meanwhile, while the cousins' blogs are going nuts with posts about snow and storms...

...it is January in Goa and there is no snow.
In fact, it is peak season here (it gets too hot and rainy later in the year) Indians and foreigners come from all over. So many foreigners at our little beach, in fact, that we keep wondering if we might have accidentally gone to Europe (got speedos?).

But that doesn't mean that there are a lot of people. Check out our beach (south view):

(north view):
a typical street in Goa:

In other words, it is basically the opposite of Kolkata.

And here is how that makes us feel, straight out of the cab from the airport:

Please pardon our blog silence while we take some time off to build sandcastles and float on the waves. We're headed back soon enough and we intend to soak it up as much as possible.