car was meeting them.  Well…. in the great tradition of travel, it did not all go to plan.  Their Virgin Atlantic flight from London arrived on time but then could not get onto the gate because the plane parked there had a medical incident aboard, so they sat on the tarmac for 90 mins.  Then that of course had a knock on effect and in the end the Air India flight down to Goa took off at 0930 instead of 0530.  Not the best thing after an overnight flight….  They eventually arrived at Eve’s at 1330 and fell into their bed for the rest of the afternoon.

We had a lazy day at the beach.  Much swimming.  Cribbage for the chaps.  A nice parade of water buffalo across the water’s edge at one point.  Tans are already perking up nicely.

Tonight we all met up in the Eve’s bar at 630pm for a g&t.  Mick and Christine had revived somewhat and we had a good catch up.  Then we walked down to the beach to eat at Café Fiesta.  On the way we met Chris, Heather and their friends, also homeowners in Cyprus, who arrived today for a holiday.  They are staying in Patnem at a different hotel and had also had an arduous long day in the air.

Nice dinner at Café Fiesta although it was very busy which affected the service times, although we weren’t in a hurry.  We managed to get through 2 rounds of margaritas before the dinner arrived.  Well… at £3 happy hour prices it would have been rude not to.  They were delicious.  I had….. palak paneer again….. Bob had prawn masala – a nice one with lots of prawns this time.  He also had rice, a paratha and papadoms.  It all came to about £13.

Walked back under the big moon and were in bed for 1030.  A good, relaxing day.