Advertisement
Published: April 17th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, Panjim
Close to our hotel, about a 15 minute walk. Originally constructed in 1541, renovated later. We were there for evening mass. Prem had an interesting encounter overnight in the washroom. She heard a weird noise at bathroom window, sounded like a piercing shrill and something was knocking the window trying to get in. She froze completely, unable to move. It stopped after a while and she ran back to bed. She heard it again the second time when she went to the bathroom later that night. Not sure what it was in the end. We had enough of this old house, it’s very spooky and there are always strange noises from all over the house on top of the cricket, bird and sounds from other animals.
We checked out today. When we went to settle the bill we were told that the credit card verification machine was not working so they demanded cash! We did not have Rs. 6800 on us at that time. Luckily we had some CDN $ so I exchanged that for rupees and paid the hotel bill in rupees. The exchange rate was not too bad either, the rate was Rs. 37.5 for one CDN dollar. We had arranged for a taxi with the hotel to take us to the airport from our hotel, it cost Rs.
Asking for directions
Prem asking for directions as soon as we arrived in Goa. She seemed the kind type to ask for assistance. This lady, Bertha, mentioned she has a son who lives in Kingston Ontario, after we introduced ourselves as Canadians. She was so kind to invite us to her house anytime, which is just a block away from our hotel. She finds Goa too hectic, and thinks life in Kingston is a resort! We love the name of her house: Casa Rocha (pronounced as Roha). Houses are named after family names here. Very nice...! 650. We thought it was a bit much but went with it anyway as it was convenient. The "taxi" was late. As we suspected it was not a taxi, instead it was a private car as we saw the one of the hotel workers (the asst manager herself!) getting off the “taxi” outside the hotel, then the “driver” drove into the compound to pick us up. The ride took about an hour. The Cochin airport is quite a distance from Fort Cochin area. It was already about 30+ Celsius even at about 9:00am!
Got to the airport, surprised they did not once check our ID at all. We were indeed overweight by 15Kg but did not have to pay, they said, since we paid in USD for the ticket. That was ok with us. We had previously booked this flight on Kingfisher airlines online from Calgary. Total cost was $270 for the both of us - cheap! The flight takes 3 hrs in total and makes stops at Kozhikode and Mangalore before arriving at Goa. Flight was good, on time and they kept feeding us on every leg.
While in the airport, we also purchased tickets from Goa
Stairways to Panjim Heaven
Interesting set of stairs. Prem was chased down the stairs and nearly bitten by a mini Doberman who managed to slid under the house gate just after I took this picture. These stairways are along a walkway close to our hotel, which takes us to Panjim City Centre. to Mumbai on 16 April, decided to fly instead of taking a train from Goa to Mumbai. It cost about Rs. 3405 for each ticket or about CDN $90 on Jet Airways. Not too bad for the 1 hour flight. We would have to travel about 12 hours on the train. Given our health situation, we definitely weren’t up for any train adventures!
Arrived in Goa at about 3:00pm. It was a very hot day here. Our ride was already waiting to take us to our hotel. We had arranged the pickup from the airport when we booked the hotel. It was a long ride to the hotel, Panjim Pousada, located in the capital Panaji (aka Panjim). The hotel itself is a boutique hotel with 3 separate buildings. The buildings are old and the one we stayed in is more than 100 years old. Overall the hotel is not too bad for the Rs. 2030/night. One thing though, all the rooms do not have a phone so if you needed anything like say toilet tissue, you will have to trek outside over to another building where the office is and back! By the way, watching Bollywood movies seem to
Sunset in Panjim, Goa
Taken from the Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception in Panjim, Goa be the afternoon pastime amongst the housekeeping and bell guys.
We spent the rest of the evening, just before sunset, exploring the city on foot again as the heart of the city was not too far away from the hotel. We went to the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception which was built in 1541. We walked further into town for an hour more, got dark by then so we headed back to the hotel. For dinner, we landed up at a local popular restaurant called Ritz Classic that serves authentic Goan food. It was downtown so we headed there again on foot. The food was excellent, at the recommendation of the waiter we ordered a fish vindaloo (king fish), prawn cafreal with rice. We also wanted to try out Feni, a local liqueur brewed from cashews. The brand they had which is the most popular brand is called “Big Boss”. Big Boss is aptly named, given its extreme pungent smell which knocks you out! Word of caution: do not drink it neat - it’s as bad or even worse than the original tequila from Mexico!! It is normally drunk with Limca or ginger ale. We had
The Ballard Bungalow hotel in Fort Kochi
This was our turn-of-the-century hotel in Fort Kochi where the spooky event in the bathroom happened. it with Limca and it was still stinking strong and were unable to finish it. It contains 50% alcohol.
Prem's eyes are clearing up ok, the redness is clearing up and they are not so glossy anymore. Her cough is still there. She still gets bad cough attacks every now and then. As for me, my cough has been ok and minimal but I can feel it coming back.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.038s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0375s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Shantha
non-member comment
Feni
I always wanted to try feni but not after that description!! You guys should sit on the beach for the next 3 days and get healthy! Did you go for your ayervedic massage yet?