Friends, f*ck ups, and floating lights

Having waved a fond farewell to Peter (aka James Bond/Indiana Jones/My Austrian), I spent my last day on Ashvem beach working. Yep, really. Copy completed for the Queen of Digital’s website (coming soon!), I took a walk to the nearest bar with wifi to send it – where I met Ji, the Bar Manager.

An hour later, we had successfully crippled my laptop between us by attempting to fix the T button. Another hour on, I had given up re-fixing it and glued a bit of screwed up paper in the gap so that I can still type Ts. No button anymore though.


Poor Ji felt sufficiently guilty to feed me free drinks for the rest of the evening, so by bed time I really didn’t mind anymore. We swapped emails and I staggered back to my hut to sleep before my early morning start and trip south the next day.

Waking up a little groggy, I packed, paid and ran. Only to have to wait two hours at the station for the train to turn up. But delays aside, I made is safely to Agonda (via taxi, train, motorbike, another taxi...nothing is ever simple here). All good, I thought. I found somewhere to stay, reached into my bag to hand over my passport...and bought out nothing. Gulp. Deep breathing, panic hunting (i.e. emptying content of entire bag onto the floor), internet searching for phone number of Sea Creek (where I’d been staying) all quickly followed. Nothing. No passport. No phone number. Just a hazy memory of handing it over when I checked in, and no memory at all of being given it back.

Thank god for my broken T button. I emailed Ji and he came to my rescue. Passport was confirmed safe...now all I had to do was get it back. Enter Clare. My friend from Varkala was sunning herself in north Goa and went on a passport rescue trip for me. So me, my passport and Clare arranged a reunion in Patnem.

Back to Agonda beach first though. Books, sunset walks and late night swims filled a lovely few days. The night swimming there is incredible. Something in the water lights up on movement. As the waves break they glow and shimmer. And as you swim, bright sparks of light dance on your skin. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Truly magical.