Benaulim Beach continues

Benaulim Beachlife

Since monday the 8th of november we stay at Da Silva Casa, a purple family guesthouse in Benaulim Beach. They have 3 rooms to rent out but at the moment we are the only guests. The house lays offroad in a nice rural area but still not far from the towncentre and close to the beach. The family we stay includes a couple with little children, a grandma and then a few others of which we don't know much. It's communal living here with people walking in and out the garden so it's not clear who lives where and with who and which children belong to which parents. There are no fences inbetween so all is one for everybody. 

 Our pets Neighbours

Around the house is a lot of bush and trees where animals freely wander, sleep, eat, or just be. There is a few motherpigs with lots of mini piglets running everywhere they can, there are chickens, a white cat with kittens, cows and black bulls with massive horns and in the tree in front of out balcony we can spot a squirrel when we are lucky.  It feels really nice to stay here. Layed back villagelife. The same people are almost doing the same thing every day; women washing clothes in the morning, men chopping wood, others building new houses and shacks, trashpickers bended to the ground, poor looking people scraping dirt from fences before others will paint them, women sweeping the fallen leaves in the street or in the gardens to create walking paths, in the afternoon they are burning the collected trash on the sidewalks or in nature (no matter what's the material). All the work is done in primitive ways and their hands still do more than the machines. 

Doing laundry

 

We rented a scooter to explore the coastline. I was very nervous because traffic here is so different then what we are used to. It's not only that they drive on the left side, their mentality seems to be a careless; survival of the fittest. For example local busses don't move aside for any scooter, bicycle or pedestrian, you just have to make way for the speeding bus by ending up in the ditch no matter how steep or dirty it is. Luckily we have seen that the locals are very helpfull when tourists crash or fall. Our trip went well and we visited beach after beach to find out that there are not really any nicer ones then our closest beach in Benaulim. There were even a few beaches than seemed to be especially reserved for Russians including shacknames, flags and menu's in Russian. Continuing our way we both started to feel more at ease with the scooter, it's a refreshing breeze when you go 40 km/h. At slow pase we enjoyed sandy paths in the shade of the trees and ending up on little  roads that appeared to have dead ends to private properties. After having lunch we headed back to the hostel as clouds were getting darker grey and we didn't want to drive in the rain.

 Birthday!

Saturday it was Jaakko's birthday. We decided to have a luxuryday. We started with baked beans on toast (for a change) as breakfast at Tansy. After that we walked across the street for icecream and fruit. For lunch we chose some nice chocolate- and pearcakes at our local German Bakery to take home. We bought a little bottle of Indian whiskey and cola to have a nice cocktail at our balcony. Around 18 o'clock we went to the beach to have a beer and watch the sunset. In stead of the standard Indian Kingfisher beer we had some real nice Goan beers called Kings, a sweeter taste and made of corn. I ate tomatosoup and veg stuffed papadum (like veggie springroll) and Jaakko had masala fries and Tikka Paneer (barbecued stick with capsicum, tomato and cottage cheese). To finish the night we walked over the beach to Little Tiger, a backpackerbar with 70's music and hookah's on the tables, where we had rum cola's. In loungy seats on the sand we talked and watched the pitchblack sea making white waves in the light of the moon.