LOOK OUT HERMES

SQUINT LINES MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE AN OLD WORN OUT SHOE……CLICK THE PICS AND STAY FOREVER SMOOTH & YOUTHFUL…..THIS SERVICE IS BOUGHT TO YOU BY KIND MR SHPICS AT NO EXTRA CHARGE.

So………We made it to the Dudhsagar waterfall.

Hurrah? Well sort of…………..

Sadly, extricating a reluctant Mrs Shpics from the luxury of Hotel Subod wasn’t without its dramas, and we weren’t as early as planned. After what seemed like only a scant few minutes the Russian tourist hordes descended….

A word of explanation…A very thin coastal strip of the sunshine state of Goa on the west coast of India is FULL and I do mean FULL of Russian tourists…Thankfully they rarely seem to leave the beach. For their allotted two weeks they waddle to the sand in some of the most inappropriate swimming apparel I’ve ever witnessed, (‘Put it away Madam!…No-one needs to see that!’), light cigarette after cigarette, daub themselves in sun-grease, train their bloodshot eyes on their blingy smartphones, and spend the whole day sending smug text after smug text back to their vodka soaked, potato munching relatives who haven’t yet managed to make enough money from drugs and prostitution  to leave Mother Russia.

I think I mentioned, they rarely leave the beach… BUT… To our cost, Dudhsagar waterfall appealed to at least a busload of them.

Given the state of Goan roads they must have left the coast soon after they downed the last bottle of Smirnoff the night before, to arrive in Cholem at first light and transfer, eight/nine at a time into jeeps designed for five, for the final very bumpy 15km drive to the base of the falls.

Even allowing for the fact that they were Russian, they didn’t look good……

When I pointed out to Mrs Shpics that they would have been better off leaving a day early, catching three buses instead of their air-conditioned coach, and staying at the Subod, (where I am sure staff would have been able to find a few more moist mattresses), she was strangely quiet, but, in retrospect, I think she was simply so happy to have seen the waterfall for three minutes before anyone else arrived that she was just lost for words…….Beauty is like that isn’t it?

First off, something a little different…When we had first bedded down in the Subod I heard Mrs Shpics muttering that she wished she had a scarf while she chipped something off the pillow…To that end I’ve done a bit of a treatment to one shot from the falls….Plans are to get it printed onto insecticide impregnated silk in time for our next adventure. Thank you Darling xx.

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And… I did manage to get a few shots that didn’t include Ivan and Tatiana.

Actually, I’ve just noticed Ivan got into number one…..Fat, bald bastard!

All Images Copyright Stuart Allan Hyde.