November 2nd – Hospet to Goa

Every day we have an amendment sheet which is produced by the advance car driven by Arne Hertz. Arne notes any changes to the road book that have happened since the route survey was carried out earlier this year. Examples of changes are: road works, exceptional road conditions, altered signs. These changes are faxed to us every evening. Today's amendments noted that certain sections of the route were very poor, as a result of the monsoons. Consequently many left very early. We decided to leave at 7 am, when the control opened officially. The first part of the journey out of Hospet was reasonably easy, though we did have quite heavy truck traffic. Once we had turned off the main road onto minor roads we left the trucks behind. Pot holes continued to be quite a big problem and slowed down every one's progress.

The drive today was just under 350 kms and was taking us back to the Arabian Sea that we had last seen when we were in Mumbai, nearly a month ago. On the way we had to take a photo of this driving school car. This is only the second such car we have seen in nearly 7,000 kms of driving around India. Having seen how ALL Indians drive, we wonder what on earth can the instructor be telling the pupil! One suggestion was that the lessons only last a couple of minutes!!

We also started to pass fields of sunflowers. We presume they are being grown for seed and sunflower oil. You could see the fields from a long way off with the flowers all facing towards the sun.

As we headed west we were stopped at a railway crossing by an enormous goods train. I didn't count the trucks but there could easily have been a hundred.

As soon as the train had passed we started on a seriously bad section of road which had been damaged by the monsoon rains. Following Tom & Rosalie Gatsonides in their Toyota FJ Cruiser on the rough section of road.

The rough road lasted for over 30 kms and ended just before the descent from the Western Ghats mountains down to the coastal plain around Goa.

We arrived in Old Goa at about 2 pm, about seven hours after leaving Hospet. We spent an hour looking at some of the old buildings of Old Goa, especially the 17th century cathedral.

Inside the cathedral with its golden altar.

Whilst walking past the cathedral we saw these three men using small hand scythes to cut the grass! The lawn was large and it must take them days to cut it, but I suppose it is one way to employ people when you have over a billion inhabitants.

Our drive then took us to the coast and past this banner on a roundabout welcoming the tour to Goa.

Our hotel, the Taj Fort Aguada Beach Resort looks out over the Arabian Sea and as the sun set I took this photo sowing one of the many ships anchored out at sea. We have two nights here before our final two days of driving, due north, to Mumbai.