On the way from Mumbai to Goa

There is nothing spectacular to write about Mumbai except that we foud shelter at the Red Shield Hostel run by the Salvation Army - JAAH, d Hiufsarmee. The rooms included three meals, but no Holy Bible...
What we were crazy about were the Mumbai-Cabs, looking like the 1950 Fiat. But it is just the indian-imitation of this european car...just big enough for two passengers with big backpacks ;-)

Two days later we caught the ferry to "sun, fun and nothing to do"...which means to Murud. This is a quiet fishing village the big tourist resorts haven't reached yet, but the beach is long, the water shallow and warm.

Staying at a family-run small lodge, surrounded by palmtrees an hammocs, we certainly had an easy start into the beach-chapter.
We shared those days with Ipalo, a lovely finnish-slowakian couple (Ipa + Palo = Ipalo).
Not just lazying around we did rent some bikes to visit the famous Janjira-fort, 5km away. This sight is situated on an island 500m of the shore. Altough we have seen many forts this one is extraordinary because it's just a ruin and overgrown by trees and bushes.
During the same period Stufi was the first one to fight against the famous indian-traveller-disease. Fabis stomach was a bit stronger, but as we are usually eating the same food, she was struggling a couple of days later - happy to have Letas precious toiletpaper with us... ;-)
Nontheless, we continued our travels, from sealevel up to Mahabaleshwar on 1300m in the hills of Maharashtra-state, by three different local buses during seven hours. Arriving in Mahabaleshwar we could see red, beautiful, nicely arranged strawberries all over. This area is famous for these delicious fruits, unfortunately not edible for Stufabi, whose most important concern was finding a hotelroom with sitting-toilet...But do not worry we did recover and could enjoy the impressive landscape and great spots of this hillstation.

After three days we bussed back to sealevel and enjoyed the silence of the deserted beaches of Malvan and Tarkarli.
While looking for a place to stay we bumped into Rita. Rita was going to play an important role in the following days. She's a grandmother-like, 64-year old, always smilling and very happy swiss little lady living in the States (Rita, whenever you read this please let us know how things are going with Dicky, the park, your trainride to Mumbai and your dreams of your own property at Tarkarli). As Rita is a very communicative woman she knew the whole neighbourhood and everyone called her just Mamma.

One day we all went to a busy fruit, vegetable and fishmarket, returning home with bags filled with food for the at least one week!
An other day the three of us booked a boattrip to the backwaters...sunrise, watching fishermen at work, walking on a Tsunami destroyed island, collecting shells, eating coconuts, sipping its juice and playing Titanic on the boat.
What else do we need?
A couple of days ago we left this magical site and Rita with an invitation to Arizona on our mind.



Even though Malven is really close to the Goan-border, it took us an other six hour busride to get to Arambol, our current location. This is backpackers heaven. We like it lots, we feel good and healthy and might stay for a little longer. Who knows? We will keep you posted.

Please feel free to put any comments or send e-mails, we want to know how YOU are as well...!