Benaulim - Margao, Goa

So here we are, still in the same beach. Life is relaxed here, our biggest problem is generally choosing in which restaurant to eat out.

Unfortunately our travel laptop (Acer, Aspire One, thank you Mieke for loaning it;) has had some issues - the power adapter decided to die. So off we went to Margao to visit computer stores. After prolonged 3hour odyssey in search of a local Acer distributor we found their office (from upstairs of a block of flats, no signs outside the building) but they did not have any spare power supplies to sell and told us to visit Acer Support Center anyway (5km out of the city) because the laptop is still under warranty.
By that point we had enough of pointless walking around the town so we decided to return to our home near the beach.

Sun & Moon

Next day I had a nice ½ hour busride to the support center but they told me that the international warranty we have for Acer is not valid in the state of Goa. If we would want to get our power supply fixed for free we should visit either Bangalore, Mumbai or Delhi (all over a day trip away...) So in the end I decided to buy a new "universal" laptop power supply from a hardware store, half of the price of the Acers official power adapter.

Meanwhile I also found a music store from Margao and bought myself a birthday present - a beach/travel guitar.

Grason - Made in India

We have also seen lately few indian music groups - most of the time there is setup of guitar & keyboards and singalong songs (generally pretty awful campfire campiness). The poorest act we witnessed in one restaurant was a fat indian man sitting behind a laptop, selecting karaoke tracks and singing Elvis, Beatles etc. evergreens with an hilariously thick accent. One of the better performances was Indian jazz band, with keyboards, guitar, base, drums and saxophone. They played really well but a rather boring set of elevator classics. With some food and cocktails we tried to enjoy it all. Funny thing to notice was that there was no seperate amplifiers; everything was plugged directly in to PA (without any effects).

Traditional party from Rhadjastan

We spend daily few hours on the beach and ocean and are now slowly planning our next move to Gokarna, a bit holier beach town about 100 km south.

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.

Benaulim, Goa

After spending 4 long days in bustling city of Panaji we decided to return to the beaches. This time around we chose Benaulim beach, nearby Margao. We took a "bouncy" local bus from Panjim to Margao, missed our stop and ended up taking a rickshaw to the beach. 

Currently we are staying in Rosarios Inn, a budgetresort with a 15min walk to the beach. We also managed to haggle the price of our stay down from 350 inr to 300 inr (5€ per night for 2 persons).

After two days Benaulim feels by far the most relaxed place we've stayed until now: less tourist shacks, hustlers and tourists themselves. Pigs, dogs, cats, cows and waterbuffaloes run around freely and a rooster from the neighbours wakes us up in the mornings. 

Benaulim Beach

For a change the sellers / hustlers actually respect the word "No", awesome.

This beach attracts a totally different crowd then Anjuna / Vagator - there's a mix of older westerners, Indians and few backpackers.

Unfortunately the weather has taken a slight step worse, there's been daily rain showers but that's just refreshing with continious heat. (It's only bad for the laundry)

After the rain

Later on we are planning to rent a scooter and do a small trip up the beaches - there's a dozen beaches in the next 20 km up north. 

Panaji (Panjim) & Old Goa

At 10 o'clock we checked out from Anjuna Palms Guesthouse. The family that runs the place was very nice and helpfull. We put our backpacks on and took a taxi from Anjuna to Panaji. We had called Orav's Guesthouse a few days before so we knew where to go. Panaji is a city on a riveside with a peaceful atmosphere. There's one busy shoppingstreet, followed by a churchsquare. Restaurants (we try to always eat in 'Pure Veg') which are used by lots of locals. The menu seems te be similar everywhere; we ate dosa's (pancake-ish made of lentils), idly (ricecake that tastes like couscous), gobi (fried cauliflower in dough), malai kofta (stuffed potatoes in currysauce), paneer masala (light cheese in spicy sauce), veg pulav (rice with vegetables), noodles, north Indian thali's and even Indian pizza (small sized and spicy..).

Churchsquare, Panjim

We walked two long citywalks passing all sightseeing attractions, one through the new part and one through the old part of Pananji. Everywhere we notice the christian influence. In stead of Hindu-shrines we see here images of Christ or crosses with flowers and candles in the street. Our walk also took us also to a hindu temple for the monkeygod Hanuman. In front of it started some preparations for a festival; they were making enormous 'paper-mache' statues from the gods.  On our way an older man asked us if he could give us his adress so we can send him stamps for his collection from our homecountries.

Streetview & temple, Panjim

Mondayafternoon we went to the Goa State Museum. They had exhibitions with ancient Hindu and Christian art. A photogallery about the liberation of Goa and th WWF had a part in the museum about the environment and pollution in Goa. There was a girlschool visiting at the same time as us and for me it was funny to notice the interest of the girls in me. They were staring, secretly laughing, so even were trying to get closer to me, asking my name and watching the same things I watched. I also enjoy their big eyes when they see my one long braid, it seems to be very funny for them.

Deity from around year 800

Tuesday we took a local rattling bus to Old Goa. Getting out of the bus we stepped into an almost surreal, spacious area full of old Portugese churches. Some beautiful, some not. 

Old Goa

Cathedral of Bom Jesus

(Old Goa is the former capital of Goa that used to be the place to be. Over a quarter million people lived there in 1500's but repeated colera epidemics killed up to 200 000 people in a decade. As Portugese had already began to build their churches in there they decided to keep it as their capital, there was a period of 100 years of relative prosperity before the epidemics returned. This time around local goverment & clerky decided to move out from the city with their servants and the population dropped from 200 000 to 20 000 in a few years.
They found a new place to set up their churches and offices in Panjim (Panaji). But as Old Goa had already all the facilities set up, rulers in Lissabon tried to resettle it still few times in 1700-1800, repeatedly failing due to epidemies. The whole city was abandoned in 1850 as last nuns in the last remaining monastry died and the place was let to rot. In 1950's restauration started but most of the city was gone - utilized by generations of villagers as building materials. Now there's  restored churches, a museum and shacks selling stuff for tourists - And once the place was bigger then London or Lissabon...) 

***

Another funny notice we've made is that the Indians are really not afraid of heights - just look how they build their officebuildings:

These are about 3m long bambu sticks tied together with pieces of old rope

And this is how they use them

Leaving Anjuna

The last night in Anjuna we ate at a beachshack. I had a nice big papayajuice and ordered something which would be a surprice for me called Malai Kofta. I assured myself that it was under the 'veg.' list which are mostly vegan and asked if it's not so spicy. It was very nice, though food on the beach always includes some sand grinding between your teeth.

The girls that try to sell jewelry on the beach never leave us alone. It feels weird to be rude to them but at some point they go too far. They walk with you wherever you walk, they come sit with you wherever you sit. We are still polite to them but we get tired from continuous saying "no", "no thank you", I don't want it", following up by me feeling ashamed to say "go away", "leave us alone" or even "fuck off"... They are not listening to anything you say and only trying to sell from their little portable shop. The sellers have a way of answering you when you say no by saying "maybe tomorrow". Easily getting rid of them you answer 'yea maybe tomorrow'. But oh no, the same girl (or any other too) will the next day say she remembers you and say you made a promise! "You have to buy, you made promise!"

One evening we planned a nice sunset, Jaakko went to swim, and from a distance I saw the colorfull dresses coming closer; there they were again. One girl sat next to me this time. She looked young but very tired. With the words "no thank you" already in my mouth I expected her to display her bracelets, bells, necklaces, toerings, bangles, pendants, ashtrays and mirrors. But she didn't.
I looked at her staring into the sunset, she said she had no business today. I answered that the touristseason would start very soon so then will be better times. We talked about our names, age, where we are from, etc.
She was 17 coming from Hampi to Anjuna every year to earn money for her younger brother's school. She herself didn't go to school. She lives with her mother untill she will be given to a chosen man. "I don't like him", she said. I asked how she knew already, but it was clear she just wanted to chose her own boyfriend to be husband. She was surpriced my mother doesn't hit me because I live together with my boyfriend.
After talking for some time another girl came to join us, while Jaakko stayed in the water (he knew exactly that he rather was floating there than getting upset by making sellers go away). I thought of just buying a little thing to support them. As they ask not much, it is a happy day for both parties.
"Just for good luck" as the girls say. I waved to Jaakko to come out of the sea. I chose a nice bracelet for him with beads and a spiral image on wood and for myself two silvery bracelets with shiny gems. We haggled as we are expected and in the end we both payed around 1 euro. Now we bought something from them we thought they would leave, but no the were not happier at all, almost the opposite. They now knew we are buyers so they kept trying to sell us more. 

Two others in traditional festive clothes came joining the 'teaparty' arround our beachtowel. Putting toerings on me, and me taking them off, putting things around my ankles and again me taking them off. I had really enough of it at this point and felt my unwanted rudeness awake. I luckily only needed to say "do you actually understand what the word 'no' means?" for them to be packing their stuff. The evening was nice, but they don't make the beach an attractive place to have a quiet night while enjoying the sunset. The sun drowned without me noticing it.

Anjuna - Vagator - Chapora, Goa

Anjuna is a cozy little tourist village slowly waking up from summersleep. Mostly we have been walking around the mainstrip (with many sandy sidepaths) and enjoying the weather and surroundings.

Anjuna traffic, part II

Beach is nice, a long sandstrip with palmtrees, beachbars (their loud music and colored lightstrings and lanterns make a great atmosphere for a romantic stroll on the beach at night), souvenier sellers, cows and dogs. It is easy to spend days just lying around in there (if you manage to keep sellers away).

Girls on the beach

The bad thing in this area is that it is really touristical and therefore all locals are trying to sell you something. (Everyday we walk out of our cottage to mainroad there's same guys asking us do we want to rent a taxi/scooter/bicycle/shirts/eat/, and everytime we say "no" they reply "maybe tomorrow".) This is pretty much the only irritation down here on paradise beach.

Weather has been mostly awesome, there was a couple of rainy evenings/nights but for the last week it has been good. We have started to have siestas around midday due to heat...

 Temple in Chapora

Drying the rice

We have also been walking to neighbouring villages, a couple of times to Vagator and Chapora and also to hills around Vagator and Anjuna. From one of the hills we found an abandoned construction site, currently inhabited by packs of wild dogs. We later on asked about this from our landlord and she said they were illegal constructions built by people out of Goa. It is forbidden to build in the mountains due to high erosion risk.

Climbing up the hill 

 Abandoned buildings (and thorns in shoe)

View from top of the hill

Another slightly sadder side we are seeing is huge platforms few kilometers offshore. They are collecting sand for construction yards around India and at the same steepening the shore and contributing to erosion. Hopefully these kind of shortsided actions do not destroy Goa as we know it.

On Saturday we are planning to move away from the Paradise and into heartbeat of a city, Panaji, the capital of Goa. We also bought prepaid subscription in here so we can call, negotiate and reserve hostels by ourselves. Our Indian mobile phonenumber is +917709450078.

Anjuna, Goa

After a well slept rocky night we arrived in Mapusa and were surrounded by Taxi-Wallahs. We took a rickshaw to drive us to our destination: AnjunaPalms Guesthouse. We have a nice private cottage on the owners backyard. A good deal for 6€ / night, including (slow) WiFi. (previously in Hotel Pearl they had big commercials for "free internet 24/7" but when we arrived there the "free internet" was one shared laptop in lobby of the hotel.)

Anjuna traffic

One more curiousity in AnjunaPalms Guesthouse is the daily mass organized by our landlord. Daily around 16-17 o'clock ~20 indian worshippers come to sing praise for Virgin Mary in front of our cottage.
Anjuna is a sleepy touristvillage at this time of the year. High season starts on November. Now it is more peaceful but also many restaurants and other attractions are still closed. Tuesday we slept the most of the day due to "jetlag" from bus trip.

On Wednesday we did some more proper venturing, finding paradise beach, rocks, cliffs and lot's of green fields (rice and other plantations).

Anjuna Beach

We also popped by the wednesday fleamarket, a big attraction that turned out to be less of a fleamarket and more of tourist market. After saying "no thanks" politely many times we were getting more aggravated and in mood to flee from the place. So we went back to the beach, I did some swimming (not really possible due to high waves) and we both got nicely sunburnt. (The standard tourist colouring, looking like new born piggies sprayed with tomato soup.)

Fleamarket

Later on we decided to have some more western food and went to pizzeria Basilico. The food was good but a bit on expensive side  - almost 4€ per pizza. Well atleast we had dozen of servants running around. (We were a bit underdressed compared to their normal clients even tho they were strictly westerners. The only indians in there were cleaning & serving.)

On thursday morning we had a nice walk behind the fleamarket area and had some vegan food in "Whole bean" restaurant. Food was ok but not the best vegan health food we had here. For tastier and 50cnt more expensive vegan/health food is better to go "Blue Tao" (That we had visited on Tuesday evening).