First Port of Call, Goa, India

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Now I will have to write about this day while its all fresh. Was so exciting waking today to know we were finally getting off the boat, even if it was just for part of the day. Looking out the across the sea this morning I noticed with excitement the amount of smaller boats now in view. The other thing that hit me straight away was the humidity, and boy my camera didn’t like that either. Before long it was a case of skipping up the stairs to breakfast before meeting with a Canadian couple that we would share a taxi with for the day.

Now I had pre-organised a taxi through the Goan Taxi Company. Was quite a lot of emails going back and forth with them from the start, as the number of people that wanted to come along changed a couple of times, and then trying to get a larger vehicle as more wanted to come along etc. In the end, because we had left it so late, it remained that just the four of us would be travelling around together for the day. Before getting off the boat, we stood watching all the activity going on outside at the port. The first thing to strike me was the amount of buses lined up to take the passengers on their chosen excursions. You really couldn’t tell there were THAT many people on board, as the ship never felt crowded. There was a batch of taxi’s towards the end of the dock, so I wrongly assumed that would be where we would find our driver for the day, so when we got off the ship,we made our way over there looking for my name. After a while it was just too much, and so confusing with all the people and the fact taxi drivers kept coming up asking you if you needed a taxi. I rang the number given to us to find out where our taxi was. Apparently they weren’t allowed in the dock, so we would have to proceed to the entrance gate No. 9. Now this was a 5 – 10 minute walk along a dirty road in the heat. I guess it wasn’t too bad. Just gave us a pre-idea as to what to expect out of the gates by looking up at the houses on the hills nearby and the people standing around some buildings along the way.

Walking to the gate was really a lot of fun. I soaked up everything I could, from the smells to the buildings, the rubbish, and people along the way. You couldn’t help but noticed how black everything seemed due to it being a coal port. There were piles of coal and iron ore everywhere, so there goes my lovely white shoes!!! We made it to the gates, where we had to be cleared by security and then work our way through the next gauntlet of people trying to offer us a taxi. I found my name on a sign, so made my way over to them. I noticed that the man was holding a sign with a name of one of the passengers I had been chatting to online before the cruise, guess he had booked through the same company – considering he gave me the contact details of them, it shouldn’t have surprised me. Thinking this meant we were now on our way, just to discover we had to wait for the other two groups off the boat to join us. They weren’t going to be doing the same thing as us or anything, we were just all to wait together until everything was sorted. I guess I should have talked more to the other guy in the first few days, and then we could have all walked out to the taxi together.

We were finally allocated our vehicle. It was so eye opening seeing all the activity as the over abundance of vehicles on the small road just wasn’t coping. There were cars everywhere, buses trying to make their way through with people on tours and just overall general chaos. I loved it! Finally we were then hitting the road. Now talk about a musical drive. Car horns are so completely under used back in Australia. Seems in India, if you want to over take someone you toot your horn, if you want them to move out the way, you toot your horn, if you are about to sneeze just go on tooting! Then the driving was another matter. Seemed our driver liked overtaking each and everything on the road which made for some close calls. It was all good though. As I said to the driver, I had noted that there were no dents in his car, so he must be ok. It did make me laugh each time we were on the wrong side of the road and you could see a truck coming straight for you. We would always seem to just slip back at the last minute to the correct side to avoid collisions. It was so amusing for the rest of the trip listening to how everyone would describe their close calls with death at the hand of the taxi drivers in India. There were definitely some entertaining story tellers on board.

We headed up to the Shakari Spice Plantation. The scenery on the way was lovely. The rivers were dirty, but the countryside just beautiful. The houses very simple and I wish I had the chance to photograph more of it all. I just don’t like taking photographs from vehicles though. I guess I could have asked him to stop, but the vehicle we were in, although air-conditioned, I don’t think it could even cope with the heat we were in. There were a lot of palm trees which I hadn’t really expected. When we arrived at the Plantation, it was a popular place. Parking in the small area allocated was yet another excuse to over use the horns. Getting out we paid our 400 rupees per person entrance fees and had a police man nearby using his whistle every so often heaven only knows why, but he blew it! I guess he must have been allocated to directing the human traffic in this one destination for some reason? He had a whistle and wanted everyone to know about it. We quickly made our way down a path to a welcome area before he could blow it at us and scream at us like he was doing to other people for whatever reason.

We were provided with a floral necklace to wear as well as getting a red dot of some type of dye on our foreheads as a welcome. I noticed that some people ahead of us refused to have this done to them for whatever reason; even though they were told that it was their tradition and part of their welcome to the plantation. I thought it was a bit sad that they couldn’t play along. I guess if they were religious themselves it might offend their belief. I was perfectly ignorant as to what it all meant, so happily wore my flowers around my neck.

We were offered a glass of hot lemon grass tea with a bowl of little rice crackers to eat. Now due to all the constant warnings we were given on the boat regarding food and safety getting off in this particular port, there were a lot of people from off board that declined this. I figured it was boiled water, it can’t be that bad, and I was starving, so drank it. It was different, kind of nice, hot and wet – so perfect. The little nibble things were also really nice. They had to drag me away from the unfinished bowel of nibbles to proceed to the guided tour. The husband opted for a coke instead of the lemongrass tea at a cost of 20 rupees – converted to Australian that’s all of 37cents. Must remember to explore those prices more at Cochin!

After the welcome drink, we were lead in a group (random) along to have our Spice lesson. Thankfully it was only towards the end that someone said about snakes! Hmmmmm glad I didn’t freak out over that earlier! Didn’t see any, but I guess it would have been very cute in a way, if they were just little harmless ones. I mean imagine the stories I could then make up with my near death experience with a huge boa constrictor out in a plantation …. It’s the thing that stories are made of! In the background we could hear monkey’s. I didn’t get the chance to see any, however our companions or at least one of them saw one sitting randomly on a fence on the way. We wandered around the plantation stopping and hearing about the variety of spices growing along the way. At one point a worker showed his skill at climbing up the palms like a monkey and then swinging over to other trees, and jumped across three of them before sliding down. They gave us all the chance to give it a whirl. Well with the heat and the fact being an exhibitionist didn’t appeal I didn’t volunteer my body to be laughed at …. this time.

On the way back to the lunch there was an elephant sleeping in the water. It was a direct sell to the fact if we wanted we could go across to the other section and have a ride on an elephant or else wash one. Now this had been what I really had wanted to do, however since getting a small cut on my foot and being a bit of a germ girl now that I’m a nurse, I opted out of it, and so did the others in our group. So seeing the elephant in the water was just perfect for us. I had to admit the elephant looked like it loved the water big time! It just lay there soaking it up. It was quite funny actually, I was so vocal on the fact I had wanted to wash an elephant, so the fact that I didn’t have much to do with elephants on the trip, would have to come down to the fact that first of all the weather was hot, and secondly I don’t think I was really that bothered. The idea of having to drive to a completely different section of the farm didn’t appeal, because I like making a decision without any due force. It just seemed that if we drove to the other part of the farm everyone would then expect that we would either wash an elephant or have a ride on one, and I didn’t want to be put on the spot like that. I had heard that the elephant washing experience there wasn’t that good. Instead of being in a river the elephant was put in a big cement pit and would be hit if it didn’t splash the person washing the elephant every so often. So I guess I didn’t miss out really.

When we made it back to the base camp/start of the plantation we were told there was a tradition to bathe the neck of people to calm them down and relax them. Who am I to break tradition? I hadn’t expected the water to be THAT cold however! Took my breath away, and I’m sure unfortunately the photo would be a shocker of me that was taken! The actual water though smelt beautifully. It was this mix of beautiful spices and was really refreshing. I wanted to try some of the food so just took a small sampler. I was offered a shot of some alcohol which is taken out of one of the spices … I believe it was Feni, from the cashew nut, the taste of it … well battery acid comes to mind. It was only part way through that I remembered that I don’t really drink, and the small amount I sampled of their food wouldn’t be nearly enough to spare my head, so had to get a small bread roll as well, to try to absorb the alcohol, otherwise there would be singing in the taxi for the rest of the day (just kidding – would be more likely to giggle at anything and everything).

After all that excitement was completed we asked the guide to take us to some shops. He first offered the elephants saying they weren’t very far, however we just weren’t interested. He insisted we wanted to see this temple which was just 10 minutes away. We did get to see two really large gorgeous temples but we didn’t stop. Being driven to the shops ended up being taken to a private shop that we all agreed looked expensive this was just a touch further past the temples. Also his 10 minutes turned into half an hour, and we were just so anxious to not be late to the boat, being our very first port and I don’t think any of us really wanted to be stuck here at all. We had a look in the shops, but there wasn’t anything that looked I guess cheap and touristy. It wasn’t the type of stop to buy a whole pile of trinkets for everyone at home for under $10. We had to tell the driver to take us to the shops just near the boat. Surprisingly enough he actually did, and it didn’t take nearly as long as we had imagined. I guess we just wanted to go to those ones as we didn’t know where we were, and it looked like that area might be a bit more rustic and hopefully have what we were after.

He took us to the shop central … um where exactly are the shops? He told us across the road was a mall, now I’ve been to the Dubai Mall …now that’s a mall. This Goa Indian style mall consists of three shops next to each other. It wasn’t the most pleasant looking place. The shops I can’t even remember what they were actually selling, but the dust everywhere, I just wondered if anyone ever has gone in them either. Children came up to us begging for money. It was heart breaking, and we kept walking. The problem being I imagine if we gave one of them money the rest would then hound us. I was just feeling completely out of my comfort zone, and I guess overall we really had no idea as to what might happen. I really hadn’t expected this. Also I really wanted to buy an Indian dress, however there were no shops that sold items like that. How I wish I made him stop in Ponda in the end. The dresses I saw there were divine! We wandered the streets and there were so many people just sitting around. There were motor bikes everywhere, the skinniest unhealthiest looking cats and dogs just wandering around the streets. There was a fresh food kind of market place that a lot of the locals were walking around, however I think by that time we had enough of the culture and the heat, and just wanted to get back to the boat. I mean I loved wandering around, but having the children just follow us (they didn’t leave us alone), I didn’t like at all. It made me feel totally uncomfortable, especially being a mother, and I just hated that I couldn’t help them properly.

When we climbed in the taxi, the eldest girl had followed us all the way back. I hadn’t realized she was still following. She started knocking on the windows and just wouldn’t step away from the car. The driver said to just ignore her, she was just lazy and didn’t want to work. Now the girl looked about 12 years old, so I had to ask, at what age do people start working here? He said 16 – 18, and someone mentioned the girl looked a lot younger, but he brushed it off saying you couldn’t tell, and a lot of them actually a lot older than they looked. Either way, we headed back to the boat. By the looks of it, so were a lot of other people. So we stopped short of the gate and had a long walk back. Overall I did love the port. It was the dirtiest place ever! Ok, so my white sneakers weren’t the best colour to wear. Thinking about it now, my black work ones would have been a bit better suited. Getting back on the nicely air conditioned ship was a relief. First thing we did was fought over who would shower first. The colour of the water coming off us wasn’t the nicest!

Afterwards we watched everyone else arriving back to the boat. As the deadline to get back onto the ship arrived, we noticed that announcements kept being made for a couple of guys to head to the main desk to let them know they were on board. Needless to say this never happened. About 6:30pm a taxi then arrived at the end of the pier, and two guys jumped out and ran the long way from the front of the boat to mid deck to board. This was welcomed with cheers and jeers from those all standing on the top deck waiting to ship off. We finally at this port got to see the sail away. I’m not sure there was a tug boat guiding us, but when I made my way back to the room and watched out the balcony a while, I noticed a boat nudged up along side the ship below me and guys encouraging someone on board to jump off, which eventually he did much to the amusement of all the other balcony dwellers before turning back to shore. I eventually found out that was the required Port person to help navigate the ship out of the port. Not a job I would like if it required jumping off a moving vessel! I would have to remember to watch out for this, as apparently they jump on as we start arriving near ports and jump off as we leave.

For tea again we didn’t feel like sitting in the fancy restaurant, so instead choose the Windjammer. I guess I liked the informality of it all, and the fact you get to portion control what you eat. For night time entertainment at 9pm we went in, with a lot of others to the main theatre and watched Kung Fu Panda 2 in 3D. It was a blast. Ok, so I’ve already seen the movie, but never in 3D, and I guess by the end you forget you are watching it in that dimension. Now tonight it had to be noted that they had the movie on at a decent time. It was classed as the headline act, so they had two sessions for it, starting at 6:30pm and 8:30pm. So much better than listening to someone sing. They could have moved the singers to the bars and played 3D movies for us I thought! Anyway after the movie at 10:15 they were having a Disco Inferno Street Party. Now if I hadn't already been grateful for my room I was moreso tonight. I would have hated being in one of the promenade rooms, with this little street party going on til 11pm. It was a right blast, but if I had wanted to sleep, there would have been little chance. The music was up and it was such a party atmosphere. Initally they were throwing out from the bridge these flashing multicoloured rings, we ended up thanks to Roberta scoring two of them to take home for the kids. It was just a laugh. Ok, so not many people danced, but it was all fun anyway. Eventually they took the party to a place called the vault. I never ventured into that room, it looked a touch scary, so happily went off to bed. To have me dancing I think I would have needed several of those battery acid shots, and then some!

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Photos

Heading to Port
Oh the love of humidity

Penguin
Didn't realising they were practising for something that wouldn't happen til on of the last days onboard ...

Outside the gates
The man on the phone was speaking to the others telling them how to get to us

Lady finger bananas
I think everyone ate these, they were divine!