Happy Easter! In the morning, Joanna and I lazily awoke and decided to go get crepes at a crepes-and-chocolate place we has passed earlier. I was so excited but when we got there the restaurant was closed (likely for Easter). The shop next to the crepes restaurant was a small bookstore with a wide selection of foreign books, likely donated by tourists passing through. As I was contentedly browsing the shelves, an Englishwoman came into the store, very flustered. She spoke to the saleswoman urgently, asking for another woman who wasn't in the store. She wanted to speak to her about a sick dog she had seen at the beach. She tried earnestly to describe it, matted, blond, and it seemed to me that the saleswoman couldn't care less about some stray dog. But this Englishwoman went on and on, very earnestly begging for someone to come look at the dog. She called to her husband, who brought in pictures documenting the animal's plight, and these were handed to the saleswoman with a plea to please, please inform the other woman that she should go look after the dog (maybe she was a vet?).
Giving up on crepes, we went instead to a place a little further down the road called Leda Lounge. It had a nice, open feel with zebra-upholstered furniture and trendy music. Off season though, so no-one was there but us. The two bored waiters handed us a very simple breakfast menu- eggs, toast, bacon, sausage. While eating, we looked up at the TV and saw on BBC a man speaking with a Dartmouth background behind him! So we took a picture of Dartmouth here with us in Bangalore, and then headed out into the heat.
On the way back towards the hotel, we stopped at a roadside tourist stand to buy some Indian-looking fabrics. Both of us made satisfying purchases, and then we were picked up by the van with Nani and Dadi and Dada Desai. Off to the spice farm!
After driving some distance, we stopped the car at a cricket stadium and waited for Rohit Anand's car so we could follow him the rest of the way. He arrived and led us another distance, until again we waited for a car with his friends to lead the parade we formed all the way down windy roads (I am missing the platitude of Houston highways) to a spice farm called Pascoal Organic Spice Village, located in Ponda, Goa.
We walked into what looked like a rainforest, and the first thing we saw was a cage filled with emus.
Further on, we saw a sign that advertised elephant rides and behind it, an elephant held by a very short chain to a tree. It looked miserable, lifting its hind leg repeatedly to try, unsuccessfully, to take a step. Later, when we asked one of the spice village employees about it, they said the elephant was a male and thus dangerous. I don't feel like this justified anything- there was no need to keep an elephant at all!
From the parking lot, we walked through this rainforest path and then down some stairs towards an area where we heard loud singing. When we emerged into the open, we saw a circle of women dancing around some central object, clapping their hands rhythmically and singing something sort of tuneless that we were told was the 'welcome song'.
We had petals thrown in our hair, and we were garlanded with flowers and tikka-ed (where a red powder is dotted on your forehead). I didn't like this and I can't quite place why. It just seemed so forced and commercial. And it was all totally unnecessary.
Anyways after gawking at the welcome song women, we were lead to a shaded dining area where we were all served a welcome drink, a lemongrass tea with mild spices for additional flavour.
It was refreshing, and according to a placard we were given, a great cure for migraines. This placard was part of a booklet put together of natural cures derived from the spices available on the farm. The curable afflictions ranged from headaches to bad skin, bad hair, an inability to 'perform'...
Rohit Anand and Anju
were at the spice farm to play cards with their friends. They told us that every Sunday they went to play cards and sometimes chose an interesting location so they could simultaneously get in a bit of exploration. Their friends headed off to find a 'cottage' to settle down for cards, but a few, including Rohit Anand and Anju joined Nani, Joanna and I to take a spice tour. Dadi went to rest at the cottage.
The tour guide was a woman with a voice that was slightly too loud.
She would constantly reprimand members of the group who lost attention, commanding "listen, look, pay attention" in a sort of middle-school teacher way. We saw black pepper, betel nuts, curry leaves and many other spices common to Indian kitchens including a miniscule red pepper supposed to be the hottest in the world. Nani loved the tour, and often offered her own home remedies in addition to those the tour guide explained.
We watched a man demonstrate how betel nut palms were once climbed.
He wore a cloth around his ankles and scaled the first palm kind of like that scene in Mulan...and then at the top would swing to others, back and forth with grace and minimal effort. At another point in the tour, we saw cigarettes made from banana leaf paper and natural tobacco.
There was a huge clay stove-like structure that I initially thought might be a tandoori oven.
It turned out to be a distillation machine for making liquor out of cashew nut juices (the ones that come from the fruit Jo tried on the island while paddle-boating). We were later given small shots of this liquor and I had a sip without knowing what it was...it was like fire. So nastily strong!
After the tour, we headed back to the central area. A ladle of freezing water was poured down everyone's back from an earthen pot (they hold temperature constant pretty well) and it was very refreshing! We browsed the spices that were for sale, swung in some hammocks briefly, and then all settled down at the cottage and while Rohit Anand and Anju played cards with their friends and drank, Jo and I settled down to Rummy 5000 (our extended version of Rummy 500). It was pleasant, but I would get so bored spending my Sundays like that, cards every week, the same old routine and all conversation centered around the game...
Anyways, after ages of playing cards we were finally summoned to go eat. The food was laid out in a line of earthen pots and it looked good, but all dishes were seafood or meat in Goan style. So, Nani and I had our cabbage and rice. We were very kindly brought a pot of dahl, and it was delicious! Anju asked if Joanna and I would want to go paddle-boating, but at the spice farm it cost 300 Rs a person, and was just not worth it.
Dada Desai, our driver, was pacing back and forth on a gravel stretch with his eyes on the ground and Nani asked him what was up. He confessed that he had lost the keys to the van, and a mild panic broke loose. He said he remembered taking the keys from the car, and was sure he had lost them while pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket (he had lost the kerchief as well). A plethora of suggestions were thrown out, increasingly complex. One was that we drive back to the hotel with Rohit Anand, find a locksmith, get the driver to come back with the locksmith, have him make a key, and then we would fly out while the driver would take a bus back...etc etc etc. It all became very confusing.
The driver and Rohit Anand set out to do the spice tour once more and hopefully find the keys on the path. Others headed back to the cottage to continue playing cards and wait...I went to the parking lot because no one had actually checked the car yet.
There were the keys, still in the ignition inside the locked car. I went to the information window at the end of the parking lot and asked the group of men inside if they could help me open the car. At first they refused, thinking I had come in an expensive taxi, but when I told them it was an Omni, they thought they might be able to help. So, the whole group followed me to the car and started to push against one of the windows, hoping the lock would be weak and give way. After a lot of pushing, they managed to force the window open and we opened the door and grabbed the keys. Unfortunately this broke the window and we suffered through less fresh air on the drive home as a result. But let's call that a lesser of two evils.
So, we brought the keys back. Everyone with the exception of Nani, Joanna, Dadi and I started admonishing the driver behind his back. In fact, they had been admonishing him throughout the ordeal. How stupid could he be, how irresponsible, make him suffer, it's his fault he should deal with it, and on and on. I couldn't believe it! Yes, it was a minor annoyance, but everything worked out so quickly that there was nothing to stress about. And everyone loses their keys. Honestly.
After the spice farm, we headed to Old Goa to see the Basilica of Bom Jesus.
It is a World Heritage Site famous for holding the remains of St. Francis Xavier, and was consecrated in 1605. The place was pretty populated by tourists, and opposes another big church in Goa, the Se Cathedral, also built by the Portuguese during their occupation of Goa. Inside the cathedral, it was very crowded and looking towards the main altar, we could see that a wedding was taking place!
It seemed like such an unfortunate setting for a wedding, with so many tourists crowding up, but I guess to each his own. We walked through adjacent rooms, looking at artwork and finally stopping before St. Francis Xavier's remains in a thoroughly majestic tomb. Nani and I donated money, specifying on the donation form that it should go to the poor. I did this mainly because I found the detailed donation form very interesting. You had so much 'choice' about where your money was headed!
Se Cathedral was quieter than the Basilica, so I liked it more. It was pristine and not cluttered with tacky decor the way the church in Mysore had been. We walked around for a while, and then headed back out to the van. On the way, a young boy tried to sell me candles, these ultra thin white wax ones that every peddler outside the churches seemed to be selling. Most of the vendors were so obnoxious and it frustrated me to see that outside a religious building. To this boy, I gave money but didn't take a candle. I don't know why, I didn't even think about it, I just didn't want a candle and I wanted to give him something. But it seemed kind of inappropriate afterward and I couldn't decide how I felt about it.
We asked the driver to take us to Panjim, a city in North Goa famed for casinos and boat tours, 30 km away. Instead, he took us 30 km in the other direction, back towards the hotel! When Nani realized this, she asked him why and he said there was nothing to see in Panjim. Probably a decision he should have consulted us about...
So we stopped in a South Indian restaurant to eat. We opted for the A/C room, which was very weird. It was shut in, with blasting A/C and bad lighting, two long tables as the only furniture. It reminded me of one of those side rooms at Discovery Zone where kids eat cake. If that makes sense. The food was absolutely horrible. Watery chutney, oily tasteless sambar, undercooked idli. Literally inedible!
Our last stop before home was to go buy some bags. We discovered that with Dadi's gifts and our souvenir purchases in Savantwadi and Goa, we had too much luggage. We stopped in at one of the tourist shops, and started haggling for bags. The guy in the shop wouldn't haggle as low as we wanted, explaining that then he would make no profit off of his wholesale price. I always sympathize with that argument, although I have no way of knowing if he's telling the truth. I had a nice little talk with him about where he was from and how business was, and we ended up buying two great bags, all rough and colourful. Mine is definitely one I hope to use for a long time.
Finally, we headed back to Sea Mist where we read, watched TV and tucked in for our last night in Goa.
Giving up on crepes, we went instead to a place a little further down the road called Leda Lounge. It had a nice, open feel with zebra-upholstered furniture and trendy music. Off season though, so no-one was there but us. The two bored waiters handed us a very simple breakfast menu- eggs, toast, bacon, sausage. While eating, we looked up at the TV and saw on BBC a man speaking with a Dartmouth background behind him! So we took a picture of Dartmouth here with us in Bangalore, and then headed out into the heat.
On the way back towards the hotel, we stopped at a roadside tourist stand to buy some Indian-looking fabrics. Both of us made satisfying purchases, and then we were picked up by the van with Nani and Dadi and Dada Desai. Off to the spice farm!
After driving some distance, we stopped the car at a cricket stadium and waited for Rohit Anand's car so we could follow him the rest of the way. He arrived and led us another distance, until again we waited for a car with his friends to lead the parade we formed all the way down windy roads (I am missing the platitude of Houston highways) to a spice farm called Pascoal Organic Spice Village, located in Ponda, Goa.
We walked into what looked like a rainforest, and the first thing we saw was a cage filled with emus.
Further on, we saw a sign that advertised elephant rides and behind it, an elephant held by a very short chain to a tree. It looked miserable, lifting its hind leg repeatedly to try, unsuccessfully, to take a step. Later, when we asked one of the spice village employees about it, they said the elephant was a male and thus dangerous. I don't feel like this justified anything- there was no need to keep an elephant at all!
From the parking lot, we walked through this rainforest path and then down some stairs towards an area where we heard loud singing. When we emerged into the open, we saw a circle of women dancing around some central object, clapping their hands rhythmically and singing something sort of tuneless that we were told was the 'welcome song'.
We had petals thrown in our hair, and we were garlanded with flowers and tikka-ed (where a red powder is dotted on your forehead). I didn't like this and I can't quite place why. It just seemed so forced and commercial. And it was all totally unnecessary.
Anyways after gawking at the welcome song women, we were lead to a shaded dining area where we were all served a welcome drink, a lemongrass tea with mild spices for additional flavour.
It was refreshing, and according to a placard we were given, a great cure for migraines. This placard was part of a booklet put together of natural cures derived from the spices available on the farm. The curable afflictions ranged from headaches to bad skin, bad hair, an inability to 'perform'...
Rohit Anand and Anju
were at the spice farm to play cards with their friends. They told us that every Sunday they went to play cards and sometimes chose an interesting location so they could simultaneously get in a bit of exploration. Their friends headed off to find a 'cottage' to settle down for cards, but a few, including Rohit Anand and Anju joined Nani, Joanna and I to take a spice tour. Dadi went to rest at the cottage.
The tour guide was a woman with a voice that was slightly too loud.
She would constantly reprimand members of the group who lost attention, commanding "listen, look, pay attention" in a sort of middle-school teacher way. We saw black pepper, betel nuts, curry leaves and many other spices common to Indian kitchens including a miniscule red pepper supposed to be the hottest in the world. Nani loved the tour, and often offered her own home remedies in addition to those the tour guide explained.
We watched a man demonstrate how betel nut palms were once climbed.
He wore a cloth around his ankles and scaled the first palm kind of like that scene in Mulan...and then at the top would swing to others, back and forth with grace and minimal effort. At another point in the tour, we saw cigarettes made from banana leaf paper and natural tobacco.
There was a huge clay stove-like structure that I initially thought might be a tandoori oven.
It turned out to be a distillation machine for making liquor out of cashew nut juices (the ones that come from the fruit Jo tried on the island while paddle-boating). We were later given small shots of this liquor and I had a sip without knowing what it was...it was like fire. So nastily strong!
After the tour, we headed back to the central area. A ladle of freezing water was poured down everyone's back from an earthen pot (they hold temperature constant pretty well) and it was very refreshing! We browsed the spices that were for sale, swung in some hammocks briefly, and then all settled down at the cottage and while Rohit Anand and Anju played cards with their friends and drank, Jo and I settled down to Rummy 5000 (our extended version of Rummy 500). It was pleasant, but I would get so bored spending my Sundays like that, cards every week, the same old routine and all conversation centered around the game...
Anyways, after ages of playing cards we were finally summoned to go eat. The food was laid out in a line of earthen pots and it looked good, but all dishes were seafood or meat in Goan style. So, Nani and I had our cabbage and rice. We were very kindly brought a pot of dahl, and it was delicious! Anju asked if Joanna and I would want to go paddle-boating, but at the spice farm it cost 300 Rs a person, and was just not worth it.
Dada Desai, our driver, was pacing back and forth on a gravel stretch with his eyes on the ground and Nani asked him what was up. He confessed that he had lost the keys to the van, and a mild panic broke loose. He said he remembered taking the keys from the car, and was sure he had lost them while pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket (he had lost the kerchief as well). A plethora of suggestions were thrown out, increasingly complex. One was that we drive back to the hotel with Rohit Anand, find a locksmith, get the driver to come back with the locksmith, have him make a key, and then we would fly out while the driver would take a bus back...etc etc etc. It all became very confusing.
The driver and Rohit Anand set out to do the spice tour once more and hopefully find the keys on the path. Others headed back to the cottage to continue playing cards and wait...I went to the parking lot because no one had actually checked the car yet.
There were the keys, still in the ignition inside the locked car. I went to the information window at the end of the parking lot and asked the group of men inside if they could help me open the car. At first they refused, thinking I had come in an expensive taxi, but when I told them it was an Omni, they thought they might be able to help. So, the whole group followed me to the car and started to push against one of the windows, hoping the lock would be weak and give way. After a lot of pushing, they managed to force the window open and we opened the door and grabbed the keys. Unfortunately this broke the window and we suffered through less fresh air on the drive home as a result. But let's call that a lesser of two evils.
So, we brought the keys back. Everyone with the exception of Nani, Joanna, Dadi and I started admonishing the driver behind his back. In fact, they had been admonishing him throughout the ordeal. How stupid could he be, how irresponsible, make him suffer, it's his fault he should deal with it, and on and on. I couldn't believe it! Yes, it was a minor annoyance, but everything worked out so quickly that there was nothing to stress about. And everyone loses their keys. Honestly.
After the spice farm, we headed to Old Goa to see the Basilica of Bom Jesus.
It is a World Heritage Site famous for holding the remains of St. Francis Xavier, and was consecrated in 1605. The place was pretty populated by tourists, and opposes another big church in Goa, the Se Cathedral, also built by the Portuguese during their occupation of Goa. Inside the cathedral, it was very crowded and looking towards the main altar, we could see that a wedding was taking place!
It seemed like such an unfortunate setting for a wedding, with so many tourists crowding up, but I guess to each his own. We walked through adjacent rooms, looking at artwork and finally stopping before St. Francis Xavier's remains in a thoroughly majestic tomb. Nani and I donated money, specifying on the donation form that it should go to the poor. I did this mainly because I found the detailed donation form very interesting. You had so much 'choice' about where your money was headed!
Se Cathedral was quieter than the Basilica, so I liked it more. It was pristine and not cluttered with tacky decor the way the church in Mysore had been. We walked around for a while, and then headed back out to the van. On the way, a young boy tried to sell me candles, these ultra thin white wax ones that every peddler outside the churches seemed to be selling. Most of the vendors were so obnoxious and it frustrated me to see that outside a religious building. To this boy, I gave money but didn't take a candle. I don't know why, I didn't even think about it, I just didn't want a candle and I wanted to give him something. But it seemed kind of inappropriate afterward and I couldn't decide how I felt about it.
We asked the driver to take us to Panjim, a city in North Goa famed for casinos and boat tours, 30 km away. Instead, he took us 30 km in the other direction, back towards the hotel! When Nani realized this, she asked him why and he said there was nothing to see in Panjim. Probably a decision he should have consulted us about...
So we stopped in a South Indian restaurant to eat. We opted for the A/C room, which was very weird. It was shut in, with blasting A/C and bad lighting, two long tables as the only furniture. It reminded me of one of those side rooms at Discovery Zone where kids eat cake. If that makes sense. The food was absolutely horrible. Watery chutney, oily tasteless sambar, undercooked idli. Literally inedible!
Our last stop before home was to go buy some bags. We discovered that with Dadi's gifts and our souvenir purchases in Savantwadi and Goa, we had too much luggage. We stopped in at one of the tourist shops, and started haggling for bags. The guy in the shop wouldn't haggle as low as we wanted, explaining that then he would make no profit off of his wholesale price. I always sympathize with that argument, although I have no way of knowing if he's telling the truth. I had a nice little talk with him about where he was from and how business was, and we ended up buying two great bags, all rough and colourful. Mine is definitely one I hope to use for a long time.
Finally, we headed back to Sea Mist where we read, watched TV and tucked in for our last night in Goa.
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