Doing India Goan style

Arriving in Goa we learn fast that tourism is real business here. Everything is not just a little bit more expensive, but at least two or three times more. Even a little ice cream selling guy is shamelessly asking 50 rupees for a 5 rupee pop. Well you can always try, but it doesn't feel good. Most of the time we're still too soft, but we do learn to haggle. We make a stop in the capitol Panjim and the happening beach spot, Anjuna, before heading to Morjim where I will follow a course in Ayur Yogic massage. I'm happy to see that Morjim is still not overdeveloped tourist wise. That is because at one end of the beach some sea turtles come and nest and they are protected. Hopefully they will keep coming, but their numbers are dwindling fast. This year only 5 came to nest so far.
We find a cozy little cottage some hundred meters behind the beach and at walking distance to the massage school. Every morning after a breakfast with sea view, I walk to my course while Harry starts working on our porch. The course is great. We get taught in a wonderful airy space, my fellow students are a nice divers group of people and the course is from the start good hands-on; massaging and being massaged for 12 days in a row. Real Goan style, we rent a scooter to zip between the villages in the afternoons and evenings. Spending time at the beaches, markets and great restaurants. In our favourite restaurant a whole group of guys from Sikkim, one of the northern states, is working. They really know how to cook and we ask them to prepare lobster for us one evening; delicious.
The last day of the course we have to bring a model and of course Harry is my lucky one and gets the whole treatment I learned. The day after, I treat myself to an Indian rope massage done by a cool British chick in Anjuna. It's a great experience to feel her slide her feet all over me, while she's balancing on a rope above me. That's another technique I would like to learn some other time/ trip.