Goa

June 25-30
Goa is green, and tropical and clean. The Portuguese influence makes it completely different to the rest of India. Drinking was plentiful and there weren't as many cows on the street. We spent time walking around our adopted home Panjim, getting ourselves a local, eating awesome tikka calamari, and getting buses to see an awful lot of old churches and going to the beach...not that it was the right weather for it.

We had origianlly wanted to stay in Anjuna to go to the flea market there, until halfway there I was telling our taxi dude and he goes-'but it is not on during the monsoon'. Thanks for not mentioning that LP. I blame that book entirley, though it does make sense not to have a flea market on the beach when it could get washed out any second ...I guess... still they might of mentioned it.

Then the taxi dude decided he would show us a much better place.....some sad looking bungalows on a rubbish strewn beach with nothing around...it might have been idyllic if it hadn't been raining.. much to his dismay we didn't take up the overpriced bungalows 'but right on the beach!' and decided to make our own way back to Panjim on a local bus.

Panjim is a cool town with lots of old buildings painted bright colors. There are heaps of colorful houses and little winding twisty lanes and most importantly lots of bars to drink at with mega cheap prices. They make alcohol out of coconut and cashews called Feni, its pretty good, and doesnt give you a nasty headache like Indian beer.

Jon at a Hindu temple in Panjim





We went to Old Goa one day, where there is nothing left but a lot of churches...infact why the hell did they even need so many churches and so close together??They were all by different Catholic orders of monks that came to India to convert the locals and escape religious persecution in Europe. Old Goa was in it's heyday in the 1500s one of the biggest cities and trade centres in the world.....And did you know Goa was a Portuguese state even after the rest of India gained it's independence from England in 1947? They had to be kicked out by the Indian Army in 1961. There you go, interesting trivia fact to to store away. Old Goa was the capital of the territory but they moved it to Panjim in the 1800s and Old Goa practically dried up and all thats left is some bad restraunts and a lot of churches




The picture to the right is the coffin of a dead body, an incorruptible dead body........ Saint Francis Xavier.It rests in the Basilica of Bom Jesus (church and the golden inside shown above.) Apparently Francis didn't rot when he died, and stayed in perfectly good condition the whole trip from when he died in China till they sailed him back to Goa. He looks like a mummy.


Mmmmm Falooda, its a rose flavoured milk shake(tastes like musk sticks!) with dried fruit and nuts and dry vermicilli noodles for extra crunch.



The doorway of our local pub and it shows you the very cute colorful street.











Excited cos we found a cow!




There were heaps of random crosses in the streets for people to stop and pray and leave flowers.

Goa was awesome and we definitely want to go back when its not monsoon and goto the beach