Going Goa Gone ... Old Goa and More

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Day 4

Wednesday was mainly wasted due to the night’s activities; we both woke up at 5pm. We decided to go of to Baga; which is the big touristy spot of Goa. The taxi dropped us all the way at the bottom on Baga beach, we went and found this lovely restaurant that was actually on the beach, it was all open aired under roofing, the tables and chairs being cleared away during the day, just being used as a bar area. The waiter came over and we ordered; I ordered a Goan fish curry and Sam ordered some kind of prawn dish, we ordered two sides (or what we thought were sides at the time), two naan breads (one as a starter whilst we waited for our meals and one with the meals) and a roti. This is where it all went wrong. Sam’s main came as a starter, eventually my main turned up with the two sides which were bigger then we thought they would be; bigger enough to be main meals! One was green and I didn’t like it, the other was a reddish potato and cauliflower dish. The naan's were massive and half of it were wasted. I felt so guilty for wasting so much food. We walked up the main strip which was full of hotel, bars with karaoke, shops selling fake bags and t - shirts. It could have been anywhere! We wondered into a pharmacy and brought stuff we would buy in the UK for five times the price. We got back into the taxi and headed home. Day 4 Curry 4

Day 5

On Thursday we awoke and headed down to the pool. It was about 11am. We were meant to be going to Old Goa at 1pm and had the transport all fully arranged. Yesterday, we had organized with the taxi driver who brought us back from Baga to pick us up and take us there. After talking to Rachel we decided to put it back as they said it was really hot; too hot to walk around, so I and Sam put it back to 3pm. We lay by the pool until 3pm when we made our way to the front of the hotel to meet up with Kashi, the taxi driver. We spoke to him and he said that we had to go with this other driver as he wasn’t first in the queue, something about a system or something; I didn’t really understand it. 45 minutes later we arrived in Old Goa, one upon a time the capital of Goa but all we got was an old town with colonial buildings. We got some money out of an ATM in a little air conditioned box; I didn’t want to move as it was so nice in there! I really liked Old Goa; it didn’t get overly a big section in my guide book but there were loads of pretty buildings; a cathedral and other colonial buildings that we didn’t really know what they were. We wondered around, just nice to be somewhere where there’s no hussle, we watched as a ship was boarded, heading for? Who knows … Walking back in the generally direction of the taxi, I noticed what looked like a church; we went inside and sat down, a service was in progress. Not knowing what was being said as it was in Hindi, I asked somebody sitting next to me, we got Shhhhed by someone sitting in front of us, with that we got up and left.

I fell asleep in the tax and woke up just before we got back to the hotel; Kashi was there and he asked if we were doing anything tomorrow I said we were thinking about going to the spice farm, the driver that had taken to and from Old Goa didn’t looked best pleased as we had told him we didn’t know what we were doing. Kashi told us to jump in the taxi and he would take us to the office in the village to make sure he could drive us; in reality he drove in a big circle, not taking us to an office or even letting us getting out of the taxi. We got back out of the taxi at the hotel and he asked us when we were going home, we told him on Sunday, he informed us that now he was our driver until Sunday; I really didn’t understand it! That night we went to John Seagulls and had something to eat, cant remember what exactly it was, I think a Malawi Kofter; it was ok we had a few drinks with the rest of the crew that were there and then we went to bed. Day 5 Curry 5

Day 6

Friday, Friday was spent hurryingly getting ready as we got up late to go to the spice farm. Rachel and Mark were coming with us. The girls and Mark pilled into the back of the taxi whilst I sat up the front with Kashi. It was about an hours drive to the spice farm and I and Kashi chatted in broken English; I felt kind of ignored in the front of the taxi and to be honest I spent most of it just staring out of the window at the ever changing scenery. An hour later we arrived at the spice farm, we paid to get in and on entry we were given a bindi to wear and a drink of something. We waited for a tour to start; and when it did we were hurried along to join the back of it and me were shown around this farm. It wasn’t what I was expecting, I was expecting huge fields of various spices and crops and being driven round in a 4x4. This was like a little patch of this and a little patch of that, here are some interesting facts; Vanilla pods are the fact expensive spice in the world and that the pineapple plant only grows one pineapple per plant, bet you didn’t know that, did you? Included in the tour was a free lunch, we all sat down and eat and had a few drinks.

I really wanted to ride the elephant here, we got told that our driver had to take us over to the elephants walk for some reason; didn’t know why but he did. We couldn’t find at first but eventually we did and he led us there. I climbed up the hill and nervously climbed onboard the elephant; it wasn’t like in the movie when you are sitting in like a wooden box. I was just sitting on sheets on the elephants back. I was being a little bit cocky not holding onto the ropes on either side when suddenly I was thrown up in the air as the elephant plodded along. The rides lasted about ten minutes but still, I really enjoyed it. We were walking back to the taxi, when we were half way across a bridge, we saw an elephant plod into the river to be washed by some tourists, they sat on its back and the elephant then collected water in it trunk and washed the tourist, now that’s one power shower! The journey back to the hotel felt longer and I drifted off to sleep. We got back to the hotel, thanked Kashi and made our ways to the room, were we collapsed knackered. Later on that evening, we went downstairs and met up with the rest of the crew for dinner and drinks. We went to another resort that was quite close, the crew sat inside and me, Sam, Rachael and Mark sat outside. It was our last meal as we were going home on Saturday, I was started to get a little bit fed up of curries and was glad to be going home, I cant remember the name of the curry we had but it was the spiciest and the hottest curry I had all week, so much so that it burnt the roof of my mouth. We drunk and chatted the night away and walked back over to our resort we said good night and went to bed. Day 6 Curry 6

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Photos

Pineapple Plant
See what I mean

Sign
Riding Elephant Yes; Joy With Elephant No!