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Published: December 6th 2006
We've just realized that we haven't added a blog for almost 3 weeks so to you all we may have appeared to have fallen off the face of the earth!
It's been almost a month now since we got back and gradually we are really feeling like we are here, its only the last week that we've stopped feeling like we are going home and back to work soon!
We have had a hectic few weeks, Sean (my big bro) was here for 10 days, his holiday didn't start too well bless him! The bar next door to us is really nice, we had been in a few times for a drink before Sean got here, the bar staff are really friendly and the beer is cold and cheep, so the evening Sean got here we decided to take him there for dinner. Well it was GROSS! It was the first time Terry had ever sent a meal back and said that he didn't even want a replacement! So.....nice place to drink in, bad place to eat in! Luckily things did get better and we ate lovely food for the rest of his time here!
We have managed
to get out and about lots, dramatically helped by the use of Giane and Babu's car! The "Indian Driving Experience” is something else! It appears there are a few rules of the road, the main ones being:-
At a roundabout the right of way belongs to the owner of the biggest balls/smallest brain
You must ALWAYS honk the horn loudly when passing another vehicle/pedestrian/ice-cream seller/cow/stationary object
You should only every use headlights if it is totally dark i.e. in a power cut, on all other occasions the lights from shop windows should be enough to guide your way
You are not expected to use any kind of safety devices i.e. seatbelts, helmets, tires with tread etc
Yep that’s about the lot I think! It's what you might call BLOODY CRAZY! Anyway, it doesn't take many times of spending 10 minutes waiting patiently for someone to give way to the right and of cautiously edging your way forward to feel your balls growing at a rate of knots in your shorts in order to get anywhere. So although we still hold out on a modicum of "British Driving Decorum" (I'm convinced the local folk think the
raised hand in thanks as we cut them up is a English swear sign!) we are becoming accustomed to honking/swearing/cutting up and barging out of the way with the best of them!
Seriously tho', having use of the car has been great. There are defiantly places where it is easier to use the bus still, but it has opened up the local area hugely. While Sean was here we drove north from Baga to Mandrem, it is only around 25 miles I think, but might as well be a different world. There are a few beach shacks on a few amazingly white sandy coves and not much else. We managed to find a lovely place (Dunes) where we stayed in a beach hut made of raffia, sporting a palm tree growing in the middle of the room out thro the roof two big beds and a bathroom. Outside there was a rickety bridge over a little river leading onto the wide deserted beach. The only thing on the beach and as far as you could see were half a dozen sun beds with palm shades (Ahhhh Bliss!)
Anyway, on the home front.....the house is lovely and beginning to
feel like ours, we have had people over for dinner twice now, (amazing what you can do with a mean green grilling machine and 2 gas rings!) Toby the dog has settled in for the long run, he has been dewormed, defleed and is gaining weight on his diet of milk and eggs for breakie and pedigree chum dry food and rice for tea! He loves to be brushed/stroked/played with and generally fussed, and in return is a great guard dog!
Banana Moon has now reopened at its new location and is lovely, not that we have spent too much time there as we are trying to snap out of holiday mode so our money lasts longer! Giane and Babu are great, Terry and Babu have a "mutual appreciation club" going with each other and Giane and I often get woken from one of them chuckling over what the other said earlier! The boys went off for a Lads Day Out on Thursday, in to Mapusa (pronounced Mapsa) to find some linen to have shirts made and for lunch and a mooch around, apparently all was going well until they went back to the car to move on to
the next place, Terry started to drive out of the parking space and the car conked out! After looking under the bonnet scratching their heads for a while they decided that neither of them knew the first thing about car engines. Babu jumped on to a nearby motorbike taxi and asked to be taken to a mechanic, leaving Tel to baby-sit the car. After waiting at the garage for and hour and a half for the mechanic to finish his lunch Babu explained their predicament only to be told "too busy". Anyway eventually after 3 hours they found a mechanic to come and look and the car, only to be told that it was a fuel pump problem and they needed to take the car in, all very well but the car was dead and they didn’t seem to understand the theory of a tow truck. Giane and I received a call from them saying the mechanic had gone off to find some petrol and a hosepipe to get them to the garage (????????) So it transpires that the mechanic attached the hosepipe to the fuel inlet (or something) and snaked it thro the passenger window into a mineral water
bottle full of petrol which he, every now and then sucked or blew (not sure which) into while Terry drove, amazingly he seemed very familiar with this system and it did actually work! So they had to leave the car over night to have something done to the fuel pump and a dent knocked out of the tank and returned the next day to collect the now running car! In total the cost for everything was Rs300 about 4 quid!!
The boys day out on Thursday was in return for our girlie day to the Anjuna flee market on Wednesday. Giane, her Mum (who is here visiting) and myself spent a very hot very hassled couple of hours in this tourist trap from hell. We bought absolutely nothing just becoming increasingly irate at drums, beads, sarongs, babies, and carved elephants being shoved at us amid the cries of "hello darlink, alright Mike? Look my stall, good price, all 50 rupees, cheep as chips, but one get one free, first time Goa??" AGHHHHHHH!! I have decided that the most annoying people in the world are the pashmina men, "Ello preeetee ladies, you want pashmina? Good price for you real pashmina
Our Beach Hut
Life can be a real strain you know!only 100 rupees!" there are a few glaringly obvious replies, A) it’s India and 40 degrees why do I want a bloody wooly shall? B) Real pashmina for one pound 50? I know India is cheep but did Harrods really have a markup of 200 quid? And C) Oh my giddy gaudy aunt have you seen those colours!?!! So after running the gauntlet through a few hundred stalls we stumbled across a english/swiss couple running a jewelry and piercing stall, its something I’ve thought about for a while and in my heightened state of Anjuna fever I had my nose pierced! (Sorry Ma!) It was all very clean and professional and I saw them open all the packets etc so all ok there, it actually didn't hurt although it makes your eyes water like crazy! I promise to everyone that knows me, the hole is only EVER going to be used for a tiny stud, and if anyone ever catches me sporting one of those nose to ear chain thingies, however drunk I am, you have my full permission, no instruction, to hold me down and pull it out!
Wow, I seemed to have waffled on for ages, that'll
teach us not to leave so long between blogs! Must just tell you of Tel's morning beach walk the other day. He has taken to walking down to the next town and back along the beach if he is awake early. Last week on one of these little jaunts he sat on the steps to the beach in Calungute drinking a cup of Chi (Indian tea) when a 70 something Indian man with a dog sat next to him. Terry asked the name of his dog (a big Doberman) and was told "Hitler" when eyebrows were raised he was told "he’s a German bread"! Anyhow the conversation got even more bizarre.....
Indian Man you married?
Tel Yes
Indian Man Children?
Tel No
Indian Man How long married?
Tel Eight years
Indian Man Ah! What you need is cashew nuts and limes, makes BIG erection! (with hand gestures!)
Tel Oh!
Indian Man And you wife she needs douche
Tel (bizared out but amused by now) Hmmm....where do you get that done
Indian Man Oh, got to go Mapusa, here let me write down the name of the doctor
Tel Right.....thanks....
Indian Man And you need both to De-worm, probably got worms in ovaries and in erection!
Tel Oh, OK, will do!
Indian Man Nice to meet you, have a good holiday!
Only in India eh??! Anyway must go, we're off to Mapusa!
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Sachin
non-member comment
It's nice 1
Hi Claire n Terry. . .its me sachin! We meets on baga beach in on 22 jan. I first meet sweet claire then u terry. U r running nice journal. Claire i will send u an email within next 24 hr. Ok take care n enjoy ur holidays.