More from Arambol

I thought I’d say a bit more about Arambol, as we’re here until 6th December at least.

There are no hotels, just guesthouses and huts. The beach front is lined with shacks housing restaurants, most of these are temporary structures, rebuilt each season.

There’s one main road which is lined with stalls and restaurants. There are a couple of general stalls, lots of internet cafes (mostly shared modems at Rs40/hr), and several travel agents.

There are a few places that will swap or sell books, handy as we’re reaching the end of our selection.

Each morning we sit by the sea eating our breakfast, and most days you can see dolphins playing in the sea. They jump clear out of the water, sometimes even doing backflips.

We’ve seen all kinds of other wildlife here too; a mongoose, kingfishers, woodpeckers, a dung beetle (!), and bee-eaters.

Since we’ve been here the place has got busier; new stalls have been set up, new shacks built, more beach-sellers have arrived and there are more visitors here. Ivon’s, where we’re staying was full up a few days ago, but there are now a few rooms available as people have moved on.

There are quite a few of the “hippy” types here, whirling poi around, smoking chillums, and playing out of tune guitars. There are also loads of Israelis, mostly straight out of doing their national service. They’re not very popular with the locals as they like too much “boom boom” (trance and techno) and sit around all day with their chillums.

Lots of people do yoga on the beach in the mornings, which isn’t too bad, apart from when it’s blokes in posing pouches…. enough to put you right off your breakfast.

We’ve even considered doing a yoga course ourselves, but haven’t achieved sufficient momentum yet, and if we move on on the 6th Dec, we probably won’t get around to it.

Now the good news… I’ve got the technology together to upload photos, so I’ll give that a go in the next few days.