day 43 - goa - 14 nov

i was shaken awake and given my vegetable cutlet that i guess i’d ordered the night before i fell asleep. shaken awake again to be charged the 20 rupees for the cutlet (less than 50 cents) then shaken awake again because the train porters wanted the sheets, so i got up and got out of the bunk, thinking i had a much another hour of two only to find out we were about 10 minutes away. this brought me a little joy since the idea of using the squatty potty on a train was just not my cup of tea plus all the water was gone from the on board tanks.

once at the station i took care of business and then decided to take care of the business of of my departure train. i knew that i was going to have to contact sam at my next destination. he had indicated they would come and get me, so i was going to have to get him some travel info. so i found out that the only train to bangalore was on thursday, which worked out perfectly, i bought my ticket and once again, they had no 2nd class ac sleepers (but i was supposedly #14 on the wait list) they told me to check back an hour early, on my day of departure.

from there i wandered out to catch a cab to the beach, those big travel books (lonely planet, let’s go, etc) are too much weight for me, but i guess they give you a heads up from time to time, i don’t know if this would have been one of those instances. when i walked up the stairs from the platform to the cross over bridge, the vast majority of people went , left down a slope toward the city, i went right because i saw what looked like the station offices etc. which i correctly surmised. once i’d walked out of the station to the state controlled taxi cab stand, i think i found out why everyone else went left, they wanted 180 rupees to take me to the closest beach.