Finally on the BEACH!

Today is the first day that we are in Goa! We just came from Hampi where we stayed for 5 nights. Hampi was not my favorite place. We stayed in a clean hotel and it had a/c so that was good. The food was terrible though. Nothing was fresh, everything was friend and we all felt nasty. Especially since we did not have a space to practice yoga. We had 2 half day tours of the ruins. Hampi is ancient and there are many temples and remains of the city when it was ruled by emperors and kings. The landscape is very unique and beautiful. There are mountains of boulders and the city is built into them. We explored a temple that had stone pillars that made music. You can tap on them very lightly and each pillar has a different sound. No one knows how they did it because they are all the same size and they are solid, not hollow. There was a small market place in Hampi. I only went there for a few hours. I am pretty tired of having to bargain everywhere I shop though I am getting pretty good at it. I am tired of the shop keepers taking advantage of us. I bought some headbands that a guy wanted 60 rupees for. I just told him I was only paying 20, gave him the money and walked out. The main reason I did not go into the town often was the monkeys. They were MASSIVE with huge long tails. They would sit on the roofs and just wait to pounce on unsuspecting tourists and steal anything. They would run along the tin roofs and it sounded like thunder right over my head. Twice they ran and jumped near me so I ran into a random store screaming. It was terrifying. The best part about Hampi was a restaurant called The Mango Tree. We had to walk on a small dirt path though a banana tree grove to get there. The food was not the best but they had fresh vegttables and we sat overlooking a valley and a river. It was beautiful. We also got to go on a boat ride up the river. The boats were round and made of woven bamboo and tar. It was so relaxing.
From Hampi we had a 10 hour bus ride to Goa. We arrived in the dark and had a ten minute walk along the beach to our hotel. I woke up really early this morning and sat on the beach for an hour before the sun got too hot. It is so beautiful. White sand, the Arabian Sea and palm trees. We have all week to relax, read, swim and have drinks brought to us. I am very excited to have our yoga on the beach too. I could get used to this kind of school work :P As soon as I am done in this wonderfully air conditioned internet cafe I am going to pick up a sundress and head back to the hotel for a swim in the ocean. I did not realize how much I miss the ocean. As soon as I heard the waves last nice I had an explosion of homesickness. Unfortunately the waves are too small to do any surfing. I guess I will have to wait till I get home for that.