 |
| Sitting on the upper terrace, the quiet calm of the night – a world away from the India I have experienced for the past couple weeks. |
New Years Eve was spent at our beautiful rented house decorated a little bit for Christmas. We bought whatever we could find in a small little village food shop to feed 14 people and the Spaniards turned it into a masterpiece.
Considering we were all from different countries and time zones, we were able to celebrate the New Year several times over and we were even happy to celebrate for countries not represented at our table.
Day 2 in Goa
I’m sipping on a nice glass of Baileys on the terrace after a day at the beach and shopping at the Saturday Night Market with row after row of charming stalls selling various wares like saris, silk bedding, and jewelry etc. It was a great opportunity to do some comparison shopping to see if we got a good or bad deal in Jaipur. The quality seemed to be poor here, and the prices could be negotiated quite low now that I have learned from an expert. Ms. Kelly pictured on the right (photo above) has spent considerable time in Asia and can frustrate the most hardened shopkeeper. That being said, Annie, along with my conveniently empty pockets, did a great job of keeping me from buying anything on this evening but there are still another couple days of work to reign me in!
 |
| For the record, I don’t recall seeing the guy with his pants down around his knees and his shirt pulled up exposing his healthy belly. I’ll thank my new friend Kelly for this photo. |
Unfortunately, that means that a little gang of foreign chicks walking along the beach attracts more than the usual amount of attention that we’re used to. We lost count of the photo requests (which we politely turned down) and the photos and videos that were taken without our permission.
A number of times throughout my India journey, I was approached by people to take their photo, and then subsequently I was asked for money for doing so. In this Goa situation, I decided to turn the tables around. Finally, a bit fed up at being continually asked to pose with men when we just wanted a peaceful walk along the beach, I saw a guy start to make a move to intersect our path. On behalf of his group of happy go lucky guys, once again he asked for a photo.
“For 100 rupees,” I said.
“Sure! No problem!” Damn… that didn’t work.
“Ok…500 rupees!”
The guy turns to his friends and they’re yelling ‘yes, yes!’
“No… 1000 rupees!” I say as I try to turn them off the idea. Unfortunately, once again they said they would pay.
Finally, we just laughed and walked away, knowing that our photo was worth at least $22 CDN, the price of a very nice dinner for two here, including bevvies.
Day 3 in Goa
We contemplated renting a scooter to do a bit of sightseeing, but Annie told me that there was no way she was going to drive a scooter on her own. Not really much of a scooter driver myself, I didn’t want to be responsible for her life as well as my own. More importantly, I knew I’d never hear the end of it from my mother given my driving history.
So we took it easy instead and hung out where I couldn’t get into too much trouble… so it was back to the beach. Our day started out with parasailing (video to come as soon as YouTube starts cooperating with me.)
This time we found a more quiet spot on the beach with mostly Europeans lying about. It was quiet except for the incessant and very tempting offers to purchase tourist souvenirs like jewelry and (ahem) drums.
Along with my djembe back home, I now officially have a collection with two additional little fun pieces purchased on the beach. Surely, they’re not the highest quality, but for the price I paid… who cares?!?
Unfortunately, both the big and the small one were purchased for 500 rupees each. The small one was poorly negotiated early in the day, but it did come with a free lesson (see video snippet below).
The second one was more of an impulse purchase as I was leaving the beach at the end of the day. I already knew from the chatty guy I previously bought from (see video below) that sales on the beach were very slow that day. So I was able to negotiate with the second seller a larger, and prettier, drum which will be a keeper I think. Now the challenge will be packing these things to bring back home!
The Journey Home
Later that night, Annie and I had to leave Goa for Bangalore as she had class the next day. We took a sleeper bus home - to date the most uncomfortable form of transportation experienced here in India. By default, you can expect that you will be crammed up with someone in the 2-person space. If you’re lucky, like I was, it is with someone you know. Otherwise, good luck!!
This bus apparently had to make many hairpin turns and braking at the very last minute is a very normal and regular occurrence here. It’s not readily apparent if you’re sitting in car but I involuntarily cuddled Annie a few times during our 14 hour bus ride!
Another great blog, hope you have big suitcases for all that good stuff
ReplyDelete