Dad dancing in Panaji
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
39
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Panaji,
India
Monday, February 18, 2008
How to stress out the newly-chilled Ros: leave guest house at 5.30am and arrive at the train station in time for your 6.30am train. Ask where your carriage will be. Get told. Stand about there for a very long time wishing that if your train was going to be 40 minutes late, they'd at least open the station restaurant so you could have breakfast. Train arrives. Get told by a very grumpy little train conductor that your carriage is not here but 'down there' (wave vaguely towards back of train). Ros and Hugh run towards back of train, with big backpacks on and carrying our smaller rucksacks. Try to get on train. Get told 'no, further down'. Run some more, trying not to trip over the other westerners and Indians who are also in confusion. Train starts moving....
Panic
try to get on train
yell blue murder at some tourist who, for some reason, is blocking the doorway dithering.
Ros tries to get on train, very aware of the fact she has trouble getting on stationary trains with her backpack on. Hugh shoves me very hard and somehow gets on himself....general series of 'Oh My God' type utterances with other panting tourists on the carriage...all somehow manage not to hit a middle aged American who tells Ros to 'take deep breaths and calm down' repeatedly with a smug 'I'm such an accomplished traveller it would take more than this to ruffle me, you are clearly new to this' look on his face. Try to find seats and the conductor just puts us any old place, regardless of our seat numbers.
Temple in Panaji
Aaaargh.We arrived in Margao, Goa and transferred by bus to Panaji - the capital of Goa.
We realised that Panaji was going to be a little odd when the taxis at the bus station wanted to charge a fortune to take us in to town and didn't want to take us to the hotel of their cousin-brother. In fact, the hotel that we had to pick at random out of Lonely Planet was full, as was every other reasonably-priced hotel in the vicinity so we ended up going *looking* for a taxi driver who would take us to the hotel of his cousin-brother. Er, what?
We managed to find one and ended up in a place about 5-10 minutes walk down the road which was fine, but still a bit pricey at just under 10 pounds (even though the taxi driver helped us to get 100 rupees knocked off the price), but by this stage we didn't think we should be too choosy.
Panaji old town is described as a lovely place to stroll around by Lonely Planet, who even give a helpful little walking tour. So the next morning that is what we did. And the old Portuguese bit of Panaji is very pretty. But fairly small, so having done the little walk we got on a bus to Old Goa (the old capital, only 20 minutes away). Which appeared to be one giant museum to old, not particularly well loved, churches. We wandered around a lot. Got a bit hot and dispirited. Had a coke. Realised we'd managed to miss the big draw, the 'incorrupt' (i.e. apparently un-decomposed, although someone ran off with an arm...) remains of Saint Francis Xavier, so returned to the Basilica Bom Jesus to take a look at the tomb (couldn't really make out the body - think we could just about make out the outline of his head).
Quaint little street in Panaji
Got a bus back to Panaji.In the evening, as recommended by the guidebook, we went on a 'sunset cruise' run by the tourist office. Apparently this hour-long cruise, to the sea and back as the sun set, would include some traditional Goan dancing and culture and seemed a fun idea.
If the cruise accurately showed traditional Goan dancing and culture, then the club scene has been going in the area a lot longer than you'd think. What we were treated to, seated on rows of plastic chairs facing a stage and some *very* large speakers, were a few short snippets of 'Goan dancing', set to loud Indian keyboard music, by two girls and two guys dressed in something that may have been traditional dress...maybe...and who looked like they'd learnt the dance that afternoon. In between these treats of traditional culture an MC tried to persuade different groups of the audience to get up on stage for dancing competitions to Indian disco music. We had a dancing chicken when the children went up, we had the 'I'm standing on a tea-tray' wiggle of the grandfathers and the all out showing off of the younger men and women who seemed not to be put off by the fact they were on a little stage on a boat being watched by 100 people, not in a nightclub. Most of the westerners hid at the front of the boat watching the sunset. We stayed in our seats, laughing at the dad-dancing and general 'I can't believe this is happening'-ness of the spectacle, but I'm afraid declined the MC's kind entreaties to us to take part.
