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The Konkan Railway connecting the hustle and bustle of Mumbai and the easy-going, beautiful beaches of Goa is one of the most scenic rail journeys in India, and possibly the entire world. We travelled it at night and it looked dark.
On the plus side we were unknowingly upgraded to the first class sleeper carriage with the ticket collector very happy to inform us (in the manner that we may have just won a million dollars) - and it did feel quite special being congratulated and having our hands shaken by each of the carriage attendants we passed on our way through. Needless to say, the sleeping, older Indian couple who thought they had a large cabin to themselves weren't so impressed by our stroke of luck and new-found celebrity.
Goa is by far the smallest state in southern India, but within it probably roam more Western tourists than most other states of south India combined. Goa has an interesting heritage, having been chosen as a base for the seafaring Portuguese in the 16th Century. This is really obvious in much of the architecture, such as at Old Goa (once the 'Rome of the East') where massive old cathedrals
inside the Church of St Cajetan
supposedly this building is a replica of St Peter's in Romeand beautiful large houses are interspersed only by banana sellers. Here we saw the actual remains of St Francis Xavier (minus the right arm which was stolen by relic hunters) in a glass coffin - apparently prior to this his corpse was perfectly preserved. Still looks in pretty good shape after 500 or so years too!
The present day capital is Panaji, which is a really beautiful town as well. We didn't really do much here other than wander the streets and soak it all up.
The main tourist attraction in Goa is its beaches, where the tourist scene was supposedly started by hippies escaping it all back in the 60s and 70s. By the look, and occassional smell, of things, alot of them have never left. We chose the relatively unspoiled beach of Arambol to spend 5 days (including my birthday). We stayed in an awesome little beachside hut, with its own bath (it's called the Arabian Sea, and boy is it warm!). Here we lazed away our days swimming and reading and spent the nights eating, drinking and counting the number of animals we were sharing the hut with. The cocktail highlight was definitely 'Hello Coconunt'
four friends; one small fish
soon after a massive bream was caught with great excitement and best named morning juice a 'Lemon Nana'.
Other happenings:
- Jen sweated some more. Jeff began referring to her fat-man sweat hanky as 'Jake' (as in Jake and the Fat Man; terrible 90s TV show)
- We thought we were safe from Swine Flu until we saw a pig on the beach
- We saw a cow on the beach
- We saw lots of dogs on the beach
- We survived several attempts at assassination by falling coconuts
Stay tuned for the next episode. Will our protagonists survive:
- a state with extremely tight alcohol regulations?
- 24 hours on a wooden boat?
- tigers in the wild?
- crazy fast bus drivers?
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Erin
non-member comment
Hee, hee.... these are fantastic guys. I am suddenly a fan of blogging. Are you keeping a diary as well? I'm happy we did, but it was our biggest burden and meant we didn't send group emails as often as we'd have liked. Perhaps this would have been a good compromise. Congratulations on your great fortune in being upgraded to 1st class - did it also come with an upgraded price? We unwittingly won a few of those :-) It all sounds awesome! Love to all three of you (Jake included).