last days of goa...

our last days in goa are winding down.  it is just relaxing on the beach, eating yummy food while listening to the waves and splashing in the sea with the girls.   not a bad way to end our time here. the only problem we have at the moment is ants, lots and lots of ants, there is an ant kingdom just outside our bungalow.  but really,  when living in paradise you sometimes have to have some kind of problem to remind you just how good you have it.  poor little eijla, they ate her alive so she had to sit with her feet a bucket to stop the itching.  this is nearly a daily sight with us.  damn you ants, don't you know we are in paradise?  :).

 so this is our daily view.  chillin' out on cushions waiting for our delicious food and enjoying the sounds of the waves.  if the girls get too wound up and disturb the tranquility we just let them watch a movie on the itouch.  yeah,  man, we have it rough.

 and then as we tend to do,  it was haircut time,  rather pay 12 crowns in india for a haircut than 150 when we come home!  this lovely little lady was our hairdresser during our stay in goa,  she had never cut short hair on a girl before, so we had to talk her through it but it turned out pretty good,  but it is a good thing my hair is not staight!  there is about two centimeter difference between the sides! 

and here we have our peaceful abode we have spent the last three weeks of relaxation.  incredible cozy and besides having ants as neighbors it has been perfect.  gonna miss it, but tomorrow we are off to dehli and then the taj mahal, finally.

anjuna market

yesterday we finally made it off of the beach and did a day trip to the anjuna wednesday market.  the first things the girls did when they hopped in the car was discover the seatbelts, an unusual sight in the backseat of most cars here.  so sweet that they wanted to put them on. made me sooo happy. but that last all of 10 minutes. then it was screaming and wailing until they were removed.  going to be fun when we get back to sweden and strap them into their carseats.  maybe we will have to start wearing head phones in the car!

the market was pretty big, and there was lots of things to look at.  zoe and eijla love the sparkles and glitter that seem to be found on nearly everything here.

the market went all the way down to the beach.  so we took a peak, but it was  nothing compared to the lovely beach we have here back at patnem, though zoe was pretty excited to have waves crash up on the rocks and spray her. eijla was not quite as excited.

then it was back up into the stalls of color and pushy sellers.  we headed up just as a cow apparently had had enough and was heading out.  zoe and thomas gave it the right of way... good idea.

we managed to find a few small things, but the big find of the day for the girls was definitely these two small "fairy wands" somebody in the tibetan market gave the girls.  they are most likely those sticks you can stick in your bun to make it stay, but they looked just liked magic wands to the girls, so that is what they are.

anyway, it was a fun little day trip, but it made us realize even more how great we have it on our little beach in southern goa.  gonna miss this place. cannot believe we are going to be back in sweden in two weeks!

chillaxin´ in paradise

well, we have been really, really busy doing nothing. that is right just relaxing and lovin´ it!  we found a really cozy little hut near the beach with billowing wall hangings (when there is a breeze), princess nets (against the mosquitos), and a lovely porch with a swing, and the bonus of way too many ants. 

we have been swimming and just hanging out.  here is a view of our little home from the beach, we live behind the restaraunt namaste. 

it has become a little tradition with thomas and the girls to get an ice cream and go down to the beach and watch the sunset.  sometimes even i get to come along.  the girls go crazy from the sugar rush and get covered in sand, but have a blast.

when we are not swimming or rolling around in the sand, it is drawing and writing. the girls have been filling up books with their artistry.  but it is so sweet to see them drawing together.  

our longest train ride!

oj, are we tired!  we hoped on our train, finding our sleeper section nearly empty.  and enjoyed the wind in our hair as we watched the scenery go by. 

zoe even hopped off the train at a station and bought water all by herself.  she was pretty happy that we let her keep the change as well.

there was plenty of way too sweet tea and coffee for sale, along with popcorn, i think the girls ate three bags.

 but as the ride continued people crowded in and the girls got tired and grumpy.  finally everyone fell asleep to the sound of the tracks and the roar of trains heading in the opposite direction.  knowing we had to get off in the middle of night, i had a hard time sleeping, and by 2 was up in fear we might miss our stop, they do not announce stops on indian trains like they do in sweden, you have try and catch the name of the station as you pull in, and hope there are some signs in english on your side of the train!  finally we reached margao, and hopped off as best we could with all our bags and two sleeping princesses, which was not easy with all the people crowding onto the train.  spent a couple of hours chillin out waiting for the first morning bus, and then finally it was a rickshaw to the beach.  the girls were exhausted, and so were we.  good thing we have nearly three weeks here of chilling out on the beach before heading back to delhi.

veegaland!

on our own again after saying goodbye to farmor and farfar as they headed back to sweden.  we got out our checklist and got things done.  princess dresses and toy shopping, check.  sending another parcel, check.  checking train tickets, oh crap.  all the trains were booked.  but somehow we managed to work it out.  we took a taxi to ernakulam, where we managed to get a ticket at the train station for tomorrow afternoon, and finally found a hotel room, where we dropped off our bags before we headed up to veegaland.  though apparently it is now called wonder la.  we had hoped to get there before the weekend crowds, but it seems like since tomorrow is holiday (they have A LOT of holidays in india), the crowds were already there.  sadly the park was not as good as the one in mysore, but that might have been partly because of the crowds, and partly because about a third of the slides and rides were closed and under service.  they did not allow any kind of photography in the pool area, which was good and bad.  we have no pics of the girls while swimming,  but then neither do hundreds of indians!  thomas did manage to sneak this shot,  notice that we have own section of the wave pool.  as they are so fond of india,  "ladies and kids" and "gents"  are not to mix while swimming.  which makes it difficult to swim as a family.  they had put all the women and kids in one wave pool and the men in another, we tried to swim in the ladies pool but they kicked out thomas, so we went back to the men´s section where they tried to throw me out.  in the end they just gave up and let us have the section that is usually for ladies and kids all to ourselves.  continuously whistling at anyone who went in that section.  somethings we will never understand.

 but we still had plenty of fun, there was a little family pool with slides that we played in a bit.  then there were quite a few rides, the girls rode the carousel,

 thomas and eijla watched as zoe and i rode on a high flying pirate ship.  zoe and i even rode on a log ride that they did not want to let zoe on because she was 1 cm below the cutoff heighth, but we put up a good arguement and they let her on.  

 then we even managed to find korv med bröd for the girls,  they were pretty happy, think they ate about 4 each!

 and after a fun family afternoon they fed the cois before we hopped on a bus back to our hotel.  tomorrow awaits a 15 hour train ride back to goa!

farmor and farfar´s last days in india

we decided farmor and farfar could not come to india without riding on the train at least once,  so we got up way too early and were dropped off at trivandrum train station, where we then had to wait for our train.  but all went well, and we piled on into a sleeper wagon number six. it was only a couple of hours, but there was plenty great scenery and buse, mostly from the boys!

 the afternoon was spent relaxing on alleppey beach with a bbq served on the veranda to top off the evening.  then a lazy morning and a bit of a swim.  we headed to our favorite restaurant Hot Kitchen for farmor and farfar´s last lunch.  we ate and ate and were all boogasprang!

 then it was off for a short backwaters trip on our own little boat.  very chill and relax, except for trying to keep eijla from falling overboard of course.

 farmor and zoe spotted all kinds of birds and found them in their bird book.

plenty of kingfishers, which just happens to be the bird of india, go figure.

 one last shot of the happy, young couple just before they leave us all alone in paradise...

then it was back to the hotel on the beach, and last minute packing, dinner on the veranda and our last game of UNO before waving good bye to farmor and farfar´s taxi as it drove them off to the airport.  it has been a brilliant three weeks with all kinds of fun and adventures.  thanks for sharing it with us farmor and farfar, we miss you already!  stora kramar.

final beach day in kovalam

after a beach day and then the tip of india, i was exhausted.  so while i rested in the room the gang headed down to the beach.  luckily our room was very nearly on the beach itself, and with my telephoto lens i could keep a good eye on them!  ha ha!

 but finally, by late afternoon, they convinced me to come down and join them. 

 eijla and i had a bit of a snuggle watching the other play in the surf.

 then thomas threatened to eat zoe and she went crazy.  she was screaming and crying, saying she would not be good to eat cuz she was only a kid, but then i convinced her to just give pappa a good smack with her paddle.  that was all it took, she was ready for some revenge.

 we ended our day on our balcony with another beautiful sunset. time to start heading north again.  cannot believe farmor and farfar will be leaving soon, it has gone too fast!

the southern tip of india...we have arrived

a big adventure today. we journeyed to the tip of india, kanyakumari. we piled in a taxi and headed south for a couple of hours.  we got in  line for a ferry that the taxi man dropped us off at and went out and saw the poet statue and the temple island, not really what we were out after, but was a fun little boat ride.

 but then we headed to the little beach that is considered the actually tip.  the amount of people was insane.  our driver said this was possibly because of the temple festival, but he could not even drive close, so we ended up having to walk a bit.  but finally we arrived.  an there it was, where three oceans meet.  looking left to the east was the Bay of Bengal, looking south straight ahead, the Indian Ocean, and  to the west,  the Arabian Sea, and of course a lot of people.

we did manage to get a family shot with out too many people walking through the shot.  funny enough, most of the shots had so many other people you could hardly see us!

 zoe and i climbed up on the little spit that went out into the seas, and she loved standing in the wind, getting splashed by the waves.  what a place to see. 

a beached whale in kovalam

well, we have left varkala,  and headed south to kovalam.  i am still getting my shots, but now at another hospital, with a rather unfriendly doctor. ugh.  but i am starting to feel a bit better.  even made it to the beach with the family today.  all gathered around to see how the beached whale that i am was doing...

 but everyone else had energy aplenty for some good old beachy fun.  even in the rather large waves.

while i was sick, zoe managed to fall and scrap both of her knees,  she insisted i take a picture to document her pain.  poor thing.