After aching to get here, for some lazy, hassle-free relaxation, it has pissed it down all day, and my headache has not improved. The hotel offers the varied delights of Sauna and Steam rooms (imagine!), Backgammon, Ludo, Cards, Darts, Ping-pong, a playground etc, etc. The pool, however, is empty, full of tubes, scaffolding and soggy workmen. Two of the much-vaunted 7 TV channels don’t work, and the English news is helpfully during meal times. We also discovered we’ve left the battery-charger in Udaipur. What a palaver trying to get through. Two hours effort, to no avail, and God knows what it’ll cost. This jaundiced first impression is largely because both of us feel grotty. What wimps! Goa itself is much greener than anywhere we’ve seen - tropical beaches, palm trees - the works. When it stops raining there seems to be quite a lot to see within a small range - the state was still Portuguese long after independence, and was an irritating anomaly (NB in 1961 troops ejected the Portuguese in a near bloodless operation, and though dubbed a ‘liberation’ by Nehru at the time, many Goans, given the choice, might have preferred independence. The case continues to be studied by the Supreme Court in India and a recent ruling decided that ‘invasion’ is the legal term. In the interests of less momentous but more metabolic stability - bedtime.