The last week was great. Getting out of Mumbai was the best thing that could have happened sooner. as soon as roarke and i got to Goa, everything got better. after arriving in the tourist destination, we realized that tourist destinations arent entirely bad. before i left, i wanted to go places where no tourists went. this is a terrible idea. the label 'tourist destination' simply means that people want to go there. there were plenty of places to stay and things to eat. the intensity of our surroundings and my internal stress level decreased immediately.

for the first two nights, we were staying at a hotel near the beach that was out of our price range. the beach was covered in garbage swept up from the ocean and busy with traffic walking up and down it. This was where we first encountered people begging for our money. a friend that helped us find our way explained, "an american is an atm to an indian". this couldnt have been more true. saying 'no thanks, im ok' gets hard when everyone is constantly trying to sell you jewelry and t shirts. with the ups and downs of staying in a tourist spot well understood, we hiked along the undeveloped rocky shore to the north. we discovered a much mellower beach and town. we wandered down to buy some water and quickly decided that we should stay there. the next day we hiked through the small roads with our backpacks to Anjuna.

we stayed at a place called 'Curlie's'. it had a guest house about 300 yards from the beach for about 6 dollars a night and a beachside restaurant in the sand. nobody was there to sell you anything and there was little trash covering the beach. while relaxing in this village, still recovering from the hectic Mumbai days, we couldnt help but befriend people. Everyone wanted to take our picture, talk with us, and invite them to their houses. at first, we were very skeptical that everyone was trying to scam us or kidnap us. after one invitation, we decided that we trusted these people enough for them to pick us up and go to their house for dinner. we rationalized the decision this way: there is no way that it wont be a good story, and we will bring our leatherman multitools (knives). roarke summed up our fear well by questioning the use of the small pocket knives, "they won't be much good when we are in their cages." but dinner went well. we learned a lot of hindi words and customs and watched cricket and bollywood in their house.

we have just taken 4 or 5 buses to get to a train station in Margao. Margao is terrible and leaving tomorrow morning will be great. we are headed to Hospet and then to Hampi. Hampi should be great. we've heard great things: cheap rooms and food, sacred temples, 'the best sunset in india, rock climbing, and cliff jumping. our hopes are high and we are wishing for the best.