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Published: October 14th 2008
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Well we finally made it out of Baga, but not before we were harrassed mercilessly on the beach, in the bar, in the street and some guy even hovered outside our hotel (we think he was exposing himself in the bushes). Generally we didnt do much there and couldnt face the prospect of going to teh seedy bars and just ended up staying in for the two nights we were there. Unfortunately i woke up to find i had been abised by mosquitos in the night and had 39 bites all over my body but in practically a full sleeve up my arm which swelled up in red welts. Not pretty. That was pretty much the last straw for us as we had been having a shit time in Baga. The beaches are dirty, the sea is dirty and the harrassment on the beach was the worst we had encountered. We sunbathed on the beach and literally within seconds they are crowding round you taking pictures. Myself being quite mean to them anyway was shocked when Catherine went completely mental and threatened them with the police. She finally cracked! Now she is just as rude as i am which makes me
feel marginally better. Anyway we decide to move on down to Panjim, the capital of Goa to see some sites and keep off the beaches for a day. Being the capital its quite hard to find accomodation but we found a great place called The Park Lane Lodge which sounds alot fancier than it actually was. Panjim is a portuguese place and all the building have faded portuguese styling, which looks quaint from the outside, but when you get in and realise you are sleeping in the eaves of someones home with no air con and an outside toilet, it doesnt seem so charming. The worst thing was having to climb up a step ladder to get up there and realising in the middle of the night that when nature calls it is probably easier to piss in the sink than get to the toilet. The day got off to a bad start when i accidentally broke the flusher handle off the toilet and flushed it doen the bog and scarpered before i could get blamed.
After this we spent half the day looking for the post office before realising that to post things home you need to take them
to a tailor who stiches your stuff into a sack and sews it shut, sealing it with wax before you even get it processed. Luckily we bumped into this old man who did it in his shop, which was like a relic from the 70s. Also we were lucky even to bump into an indian guy called Sandoosh who helped us imensely in finding the post office and sending us on our way to Old Goa where we looked at old churches and nearly died from heat stroke. The main highlight of this trip was lunch, which looked like someone had shat on a plate. I declined this and went in search of a toilet and was directed to a door which led outside! I literally was expected to crimp one out in the street in front of everybody! Obviously i decide to wait until inside the church grounds where i used a public toilet that looked like something out of Trainspotting. Still struggling to come to terms with the general filth of India as ther is literally shit everywhere. So after a day of tramping round in 40 degree heat we headed back and met up with an Italian
man called Luca, also staying in our hotel who we had dinner with that evening. He was lovely, although had a penchant of either boring us senseless with tales of the poverty in central India or scaring us shitless by telling us that if we literally even flash an ankle down south then will hunt as down and burn us at the stake. Not something you want to hear whwere your wardrobe consists of bikinis and shorts!
After bumping into Sandoosh again who helped us find out train times to Palolem we decided to leave at 7 in the morning and head for the beach by train, but when it came to the crunch and we realised we could go by taxi for an hour and a half and it would only cost about 12 quid, we took the easy option and were chauferred there in (almost) comfort with Chris De Burgh blaring out for most of the way. Class. This gave us a chance to see some typical indian sights on the way, such as families of four all crammed onto a moped, beggers with no arms and legs scuttling about on the streets and people going to work
in their uniform of being and brown. For some reason all indian men seem to wear polycester slack in brown and wierd beige patterned shirts left over from the seventies. High fashion has definitely not arrived here yet, but then they all think we look like hookers so i guess noones winning.
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