Week 34, Goa, India

Dear Ethel, Family and Friends
This week we have been to the Town of Panaji, the main town in Goa. It was a big change to the slow life of Patnam beach in the south of Goa. However we stayed in the old part of Panaji town filled with Portuguese houses and churches. We stayed in a nice old house, Alfonso Homestay with peal shell shutters on the windows, a roof garden for serving breakfast and a lovely Portuguese family running the place. The main town itself, on the banks of the Mandovi River, is a compact and clean enough for Indian town standards and has the usual smattering of upmarket hotels, stores and restaurants as well as some parks churches and old colonial Government buildings, lining the river. A pleasant enough town but half a day will see it done.

The real reason for staying here is to visit old Goa, the site of the former Portuguese city and capitol of Goa. The city was abandoned during the mid eighteenth century due to plague and most of the city has since disappeared except for a string of churches in a varying state of decay. A lot of the history here points to European Christian dominance over the local people. One travel book I was reading was explaining the two hundred year Inquisition started by Francis Xavier in 1560. In today’s world we would call them war crimes or crimes against humanity, yet Francis Xavier was made a saint? We saw hundreds of people queuing to kiss his tomb as they left a church service. The old cathedrals’ and churches are worth seeing and one, the Church of St Cajetan is based on St Pauls in Rome with the Italian baroque dome on top.

We only spent a couple of days in Panaji and then headed north to the beaches again. We stayed at Mandrem and spent a couple of nights in an overpriced traditional grass hut at a place called Riva Resort. The food is also expensive here as they have you trapped with little choice but a few other overpriced resorts. We moved further north to Arambol a more populated beach with dozens of homestays to choose from at less than half the price. We are now at Luciano’s guest house for $15 a night. (sweetluciano@gmail.com)

During the week the bombings and terrorist attacks happened in Mumbai and we had train tickets booked to travel to Mumbai on Monday. We were also due to start some volunteer work in Pune later in the week as well but will now be starting at the school on the 5th of January. However, all our plans have changed now. We were able to change our train tickets and will now be travelling straight through to Delhi on the 9th of December instead. But we will have to hang around the beaches for an extra ten days now as a result, still there are worse things in life.

All the best Ric & Louise

Week 33, Goa, India

Dear Ethel, Family and Friends,
We had a reasonably quiet week this week, Ernakulam being a small busy town and not much to offer the tourist apart from transport in and out of the area. However they did have a pizza hut which is a change to the usual offerings of curry and rice.

Tuesday we caught an overnight train to Goa. The train left at 1pm and arrived at 3.30am. The second class sleeper is comfortable enough with bunk sleeping arrangements and sheets and pillow provided. Food and beverages were available continually as the hawkers travel up and down the train and as soon as we stopped somewhere, one lot got off as another lot got on. The only small problem on the train is they don’t announce the stops. So we woke at 3am and to disembark at 3.30am precisely.

There is plenty of activity at the station at that time of night including taxis fortunately. However not the case when we arrived at our accommodation at 4am. The caretakers didn’t know about any room for us, so we found some hammocks in the garden and went to sleep there. When we woke later in the morning we found a glorious beach with lots of cows and people doing yoga. The place we are staying has a nice shaded garden and a restaurant overlooking the beach run by an English chef...heaven. And seriously it is a very nice beach, I know that we go on about our beaches in Australia being so good, but this is a real contender. As a result we have decided to stay 6 days here.

We are at Patnem beach in the south of Goa at the moment and will be travelling north this week to have a look at old Goa, the Portuguese town and some beaches in the North.

All the best Ric & Louise