And hell has frozen over. For those who know me well, you know due to my vampiric skin, I hate beaches, sun, sand, and water.

I have been proven wrong. I have found the ideal beach for myself. It's in Arambol, Goa.

I've even gone swimming, in a bathing suit.

Let me describe what happened leading up to this miraculous feat. Ant and I woke up this AM in Panjim, the major hub of Goa. We had read up that it wasn't a very exciting place and were only crashing there for one night. It was a shame though because our guest house (Affonso Guest House) was top notch, even though their laundry service is extortionate (our laundry was more than our room by 1.5X). Anyway, we had our breakfast and trudged off to the bus stand.

Bus stands in India are interesting places. They are an example of organized chaos. Everyone and no one knows everything and nothing all at the same time.

After getting easily from Panjim to Mapusa, we had to connect to Arambol. This particular bus stand had men shouting their destination, and if you weren't going to where they were, they actually told you the right guy to go talk to. Still, there were swarms of people and MANY unmarked busses.

Knowing you can never get info from just 1 source, Ant went to ask the enquiry desk where the bus to Arambol was while I went to ask one of the bus destination wallahs. Both agreed that this unmarked bus filled with people was our bus.

We get on, pay our 15 rupees, and sweat it out. After about an hour, we arrive in our destination, a beach of much beauty. We unfortunately discovered that walking on sand with backpacks SUCKS so we wanted to find a room ASAP. Our guide misled us that this one bar/restaurant was the place to organize a room. THe first few rooms were shitholes and one didn't even have running water. After 3 rooms or so, we found one (for a big whopping $6) overlooking the Arabian Sea and volcanic rocks, right up from a restaurant so we could get shitty and not worry about killing ourselves on the rocky climb up.

So, then we noticed that just in front of the resturant, there is a very small bit of beach between some large rocks. We promptly got our suits on (yes, thats how good it looked, I put up no fight) and wandered down.

It was perfect. The water is about 80-85 degrees F and I sat their exfoliating my ass with sand to my heart's content. My feet are as soft as a baby's bum and my legs (though unshaven for 6-7 weeks now) are soft as well. My white skin saw the sunlight and blinded the people in the restaurant. If all beaches were like this, I think I'd be as brown as the Indians. Perhaps after 3-4 days of this splashing around in the Arabian, I might have a respectable shade.

We shall see..... :)

Note to the NJ girls: If the Shore was anything like this little paradise, you'd have converted me ages ago. :)