Happy Birthday to me!

birthday girl
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We left our lovely bamboo hut and all it's eight-legged inhabitants behind on the morning of the 28th and went for brunch in order to avoid looking too keen and arriving riduculously early at our hotel, as we waited for our food ben was lost in thought and then eventually announced

"i think i'm going to have to re-evaluate my stick"

gotta love those slippers

not what i was expecting

rick, patty and ben
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apparantly he has sustained more injury from the stick than he has inflicted (bruised knuckles - although this was more the fault of the ceiling fan - and a stigmata style cut on his palm)

that problem pondered we ate and headed for the hotel

before i even start i have to say the most enormous thank you to my parents and emma and jim for paying so THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

check out the website for the hotel then you can get some idea of what it looks like (just google Goa Intercontinental)

ben in the bath
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when we arrived to check in a guy brought us a cocktail and a wet face cloth, our room had a lobby, there were windows in the bathroom that opened out into the bedroom so you could watch television while having a bath, vodka was free between 7.30 and 8.30, we met a crazy american millionaire (rick) and his lovely girlfriend (patty) who insisted on paying for our drinks at all other times and best of all, the thing that for me just made my birthday - bathrobes and slippers were provided!!!!!

these were supposed to be tea cosies!
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gotta love those slippers

unfortunately ben wasnt feeling great for the first few days but he didnt complain on my birthday so that was fine, and then i fell ill on our last night so we had to fork out for another night in the hotel and missed our train to Delhi! oops!

but the important thing is that the hotel was so unbeleivably fabulous and my birthday four days were lots of luxurious fun!

ben made me a badge saying "I'm 23" - nice move monkey boy - and a lovely necklace with a pink shell he found, and he got me a jar of marmite and a pink bag! ooh and some pinky gold trousers! and then he danced with me in the restaurant when we were having dinner and back in our room, but then he told me off for playing the music too loud just cos it was 2am!

anyway another birthday over and now we're back in reality and spending a few days back in Colva until the 6th June when hopefully we'll both be fit to get on the train we booked this morning to Delhi, it's a faster train and the tickets were cheaper, and ironically it's the one we were offered about a week ago but i said oh no lets schlep all the way to vasco de gama and get an earlier train!!!

ah well at least the next few days here will give me a chance to catch up on my emailing which was rather neglected as the internet cost about a hundred pounds a minute at the hotel!

oh i forgot something else ben did on my birthday - he was almost hit by a coconut on our last day in palolem and he took this coconut and got someone to hack the top off it, carved out some of the centre and bought a candle to push in it and before we went to bed on my birthday lit it and sang, unfortunately as it was 2am and i had had one or two cocktails i didnt have the clearest memeory of it so he had to do it again the next morning!

xx