SpICE spICE Baby
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2005
1
5
117
Trip End
Nov 2006
Goa, out and about,
India
Saturday, November 5, 2005
Well hello and happy Friday one and all!
I have decided to give you guys a daily 'runs' diary whilst i'm in India, so far so good. We are on day 3 and i'm keeping the Delhi Belly nicely at bay, i will try my best to keep up this good work.... woo hoo!
Well I have come to my senses and decided that it is not a good idea for me to travel around India on my todd for the following reasons, last night i encountered my 1st and hopefully last Indian groping
Indian women
. 2 Indian guys walked to me on a fairly dark street one grabbed my hands and the other tried to get something else, my breasticles but thanks to the loud gob i was blessed with, a very kind Indian man came to my rescue and got rid of them both before no harm was done... phew and thank you kind Indian man and secondly cos i have no sense of direction, i got lost for 2 hours on the way back to our beach hut.... until one Indian guy, who has now become my mate and goes by the name of James, pointed me in the right direction of Baga road where our beach house is. James was cool, his bro owns a stall on Camden Market (the name has fallen out my head but i will try and get it) and he spoke neat english, think he may show me and Sean around Goa on his day off... so thanks James for getting my little lost hobo ass home again!Last night we had the most amazing meal i have ever eaten, well that was until today but i will explain about that later.... We went to a Goan resturant and had some coolio schoolio curries. We had squid curry (hot hot hot), a crab curry (thanks for the recommendation Dave) it came with crab claws sticking out a bowl and covered in coconut curry - superb, we had king prawn curry and this prawn bread and rather a lot of indian rose wine and all that only came to a mere 8pound, BARGAIN! Also i had paneer curry yesterday, i urge you all to try it, was weird in a wonderful way
Monkey man...
!We got to bed a tad late last night so after a wee lie in this morning -naughty! and a nice meal on the beach of garlic grilled tuna steak and chips for a whole 60p, we decided to go on an adventure.
So we got ourselves a taxi, driven by our new mate 'Davahna' and we asked him to take us around 'his' Goa and it turns out there is tons more to Goa than beaches, bars and bikes.... It has been one amazing day.
First he drove us to old Goa to these churches that were built when the portugese invaded and they were pretty darn stunning, but before we entered we were conned it would seem into buying candles to light once inside, as when we got inside both these amazing churches they had MASSIVE signs saying 'no candles', what gullable tourists we are.... i don't think they get many tourists around there as every few steps peeps were asking to take our photo, so we had a few taken with a few different groups of people, some of them were pretty sound to chat to but it was a strange experience, we got a lot of stares.... that was fun enough and then when we got back 'Davahna' had more trips in store....
He took us to some Hindu Temples, the 1st was up on top of this massive masive hill with fantastic views of Goa for miles and miles, the temple was empty and there was no one about, it looked mint and was one of the most peaceful places i have ever been... We then went to chapel no.2 at the top of a load of steps, it was small and in a wee village and we got chased for about a mile leading up to the temple by this little scroat of a girl who kept shoving flowers in our face and shouting 'flowers please, flowers please' and she went on and on and on and on and eventually we had to get our shoes off and hide in the temple, when we came out luckily she was chasing someonelse with the flowers..
Oil burner.....
. phew, i have never seen persistance like it! The last chapel was stunning, a guy showed us around and explained art work and Hindu stories and festivals, he was dead interesting and he lived where the temple was, he said they only get a handful of tourists a year as the temple is so far out, it had a gigantic oil burner made from bronze, the biggest in the world, was ten men high easily and it is only burnt for special occasions like diwali, was magnificent!The best was yet to come though.....
Davahna asked if we would like to see a spice plantation in Ponda, we had some time so 'yeah, that sounds cool'. He then drove us deep through trees and remote villages down windy roads and past plenty of cows of all sizes. We then drove down a tiny dirt track through tons of jungle and then the track got super thin, so we got out and walked down a narrower dirt track which opened up onto a lake, surrounded by palm trees with a 200yd long rickerty bridge. we crossed the bridge towards a massive hut, don't think the planks of wood were even nailed on the bridge, it was the most rickerty thing i ever stood on... at the end of the bridge we were greeted by 'Savio', he then handed us an amazing drink and we sat on bamboo seats and dranks from coconut cups, the drink was ace was lemongrass, ginger and cardomon and is great for colds and travel sickness, i will post the recipe, let me know what you think if you need it as a rememdy in those winter months. He then handed us a handful of dried maggots and with his mates we fed these massive catfish in the lake.... they were ace!
Savio, then showed us around his plantation explaining about the uses of spices and showing us different plants, we saw vannilla, cinnomon, lemongrass, nutmeg, cashew nut....
Tarzan without a Jane...
. many more. here are a few quick spice type facts.... well stuff i learnt today, the piripiri is the hottest chilli, hot chiilies are small and point to the sky, cooler chillies are bigger and whilst growing point to the ground. In India lemons are green and limes are yellow and for you smokers, pineapples help to un-block your tubes but they shouldn't be eaten by pregnant peeps as they could harm the baby! And did you know that if you grate nutmeg into a cigarette you can get high, but if you ate a whole nutmeg you would die as it's poisonous, ooh aren't i just a fountain of knowledge today. We then saw a MASSIVE spider, banana spider hanging from a branch as big as a big headed man's haed, but will cause no harm... (looked pretty scary to me...)Then the best bit 'Monkey man with no tail' he had learnt to climb trees as a child and showed us, he put strong leaves around his waist and shimmeyed up a 50ft tree and when at the top jumped from tree to tree like Tarzan, wow wow wow, for once i was pretty speechless, i have pics that i will put on soon....
then Savio throwed water over us, which he said was a Goan tradition but seemed like a cheeky joke to me, it looked like we had wet ourselves bad. He then took us back to the hut and back on the bamboo chairs by the lake these guys gave us the most amazing food I HAVE ever ate, on a bamboo plate and served on a banana leaf, 2 curries lentil and chickpea, poppodums, chutneys, veg and salad and they just kept bringing it, they wouldn't stop..... then came the booze, a cashew nut fruit drink that was 60per cent proof. woosers!!! could knock your socks off, so we took some pics of our new friends, had some chats and handed over 300 rupees, 4pound for all that.... what a superb day! Bonza.....
Tomorrow Davahna is picking us up at 9am for another adventure but for now we are off to check out some baga bars......
have a 'wizard' fri nite....
ps. has anyone heard from Inca Man, he disappeared with a lady of the night yesterday and we ain't seen him since! he he! Bye bye! x x x
Comments
Hey Miss Hambolina
Well, after a week of trying to register on this darned travel pod thingy I have managed it! Hooray! Glad you're having fun, and that the delhi belly hasn't caught up with you yet. If I'd have been there when you got felt up I would have kneed those cheeky little chappies where it hurts! Off to London town now for my day of fun with Ben. Lovin your tales, love ya loads but not in the lezza way like you love me!!!!!!!!!
Wo-wo-woah in Go-go-Goah!
Slow down girl,you'll be suffering from burn-out at this rate, aren't things supposed to move at at slower pace over there? I can't keep up with your hectic travels. Sounds like you are having an ace time, apart from the Indian groping thing - told you not everyone's as nice as you are but would you listen?? (And the reason preggie people shouldn't eat pineapple is that it can induce labour apparently - someone told Gemma that and she ate a whole one the day she went into labour with Frankie, so it's true. I can almost out-do you with amazing facts ha-ha.)