Panaji

The journey here was fabulous! I took a motorbike taxi from Agonda all along the coast and arrived in Margao to catch the 'express' bus to Panaji 45 minutes later, windswept and smiling! The journey was 34km to Panaji and it took the express 55min to arrive! I was sitting next to a chatty lady who told me Goan's were very friendly people and if I ever had any questions to ask 'decent' people. She then pointed to the two ladies in front of us and said "not like those people." Hmmm....

As I started walking towards the old village I realized how beautiful it is here! Very Mediterranean. I had three hotels in mind to look at but before I checked them out I had a lovely lunch at the Lonely Planet recommended Hotel Venite.

After lunch I went room searching and let me tell you, 2 of the 3 were pretty bad. I ended up picking Comfort Guest House. The reception was very reassuring:

Actually, I have a great room for 400Rs which includes a TV, bottom and top sheets, a towel, nice soap and a hot water shower! Now that is luxury! If the truth be told, my room shower is only cold water but the bathroom in the reception area has hot water - very exciting. For the past 8 days I have had cold water showers only and I swear 8 days worth of dirt and sun screen was washed off me with the hot water. You have no idea how good it felt....

After cleaning up I toured about town and at times I felt like I was in Europe. Here are a few shots of the architecture:

The highlight of the day was finding this lovely store which showcased all handcrafted Indian products some of which were beautiful and nothing like I have seen before. If it was the end of my trip the damage would have been bad but since I have lots of travelling left I only purchased some silver jewellry (earrings and a ring) made by a Goan lady. I am so happy with them - I might even go back and get a necklace I really liked...

More tomorrow..

Panaji

I am off to Panaji in a few hours via motorbike and two buses! Panaji was under Portuguese colonial rule until 1961 and was then incorporated with the rest of Goa into India in December 1961. It became the state capital in May, 1987. Apparently there is still quite a Portuguese influence which I am interested in experiencing - I will keep you posted!

The pattern has been established with a small interruption!

The day begins around 6:30am walking the beach. I get back to the hut at about 8am and then have a milk coffee and read while I wait for the internet place to open at 9am and do my daily chores :) My first stop is to get water and this lovely lady greets me everyday! She speaks next to no English but it really is amazing how we communicate!

I then make my way to the German bakery (shop on left) and pick up a croissant or bracket... both are bread dough, the croissant is rolled dough and the bracket is braided! Then I go next door to the internet cafe (orange door) and do a little blogging. As you noticed I have not posted for a couple of days; the internet was down for 36 hours and I had a case of Delhi belly for the last couple of days as well - minor interruption!

Before I head back to my hard days work of lying on the beach I drop off my laundry at a local laundry service. The three ladies are wonderful and I just make sure to duck whenever I see a rock or ball flying at me from one of the 9 kids that live there! All the action stops when they count out my articles of clothing to determine the price and when they get to the underwear the kids just giggle away...

I hit the beach at about 10:30 and don't leave until 3ish when I go for another walk! It is a hard life but someone has to do it!

Food has been a bit of a struggle because my stomach has been funny. My diet so far has consisted of milk coffee (boiled milk and instant coffee), water, coke, plain rice, plain toast, Chinese noodles, briyani and I have had a couple of really nice fresh out of the water tuna dinners!

Little Italy is the restaurant at my 'resort' and lots of longterm hippies come and have a beer and pizza throughout the day. It is a great spot to hang out for the week but my time is coming to an end here and I will probably head out to the capital of Goa, Panaji in a few days.

Haircut anyone?

The Fort area of Mumbai:

Agonda village:

The beach...

Now this is the life....

A pattern of waking at 6am and walking the beach each day is developing! This is the North end of the beach:

Here is the south end:

My first morning walking on the beach I noticed a group of cows at the south end just hanging out. At 4pm they strolled along the entire beach and then hung out at the north end. Well, this is what happens everyday... it's a cow's life!

Sai Valentines

Ding! 9pm - why did I go to bed so early?.. 12:30am try to get a little more sleep... From 4:30 - 6:30am I lay in bed starring at this mold stained mosquito net!

I decided at this point to get up and check out the beach. OMG! The beach is absolutely beautiful! It is 3km long and in an alcove with palm covered out crops at each end. I walked from one end to the other and decided at this point that I made the right decision to park in Agonda.

Agonda is a small village with one road, no buses and tourism is it's main occupation. Due to the small size I was not quite sure if I could stay put for over a week - well after one day I am already starting to see a pattern... more on that later!

After my walk I went hunting for an internet place and as I was leaving I noticed the property sign lying on the ground waiting to be put up - the beach communities in Goa dismantle everything each year before the monsoon and then rebuild again in late November for the start of the tourism season. I guess I was so tired when I arrived that I thought I was staying at Little Italy but I am actually staying at Sai Valentines and Little Italy is the restaurant at the huts!

Here are my diggs for the next week or so! Pretty cute hey?!
The hut is so large I had to go into the bathroom to get this shot!
The rest of the day was spent relaxing at the beach and it felt sooooo good! Stay tuned...

Mumbai to Agonda, Goa

Ding! 2:30am and I am wide awake, gotta love jet lag. After reading for a bit in my windowless room I decided to sit on the balcony and check out the early morning sites of Mumbai.. lots of activity with chai sellers on bikes, taxi's honking their horns for no apparent reason and the sugar cane man setting up shop for the day ahead!


At 4:30am I made my way to the train station for the nine hour ride to Goa. It was only a 200 meter walk and I saw 48 people sleeping on the 'sidewalk' and 4 rats! Right, I am in India and that was my early morning reminder. The train ride got off to a booming start with the chai seller spilling a cup of very very very hot tea all over my legs. Now I have wanted an India themed tattoo for sometime but the moon shaped one I have from the tea is not exactly what I was hoping for! Really I had a lotus flower in mind... The sweet couple behind me were most helpful as I was dripping wet and they assisted with the cleanup. Their daughter was fast asleep but she soon awoke and spent most of the trip rubbing my hair and saying something I did not understand.. Blonde maybe? Here she is, what a sweetie:

After nine hours exactly I arrived in a town called Margao. During my past two trips to India I basically got assaulted by touts trying to get me to take their taxi and stay in their hotels. What a pleasant surprise here - no one asked me anything until I was almost outside the station. Wow! Apparently this is one of the beautiful things about travelling in South India and if so, I am going to like the travel here. The man that did approach me was nice enough and he had a cast and slippers on so I thought, okay, I will go with him. Once we negotiated a price (250Rs) for the 45 minute ride we made our way to his.... motorbike! Now, before we started I told him I was not going anywhere without a helmet. He looked at me like I had 10 heads at which point I told him I wanted a head left at the end of our trip! I put on the helmet which must have had 10 pounds of dust in it and with my pack on my back away we went! At the end of the trip I asked him what happened to his hand and he told me he hit a buffalo at midnight while driving his bike drunk... I knew I smelled stale alcohol!

I was supposed to stay at Madhu Huts and when I arrived the owner told me he would take me to my hut. Well this required a scooter ride so I started to get suspicious.... After a 5 min drive we ended up at his 'relatives' because he was full - classic Indian style. The place was dump so I got him to bring me back to his place and I started walking the beach looking for a spot. Little Italy is where I planted myself as I liked the beach loungers and the bathroom was clean! By 6:30pm I was in bed, beat to a snot and hoping to sleep through the night....