It's 6am, and we're bouncing down the road to Hampi, capital of the Vijayanagar Empire, after four days in Goa, capital of ravers and hippies. We spent two nights in Vagator, in the north part of the state, before passing through Velha Goa (the old capital of the Portuguese Empire in Asia; so many capitals!) to Palolem Beach in the south.
As befits several days in a famous beach paradise, there is little to report. We spent time on the beach, swimming in Indian Ocean, sea kayaking in Palolem, and drinking cocktails by the sand. The hotels we stayed at were both lovely, one with a pool surrounded by bungalows, and the second right on the beach, and both had air conditioning, which I'm beginning to think is a year-round necessity for me, at least in Southern India. Yesterday we went walking and found a cool vegetarian/vegan café called Zest. I ordered coconut water, so they gave me a coconut with its top lopped off and a straw in it. Once it was drunk down, they cut it in half so we could scrape out the meat with a spoon. Emma had a sushi bowl, which contained no fish but a lot of veg, and we got to take a close look at some of the more hippyish elements of western tourism.
Then we realised we couldn't pay. We were R130 short (about £1.30) and the nearest ATM was 2.5 km away. So what could I do? I started walking. Actually, the real plan was to walk like I had a long way to go, and attract a Tuk Tuk driver to offer a ride. It worked - not 5 minutes later I was on the back of a scooter driven by an off-work taxi driver named Dhilliv. Nice guy, he got me to the ATM, chatted with me while we waited in line, and was the first to realise that the line was so long because the thing wasn't working. So he drove me another 1.5 km to another machine, which also was out of cash, past another machine that he knew was out of cash pretty much permanently, to a final machine which absolutely worked. Then he schlepped me all the way back to Zest. So Dhilliv: you're a star, and worth every Rupee. :)
The South of the country is considerably prettier than the north. There are more trees, bushes, animals (we have seen many a monkey these last few days) and proper houses. The south is apparently the more wealthy part of the country, Punjab excepted. In addition to Mumbai and Goa, which are the finance and tourism capitals, there's also Bengaluru (Bangalore), the IT capital, Kerala state, which although poor has the highest rate of literacy in the country thanks to the world's first freely elected communist government, and Chennai (Madras), which apparently has nothing interesting at all about it. I'm not looking forward to Chennai.
We're also heading out of the Hindi speaking areas and into the Dravidian parts, where languages such as Konkani, Telugu and Tamil predominate. Since these languages have nothing in common with Hindi, and use a totally different writing system, I'm pretty much skunked in my, admittedly limited, attempts to learn some of the language. I have a few phrases, and I can transliterate the Hindi signs, and that's about as far as its going to go. C'est la vie.
Patrick
Em sez: I can't believe he didn't say more about Old Goa! It was just a quick afternoon stop on the way to Vagator, but we fit in visits to three historical churches. And even though I'm not the Catholic one, it was fairly exciting to see a saint. Unlike the locals I resisted the urge to take a selfie with his coffin. First stop in town was the excellently named Basilica of Bom Jesus. While not the St Francis I would have been happier to meet (he of Assisi), St Francis Xavier's remains are entombed here. The miraculously undecomposed body itself is put on display just once every 10 years (missed the 2014 viewing), but the rest of the decade his tomb can be viewed from all four sides- and unlike in other churches where photography is either all together banned, or at least unallowed with people- it was selfie central at this one! The Portuguese spent quite a bit of time in Goa, so of course there were other Catholic churches- the Se Cathedral and the Church of St Francis of Assisi.
Churched out, we wandered down to an uninspiring bit of river, wondering where this important trading dock was supposed to be. My lunch was a plain but tasty dal, but Patrick decided to have a South Indian speciality, dosa. After miraculously eating the whole thing, he described its immense size to those who hadn't been around to witness it. Like a fisherman over-exaggerating the size of his catch, no one believed his exclamations of "It was THIS BIG!!" but happily I took a photo!
Palolem was intensely touristy, but did allow for a mini Dragoman reunion, as Dollie and Sophie had both independently continued their travels to the same beach, after finishing their leg of over-landing in Mumbai. It was lovely celebrating Sophie's 26th birthday at a restaurant where the dining tables were set out on the beach. Art Café's live music night left something to be desired, but one of the singers did a decent rendition of The Kinks' Sunny Afternoon, and cocktail in hand, toes in the sand, cool wind straight off the ocean playing in my hair- it was a good moment that's stuck with me. We all had a good laugh when a dried up hippy who'd clearly spent too many decades doing too many drugs got up to sway around and sing some duets with one of the guitar guys. We affectionately named her Sue and decided she owned 5 cats and a llama. All this even before she put on her inflatable bat wings.
In the day, the endless stretches of shops selling the same tat and tourist bars serving the same cheap sugary cocktails was too much, but the sea was perfect and I was happiest floating on the waves or kayaking to the nearby island.
As befits several days in a famous beach paradise, there is little to report. We spent time on the beach, swimming in Indian Ocean, sea kayaking in Palolem, and drinking cocktails by the sand. The hotels we stayed at were both lovely, one with a pool surrounded by bungalows, and the second right on the beach, and both had air conditioning, which I'm beginning to think is a year-round necessity for me, at least in Southern India. Yesterday we went walking and found a cool vegetarian/vegan café called Zest. I ordered coconut water, so they gave me a coconut with its top lopped off and a straw in it. Once it was drunk down, they cut it in half so we could scrape out the meat with a spoon. Emma had a sushi bowl, which contained no fish but a lot of veg, and we got to take a close look at some of the more hippyish elements of western tourism.
Then we realised we couldn't pay. We were R130 short (about £1.30) and the nearest ATM was 2.5 km away. So what could I do? I started walking. Actually, the real plan was to walk like I had a long way to go, and attract a Tuk Tuk driver to offer a ride. It worked - not 5 minutes later I was on the back of a scooter driven by an off-work taxi driver named Dhilliv. Nice guy, he got me to the ATM, chatted with me while we waited in line, and was the first to realise that the line was so long because the thing wasn't working. So he drove me another 1.5 km to another machine, which also was out of cash, past another machine that he knew was out of cash pretty much permanently, to a final machine which absolutely worked. Then he schlepped me all the way back to Zest. So Dhilliv: you're a star, and worth every Rupee. :)
The South of the country is considerably prettier than the north. There are more trees, bushes, animals (we have seen many a monkey these last few days) and proper houses. The south is apparently the more wealthy part of the country, Punjab excepted. In addition to Mumbai and Goa, which are the finance and tourism capitals, there's also Bengaluru (Bangalore), the IT capital, Kerala state, which although poor has the highest rate of literacy in the country thanks to the world's first freely elected communist government, and Chennai (Madras), which apparently has nothing interesting at all about it. I'm not looking forward to Chennai.
We're also heading out of the Hindi speaking areas and into the Dravidian parts, where languages such as Konkani, Telugu and Tamil predominate. Since these languages have nothing in common with Hindi, and use a totally different writing system, I'm pretty much skunked in my, admittedly limited, attempts to learn some of the language. I have a few phrases, and I can transliterate the Hindi signs, and that's about as far as its going to go. C'est la vie.
Patrick
Em sez: I can't believe he didn't say more about Old Goa! It was just a quick afternoon stop on the way to Vagator, but we fit in visits to three historical churches. And even though I'm not the Catholic one, it was fairly exciting to see a saint. Unlike the locals I resisted the urge to take a selfie with his coffin. First stop in town was the excellently named Basilica of Bom Jesus. While not the St Francis I would have been happier to meet (he of Assisi), St Francis Xavier's remains are entombed here. The miraculously undecomposed body itself is put on display just once every 10 years (missed the 2014 viewing), but the rest of the decade his tomb can be viewed from all four sides- and unlike in other churches where photography is either all together banned, or at least unallowed with people- it was selfie central at this one! The Portuguese spent quite a bit of time in Goa, so of course there were other Catholic churches- the Se Cathedral and the Church of St Francis of Assisi.
Churched out, we wandered down to an uninspiring bit of river, wondering where this important trading dock was supposed to be. My lunch was a plain but tasty dal, but Patrick decided to have a South Indian speciality, dosa. After miraculously eating the whole thing, he described its immense size to those who hadn't been around to witness it. Like a fisherman over-exaggerating the size of his catch, no one believed his exclamations of "It was THIS BIG!!" but happily I took a photo!
Beaches don't really do it for me (I love being IN the water, but sun and sand don't appeal), and one morning walk in Vagator was enough to send me to bed the rest of the day, emerging in the evening to bond with the adorable hotel cat, Stitch.
Palolem was intensely touristy, but did allow for a mini Dragoman reunion, as Dollie and Sophie had both independently continued their travels to the same beach, after finishing their leg of over-landing in Mumbai. It was lovely celebrating Sophie's 26th birthday at a restaurant where the dining tables were set out on the beach. Art Café's live music night left something to be desired, but one of the singers did a decent rendition of The Kinks' Sunny Afternoon, and cocktail in hand, toes in the sand, cool wind straight off the ocean playing in my hair- it was a good moment that's stuck with me. We all had a good laugh when a dried up hippy who'd clearly spent too many decades doing too many drugs got up to sway around and sing some duets with one of the guitar guys. We affectionately named her Sue and decided she owned 5 cats and a llama. All this even before she put on her inflatable bat wings.
In the day, the endless stretches of shops selling the same tat and tourist bars serving the same cheap sugary cocktails was too much, but the sea was perfect and I was happiest floating on the waves or kayaking to the nearby island.
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