Holiday in Goa!

So I got back from Goa yesterday morning ( actually early for once!).
Goa is like another world. You can easily forget you are in India there because it is very touristy and it is like any other beach town anywhere. There were a lot of Europeans there and Australians and such. What makes Goa so interesting is the heavy Portuguese influence and the massive amount of churches. As you will see eventually from the pictures you could mistake Goa for a town in Europe.

I traveled with 5 other people which worked out well enough although I would prefer to travel with less people from now on. We took an overnight bus which was supposed to be 16 hours. The bus left later than it was supposed to and had some delays ( not surprising since this is India). It actually wasn't a bad ride overall and for a good amount of time. One section of the trip when we were near Goa was a tiny road down through a mountain. We could see the huge valley next to us as we wove our way nauseatingly down the side of the mountain for may 20-25 minutes. I didn't particularly appreciate that part of the trip.

Aside from that though everything was very nice. It was fabulous to be away from the pollution of the city. Goa is actually fairly large and it takes a bit to get around there. Unlike in Hyderabad where it takes 45 minutes to get to Banjara Hills because of traffic, in Goa it takes half an hour to get somewhere because it is that far away. The big market which I was keen to go to in Anjuna was actually 45 minutes away and only open on certain days. We asked the owner of our guesthouse to reccomend a beach and market area which is where we went on Saturday. Friday we arrived and found our guesthouse and ate a lovely seafood meal (yay shrimp!) and then took a bus over to the area with a number of churches in it. Half the group wasn't so much into seeing churches so waited around a shop for a bit while three of us went up to another church and the really cool ruins of another church. The churches are very elaborate but I was dissapointed that I didn't see the mix of cultures in the churches as I had been told about in the lecture I attended on Goa. I looked for signs of Hindu temples or of mosques but in the few churches we visited I didn't see them. As I said though, Goa is very large and there are many many churches so I guess we didn't go to the right ones. I also took a lot of pictures of bridges in the hopes that one of them would be the bridge in the Bourne Supremacy because they are in Goa at the beginning of that movie. I don't think I got it but apparently they filmed in the town we were Panjim.

Saturday we hit the markets and the beach. I'm so tired of hearing "Madame" and "good price" and "Taxi?" you have no idea. I spent a fair amount of money in Goa although it is actually pretty cheap there. After some time walking around and getting food ( I had salad and avacado! other people had burgers but my stomach was feeling a little unhappy so I sadly declined) we went and laid out on the beach. The beach was gorgeous and very clean. We set up next to the aptly named "Typsy food and drink stand".

The water was a great temperature and even just sitting on the beach was nice because of the breeze. The air is so much cleaner! The waves looked a bit strong but weren't actually too bad.

I had steak for dinner on Saturday which was glorious. We also found an amazing French bakery with dirty cheap everything. I don't know how I will be able to live with US prices when I get back. I think I could easily live in Goa as long as I had no schedule because we had to wait a REALLY long time every time we tried to eat. Other than that it is amazing and I bought a whole bunch of things. We also took a really rediculous sunset cruise which had nice views but silly music and dancing. I decided to just watch the water and land from the front of the ship away from the crazy cheesiness which was quite nice.

I will post pictures when the internet is being reasonable again, which it isn't right now. Thursday night I head down to Tamil Nadu to see an ashram so I will update about that when I come back. I will dare to dream that the internet will have returned to the guesthouse by then. We did get curtains in the common room while I was gone!