Goa

Well, so here I am again, back to the good old life….

As I’ve already mentioned goa was partly good, partly not that much. But how was it?

Day 1:
When a train is scheduled to leave at 3am, and you get up at 2am after 1hr sleep, and you arrive to the train station and find out that the train is 45 minutes delayed, then you do get nervous. OK, I really did expect this, but here you never know how much that delay will be. And yes, this was an inter-India train, leaving from the east coast, crossing the country to arrive to goa on the west coast. Anyway, the train was fine, I had a sleeping coach, and I actually managed to sleep as I have secured my two bags with the following arsenal (+had my money, credit card + passport in a belly-bag on me):

What I’ve learnt from this train-ride is:
- never go for the breakfast offered by the train company, as they’re collecting the orders at 6:30am, but by the time the food actually arrives (in my case at 10am), you’ve already bought some other food – which is not too difficult, as there are coffee, tea and food vendors non-stop running around in the train, so you only have to stop them. And the prices are really good, a coffee/tea is 5rs (25 ft), a sandwich or some local snack is 10-20rs.
- Making your reservation in advance is a must (there was someone without a reservation happily sleeping on my place when I boarded the train, luckily the conductor was just there to send her away)
- People on the train like to talk, but in most cases they’re nice. There was a lady who told me that my feet look like a ballet-dancer’s feet – I don’t really know what this means, but sounds really good :) Although the same lady afterwards started to tell me that I, as a christian, should be really careful here, in the hindu india (she was an indian), and gave me a booklet from her church, the episcopal church….
- The inventor of the travel-neck-pillow should also be praised together with the inventor of the contact lenses, the washing machine and the tampon.

Upon arriving to Vasco the first shock came: I haven’t seen any foreign tourist in the whole city….. And when I arrived to my hotel (which was more a bigger apartment house), it turned out, that I’m almost the only guest – the two other guests were two old hippies, whom I’ve only seen once. I was so disappointed, that first I’ve spent two hours in my room looking at the tv. But then I went on down to the beach, and on my way there I’ve met Andy, Pat and Susan. Pat and Susan are also this old-hippie-type, around 60, full with tattoos, earrings, etc. But they were nice. Andy on the other hand is about my age, he’s bought some land a couple of years ago in goa, but by now he got fed up with the country, goa, and also, his investment did also not really bring the revenues he was hoping for, so now he’s sold his land, and the day we met was actually his last day in goa for a long time. And he was also organizing a small farewell-party for himself with dinner + a fireworks show. And of course I was invited. The whole partying mass consisted of him, Pat, Susan and me :) But it was really good, I was catching up with drinking all the beer I haven’t drunk in the past few weeks, and there at the end were also two vodka-lemons. But generally the night was really nice: fireworks, nice food, drinks, sitting at the beach, below the silky sand, above the stars, the ocean about 20m from you, you can smell the salty water, nice chat…..

The lessons learnt from this night:
- if you haven’t had any alcohol for over 1,5 months (except for one single beer once),
- drink when you’re rather tired,
- drink in 45C,
- mix beer with the terrible Indian-made vodka, then the next day you’ll inevitably have a serious headache :) And it’s really, really bad to go on a sightseeing trip with a slight hangover ;)
- when you’re in a different culture for a longer time, it feels very much relieving to meet people from your own culture…. And yes, I envied them a little bit when they told me that they’re leaving for home in a day, while I’m staying here for 4 more months…. But this feeling is already gone now.

Day 2 was the day for an organised sightseeing trip. Which turned out to be quite similar to the Japanese-click-click sightseeing tours: you’re spending your whole day in a bus, sometimes you stop somewhere, and have 30 minutes to sightsee, then everyone is taking pictures like crazy, then you sit back in the bus, and proceed. But anyway, it was nice, especially Old Goa. The other highlights were two hindu churches – I don’t know where and I don’t know the name, they were not even mentioned on the map of my guidebook, but they looked amazing.

Old Goa:

The temples:

Although my travel-companions had much more fun seeing the beaches – this means that they go and look at the beach. The top favourite is Colva beach, for me it was the most terrifying one – I’ve almost reserved my hotel here…..:

This night was much more quiet, I went down to the beach again, but there was hardly anyone, and noone I wanted to join for dinner, but after dinner I went into one of the jewelry shops, and bought me this little precious (Dlaaaaagasssszaaaagom):

It is a small sapphire, which is said to be my birth-stone. Here everyone who can afford, is wearing a ring with his/her birth-stone to bring luck. And I’m especially lucky (hallod, Marti?) because I have two precious stones as birth-stones out of the four (precious stones are diamonds, sapphire, emerald and ruby). And I have diamond (this is already accomplished ;) ), sapphire (this also) and cat-eye as birth-stones. Great – though I’d have appreciated something less expensive :)

I’ve spent the next day, Day 3, my happy birthday in the swimming-pool of the hotel, it was really nice and relaxing (and yes, I definitely did burn my belly in the seun), and after lunch (down at the beach again) I’ve bought me this:

And I was chatting with the jewelry shop owner, and he told me about Lou, a girl doing social work there. And in the evening I’ve met her: she’s really the crazy one (es pontosan ugy nez ki, mint barmelyik tarisznyas-sarus elte-bolcsesz – bocs, Gergo ;) )… She’s married, but came to India for 1 year to find charity possibilities for and Indian businessman living in Great Britain, who wants to give 10,000 pounds for a good reason, and now Lou is finding this reason for him. She’s working in the slum, and wants (the investor) to build some simple houses, and orphanage and a school. And during this one year she already had a really bad car accident, she didn’t tell me too much about it, only that she’s lucky to have survived, and now has platinum in both of her arms – and she was going back home to GB for treatment, but now she’s back again, because she has to finish her work (+ because the platinum is the property of India, and has to be removed here….). Wow.

The last day passed really fast, I went to panaji, the capital of goa, from where my bus was leaving from, and met a swiss guy here – my last breathe of European culture for a while I guess. We did all the sightseeing together (1 church, 1 park and 1 nice building in the whole capital), then I had dinner on a really beautiful wooden ship at the coast (and forgot to take a picture of the ship), and boarded the bus. The way back home was really scary, extra-narrow mountain-roads, sometimes no road at all, and a puncture or something similar in the middle of the night….

Panaji:

But I got back to davangere, had a little fight at 5 am with the taxidrivers who were asking an orbital price for driving me home (yes, there is definitely a negative discrimination against white-skinned people, not that much in davangere, but definitely in goa, apart from the more and more places where the prices are stated on the products you buy, and yes, I’m definitely no morning-person, and can get really angry with people crossing my way at early morning hours). And I was already working on the following day….

And I really love to travel, I had to realise :) Not only to see new places, but also just simply move from one place to the other, sit in a bus, train, car, and just stare out of the window, see the trees passing by….