✨ Resource & Repower ✨

Well, initially this website was dedicated to India, but I decided that I might aswell keep it up as a general forum for photos and streams of consciousness, and all things Isabelle related. That way whoever whishes to be updated on what I am doing or have their say and make comments on my posts can do so via this website. So the new year is upon us! 2006 already! cripes! Check out my christmas photos on the links opposite for a look at my brussels antics. Christmas was fabulous! Mum insisted on plying me with copious amounts of turkey due to the thinner body I brought back from India - I left behind 6 kilos! Christmas dinner was delicious and we kept eating it for 3 days. There was much laughter and drink and food to be had all around. My cousins came up from France with my grandmother and we enjoyed the usual crazieness that surrounds the O'Keeffe family on such occasions. Tonight will be the gathering of usual suspects at parties to bring int the new year old skool style in Bru...

So I am back in Delhi after an amazing week and a half in Goa sunbathing, swimming, partying, sleeping, eating, watching the sun set. I have left that lovely place behind as well as the rest of India which will always be with me. It has been just epic. I have learned so much about life here, about things in general but most of all about myself. I have so much more confidence now its strange it sort of crept up on me. I was waiting for a big bolt of lightning to hit me or for some sort of awaking but with out sounding too deep, only now when I look back on things can I see how I different I feel about life. I have a way more positive out look on life. I think reading a lot of books centred around India, like Holy Cow and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari sort of helped crystalise this feeling. Anyway enough of the spiritual stuff. I have to go wash up for dinner. I will post a goodbye shot on this site as a way of signing off here. Thanks for everyone who has followed my journey. May there ...

For those of you who have seen the above movie, you will know that in the opening scene, Matt Damon is seen jogging along on a beach somewhere in Goa, in hiding. Well above is that beach, where we are staying right now called Palolem! It is so nice. We went for a boat ride along the cost this morning. The boat is like a type of Curragh. We rode to this lovely secluded beach with Elodie and Regan our new Kiwi friend who came down with us from Anjuna. It was gorgeous. We even saw dophins playing about and flying fish ricocheting across the water it was so cool! We are staying in little huts on pilons in the sand they are deadly. 1 euro a night, you can't go wrong! Did some shopping and now we are chilling by the beach. Lovely seafood while watching the sun set over the ocean listening to cool music, is something I won't forget in a hurry.

So my days in India are finally drawing to a close. It is strange being here in Goa becuase it is so different to the rest of India. It feels like these past two months happened oh so long ago. This blog has been such a handy tool in recording all my experiences, and especially in storing my photos. Hats off to technology. So we are still livin' it up here in Goa. We head down to Palolem on Saturday. I look forward to that cos it is meant to be one of the nicest white sandy beaches on the southern coast. Check out my photos for an update, I downloaded some yesterday...

Well according to the millions of cheesy t-shirts being sold here with the slogan. Haven't quite figured out what "it" is yet though. Its been a while since I last posted something up on here. I have been so busy and self-absorbed trying to make the most of my last days here. We left Varkala and took a boat on the backwaters up the coast back to Kochi to get the train there to Goa which was pretty hard. I frankly am so fed up with trains and buses and looking forward to planes for a change. So here we are in Anjuna in the northern part of Goa. (Mel I hope you are still at Cocks Town Huts because we are heading up there this afternoon to meet you). Here in Anjuna everything is crazy. There are these 24hour partes on the beach with semi-famous djs and old indian ladies selling chai and snacks, and people dancing with flames on the end of sticks. It resembles the "Zion Rave" scene from The Matrix Revolutions for anyone who has seen it, where everyone is doing some...

This whole experience should infact be called Isabelle's Creature Extravaganza! The past month has seen me grapple with various life forms. I have shared a sleeping bag with a miniature mouse, washed my teeth with cockroaches staring back at me, slept in the desert amongst a continuous assault of dung beetles, had showers with gekhos suctionpadding their way across walls and even done a pooh in an indian toilet behind a restaurrant in Fort Kochi only to look down and see somewhat large crab-type pinches make their way past my recent deposit up through the toilet hole and out into the night! Seemingly these creatures have been planted at my every destination to test my strenght of character and squimishness. I honestly don't know how much more I can take...only time will tell!

The view from our cliff side Beach Hut taken 5 hours ago!

So we went on our merry way to catch the train to Alapuzha from where we would do the backwater trip to Kollam. It turned out that there was in fact no train to Alapuzha that day so we had to get a train straight to Varkala instead further down the coast. Oh the joys of the unexpected. We subsequently missed our stop and ended up in Trivandrum, the last stop before Sri Lanka and an epic treasure hunt at the station ensued, worthy of one of Mums "Chasse au tresor" from our childhood days. Point A tells you to go to Point B. Finding Point B takes anouther 20mins as you battle past the rickshaw drivers jumping at your throat. You finally arrive at point B after going up and down several flights of stairs where they tell you to go to Point C and get a ticket and queue for half an hour. When you get to the counter they land you with the bomb that infact it was at point A that we where meant to go. You get the idea! We finally got the train for Varkala and headed back up the coast...

After a few weeks I am starting to understand why it is, infact, that I am getting double stared at more than Elodie. The Injuns, it seems, are under the impression that I have some sort of strange skin disease. I am getting a bit tired of questions like "Why you skin like this?" or "Why you have skin allergy?" I am tempted to reply, "Why are you black?" Even the beautician had a confused expression on her face when I told her that no, I didn't use a lightening cream to get rid of my "spots". I can honsestly say that in all my years of being self-conscious of my freckles, I have never been prouder of them, or more honoured to defend them!