Seeing the Old town

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Today we went on a tour organised by the hotel with a company called fernandes of South Goa including Old Goa. We were quite excited at the prospect of seeing more of Goa.... We should have learnt by now not have too high expectations... The tour was conducted purely in Hindu with a few scattering of english words here and there, like '106 kilometres', and '1696', but thats about all we managed to interpret! We were the only foreigners on the bus but I stil lthink it was unfair that we were left compltely out of the loop. We got on an off the bus soo many times we lost count, each time we had to ask the tour guide where we were and what exaclty we were meant to be looking at... each time we were greeted with the same answer, 'it is now...., you have.... minutes, meet back here at......' mmmmmmhhhhh- we were not impressed.

The last stop was Colva beach, where we got to spend a delightful 2 hours, not being tossed about on the bus which was a welcomed break. We met a man called Billy Bones who ids a musician from Berkshire who is trying to break the world market and needs people top help him promote his album... I swiftly passed him on to Kay- the marketer!

We came back got ready for dinner and our night out on the town. We caught a taxi and this is when we relised that we had gone to the wrong 'Little Italy' restaurant- there are actually 2 in Baga- how useful is that? And we ended up going to a restaurant called 'Old Spice', which was quite enjoyable. We then proceeded to walk up to Club Cubana which is situated on the top of a hill- good thing we didn't take any heels! The taxi driver had told us the entrance fee was about 500 rupees, we only had 300 left, but we though we would see what we could get away with anyway. Low and behold we were able to blag it- they let us in for free- and there were free drinks all night! How lucky are we????!!! The club was amazing really chic and european like, it was mostly situated outside with candles, big sofas and beds( yes like the ones you sleep on) there was a really chilled out atmosphere and the music was great ( at the start anyway) I was surprised at the amount of 50 Cent, R Kelly and Sean Paul that was coming out of the speakers- definately an improvement on Tito's the other night.

We rolled home at 4am and fell straight asleep!

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Photos

Dona Paula
In South Goa, apparently from here you can see the confluence of river Zuari and Mondovi with the Arabian sea- fascinating- if we only knew which way to look!

Old Goa
Bom Jesus Basilica, where the incorruptible remains of St. Francis Xavier lie.

Old Goa
The gardens - Bom Jesus Basilica

Old Goa
Mangueshi , a temple dedicated to Lord Shilva, built in the 17th century

Old Goa
Shantadurga, one of the richest temples dedicated to Shantadurga, the Goddess of Peace