It was an overnight journey and I passed away some of this chatting to two students from York, my old student stamping ground! Well to be accurate they were both students and from York, born there but studying elsewhere. Still, it sort of made me feel somewhat at home. They also agreed that they had lost the very same thing that I had when they entered India - anonymity. I had begun to feel like a chameleon on a tartan backdrop - eyes following me everywhere, and never able to blend in. It was most odd and a far cry from the ultra-anonymous crowds of home.

I awoke from my rocking bed as the train pulled into dawn. For the first time I could see a slice of India's countryside. Dry dusty tracks between dusty houses and withered vegetation. But in-between were scattered oases of lush, green, neatly terraced paddy fields fed by an intricate scheme of canals and bordered by rows and groves of coconut palms. Quite simply, large parts of the countryside had been cleverly crafted into giant solar-driven food making machines - machines for which intense human labour is a vital cog.

I'm staying in Margao in southern Goa - the Portuguese influence is very visible (one shop is called Paulino Raymondo's) both in the architecture and the people. Mediterranean genes can be seen here and there and saris are definitely out in favour of skirts.

If someone had asked me before I'd left for this trip what I was expecting from the fauna of India I'd probably have given some vague notions about cows, and birds, probably parrots or something brightly coloured like that, er... and goats, yes definitely goats, and tigers, elephants and probably the odd gorilla or two. No-one ever did ask me, but I was prepared with my Ark-like list. Now my picture is somewhat different. Cows yes, even goats, but dogs - everywhere - in loose roaming packs that belong to no one, thin timid cats, crows, crows, and more crows, monkeys and, yes, the odd elephant (usually chained up in some temple). I really was pretty disappointed by the crows, they were quite blatantly not brightly coloured parrots, they were rather dull... well, crows. However, credit where it's due, they perform a very useful public service (as do the cows, goats and dogs), they eat all the rubbish lying around.

Another odd species in evidence here, which I would have never expected from my armchair in Britain, was the moustache. It seems, in this part of India at least, that if you can grow one then you jolly well should.

I've just got back from the Dudhsagar (milkwater) Falls near the provincial border with Karnataka. The water from these, India's highest falls I think, plunges some 600 metres into a cool pool that you can swim in (I declined). When we arrived, troupes of monkeys lined the edge of the pool, soon to be replaced by troupes of human tourists who sat in similar groups - but didn't squabble quite as much.

Today I'm heading to the coast to sample some of those beaches that Goa is supposedly famous for.