SEVENTEEN Nice nice

The good things about this place:
The sea is great. There are three beaches here in the part of South Goa where we are. Patnam is the smallest. The waves are high, and come thundering in, so you have to go out deeper before they break, and then dive through them. Your goggles get full of sand.
The best time of day is early morning. It is fresh, and the light is clear. Here there are lots more birds, none of which I recognize.
The pineapples are ripe and delicious, and the papaya huge. The tiny bananas are sweet.
The feni is good too. This is the local alchohol made of palm, or cashoo fruit. Mostly very cheap, about 30 Rupee for a double. That is about 20 pence. It is nice with lime juice, fresh. Or you can buy a bottle of TEEM, for 5 rupee, which is soda.
This is my favourite drink, Lime Soda - a tall glass of soda water with added juice of a lime and a spoon of sugar.
Remember, there are 80 rupees to the £ at present.
apparently the feni does not give much of a hangover, although I have not tested this out. Fresh orange juice or melon or pineapple is available at the beach shacks.
The huts behind the beach shacks are very cheap, and are on stilts, but I am not tempted to rent one. The basic ones cost 300 rupees.
As a contrast, the InterContinental Goa, is huge and full of pleasant mannered staff. At the gates are uniformed guards like soldiers, at the main entrance is a smart man in white uniform, red sash, pointed slippers and red turban. He bows at us and smiles as we come in. Inside are shiney marble floors, high ceilings and lots of Russians.
All round the hotel is a huge golf course, grass green and watered by hand, by men holding their thumbs over the end of hose pipes.