nineteen – days three through five: goa

What a transformation!  The differences between the states of Maharashtra and Goa are striking.  For one, Goa is green.  Very green.  Green trees, bright green rice paddies, green grass, green.  The roads are still brown and dusty and the cities, although much smaller than Mumbai, still teem with life.  But it was a welcome change after two days in Mumbai.

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We stayed in Benaulim at Heaven Goa in an A/C room for 1000RS ($22) per night.  Sunil was our gracious host.  Although we sometimes lost power (not unusual for India), the setting, tranquility, spacious and clean rooms, and amazing breakfast far outweighed the minor inconvenience.

On Tuesday, we took inter-city buses and traveled to the area of Ponda which is famous for its Hindu temples.  We hired an auto rickshaw to take us around from temple to temple in Ponda, Priol, and Mardo.  Unfortunately, visitors are not allowed to take photos of the interiors of the temples, but we took a lot of pictures of the exteriors.   

The Hindu temples are really beautiful, but as I watched devotees perform the daily puja, I found the religion itself to be completely foreign and out of my realm of context and experience.  However, I found it utterly fascinating and captivating to behold. 

We returned to Heaven Goa and found ourselves in the middle of a Fat Tuesday Carnival celebration!  Who would have thought you’d find that in India?  Kids on scooters shot passersby with water guns and threw water balloons.  We also got sprayed with purple holi water (usually reserved for use during Holi, the spring religious festival celebrated by Hindus) – much to our dismay.  (It didn’t come out very easily but Emily did a great job scrubbing with a Woolite packet and hot water!)  Trucks full of people dressed in wigs and playing music drove the streets, and a parade left Benaulim Beach and headed all the way south to Palolem.  The highlight was getting asked by a cross-dressed guy in a neon orange wig if we wanted a lift to the beach on the back his motorbike.  We declined and ate a dinner of gobi manchurian and veg noodles on Benaulim Beach.

On Wednesday, we traveled to Old Goa, an old Portuguese colony city.  There were many Portuguese influenced buildings and churches.  Old Goa is pretty much a ghost town now except for the tourist sites and the various stalls hawking clothes, jewelry, and cold drinks to the visitors.  The sites were lovely and incredibly well maintained.  I was very impressed with the restoration work that the Indian government and UNESCO have done.

Basilica of Bom Jesus

Se Cathedral Complex

After spending the morning in Old Goa, we hopped on yet another bus to Panjim.  I absolutely loved this city!  It is filled with charming homes of Portuguese architecture.  The roads off the main streets are quiet – truly quiet.  It looked like people really cared for their heritage properties.  We visited some more churches and a lovely gallery with traditional and modern Portuguese ceramic tile art and housewares. 

Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception

 

 
We spent some time in a Café Coffee Day to cool off in the air conditioned café with a sizzling brownie with vanilla ice cream before heading back on the express bus to Margao and onto Benaulim.  We walked around Benaulim to find a restaurant for dinner before calling it a night.

On Thursday, we decided to be beach bums.  We rented matching bicycles – purple for me, pink for Emily – and biked around Benaulim and south to Varca Beach.  We stopped for a lime soda for Emily (her favorite – I think she drank one every day) and a fresh watermelon juice for me at a beach shack on Varca before heading back to our beach for lunch at yet another beach shack. 

 
We returned to Heaven Goa to shower before our 8pm train to Udupi. 

This time we rode in the sleeper class on the train because we booked our tickets late and it was only a 3.5 hour train ride south.  This was quite an experience for me; for the first time, I felt truly pushed outside my comfort zone.  The sleeper class train car is not air conditioned, but the windows do open and close, which is nice.  On one side of the train car, there are about six to eight partially partitioned areas each with six bunks arranged perpendicular to the train car (three high on each side).  On the other side of the car, there is the same number of areas except with only two bunks arranged against the wall of the train car.  Since the ride was only a few hours, Emily and I sat on the side of the car with the two bunks and sat together on the bottom.  Across from us were a husband, wife and two children who shared the two bunks on the bottom.  Above them slept four Indian men.  The rest of the car was filled with men.  It’s not that I felt unsafe, per se.  It was more that I felt stared at (because I was), and I was just very ill at ease.  It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling all that well; my stomach wasn’t one hundred percent, and I was tired.  These facts, combined with feeling unnerved, made the start of the train journey a tenuous one for me.  Emily lent me her Kindle’s booklight and I was able to distract myself with The Given Day.  About two hours into the journey, we passed through what I am only guessing was a dust storm.  I first noticed it in the rays of the booklight; dust and dirt poured in through the open windows of our train car, filling my mouth with grit, and covering me and my belongings with a thin layer of brown sand.  I won’t pretend I wasn’t relieved to disembark the train in Udupi.

We arrived at the Hotel Sriram Residency to check in around midnight, took showers, and headed to bed.