"Yes, You must watch out for the rats in India. If they bite you, you might catch the plague- and that would be no good."
Helen, from Hotel Astoria.
I think this photo wins Melanie's favourite photo of India so far this trip. A beggar girl in the Mapusa Market.
My journey started with a crazy taxi ride from Abu Dhabi. I called Sayed Taxi Driver, a funny guy from Pakistan who knows all of the villas in Khalifa City and therefore makes a bomb shuffling teachers from the city centre to Khalifa City and vice versa. He made me promise that I would go for chicken biriyani with him before I left for India, but sadly I had been busy all week and ignored the his phonecalls. So I decided, as I finished packing my things, to give Sayed a call for one last trip to the bus station, where I would catch a bus to Dubai.
" Howareyouooooo, fine? Where you go?" Sayed asked me, looking at me through the rearview mirror. "Off to the bus station." I said, after I had apologised for Our missed meeting for chicken biriyani. "you plane leave from Dubai?" No, from Sharjah. But I am meeting my friend at the bus staion (lie) and we are going to Dubai together." I said. "You no friend Bus station. I drive you Dubai." "No, Sayed, the bus station." "No, you my friend. I drive you Dubai then Pakistan." "Ha ha, Can you drive me to India?" "Ho ho, No! No road India, we go Pakistan stop. You like Lahore. Pakistan beautiful. After we go Canada. You mother angry you bring Pakistani man home. Mummy very angry!" "Yes," I laughed. My mummy would be angry! Hey! Where are you going?" We were past the bus station and on our way to Dubai!
I was being playfully kidnapped by my Pakistani friend. We joked on the way to Dubai, Me avoiding a lot of eye contact with the rear view mirror, and got him to drop me off at my favourite mall on the Abu Dhabi side of Dubai, Ibn Battuta Mall. I love this mall because there are six sections to the mall, each decorated with the decor of one of the the countries Ibn Battuta travelled to. (If you don't know, Ibn Battuta is Islam's answer to Marco Polo, and one day I might just write about the Mall-seum as I like to call it!) ""look Sayed! You can drop me off in India after all! I won't tell you how much I paid for the taxi trip. I promised Sayed I would keep it a secret.The rest of my journey here was pretty uneventful. A few switches of gates in the airport, and finally I was in my seat with no one next to me, so I promptly fell over and fell asleep. I think in my brain I was settled in for a long trip, but three and a half hours later I woke up to our descent into Goa.
I think this sign is hilarious! It's on the side of the road on the way to Astoria.
After the quickest customs line I have ever been in in India (about 45 minutes with six people in front of me) I was met outside by Aaron, my tall thin host at the Astoria Hotel in Assagao outside of Anjuna. I think Aaron is a morning person, and was happily bubbling away like a tour guide, telling me about all of the facilities at the hotel. They had a yoga studio, an Ayurvedic Massage clinic, and a cyber cafe, and a large garden. Sounded lush! I flopped over on my bag and pretended to sleep to get a little peace but the taxi driver kept hitting the speed bumps at full throttle, which meant the whole vehicle kareened into space and landed with a thud that meant I also got air off the seat and came down in such a way my boobs hurt. Dukes of hazard Indian style!
I do like the hotel, but more for the friendliness of the family that runs it, though the actual hotel is a nice space as well. My room is long and odd shaped much like a wide hallway with a bathroom. My mosquito net is strung over my bed and the extra line has become a clothes line to dry my clothes I wash in a big bucket in the bathroom. To take a shower, I fill up the bucket with hot water and scoop it over me after I soap up. Once one bucket is done, the water is usually hot enough for a second bucket. I have a little balcony that over looks the spice garden, which is a hodge podge of a garden, (nice looking but not quite manicured- a little wild and that's the way I like it) with pepper, nutmeg, cardamom, cashew, all spice, cinnamon, mango, banana and papaya and trees, and I am sure I am leaving some edible thing out.
In a month or so it will be time for the pepper harvest, and Aaron will climb the massive tree and pick the strings of peppercorns by hand. I ate a fresh one, and it was so hot my eyeballs nearly popped out with the flood of tears that erupted in the sockets, but it was good! mmmm freshness!
By the way, the yoga studio, is a large communist looking parking lot of a studio, decorated with a few potted plants. The Ayurvedic Massage Clinic is a little room off of the studio, with grubby looking palm frond walls and a very old, dusty looking guerny. The cyber cafe is three computers in a little room, often filled with two Indian girls who glare at me when I arrive as it means one of them will be kicked off downloading Bollywood hits with my arrival. But I admire their vision, and I am sure with a little work it could actually be a very successful space!
Anjuna Cows: known to love, known to play, known to poke you with a horn or two.
The town of Anjuna is a dirty little beach town with the necessary staples of India: Orange dust, cows and stray dogs. India women selling trinkets in an aggressive way, beggars following you quietly softly asking for money for the dirty baby they have permanently perched on one hip. Scooters and rickshaws everywhere weaving their way around said cows and stray dogs, trinket sellars and beggars, large potholes, speeding busses and large ditches filled with garbage and such. Wafts of incense and urine, and cow poo and pot from Hippies who have never left intermingle as a fresh Goan breeze brings them to your nostrils and just as quickly pulls them away. This is Goa.
The famous Indian Toilet. Some just have a pipe that leads out to the pig pen. Recycling and waste reduction at it's best!Did I mention Pork is eaten in Goa? But not by me!
After a lift from the Astoria Yoga teacher Arnan, (who told me when mounting his scooter, "Sit like a lady! You know how to do that, don't you?") to Brahmani Yoga studio (which much to my chagrin was closed on a Sunday), I spent the first day on foot, trying to get a feel for the place. I love scooters, but from my above description of the roads, you might see why I wasn't so keen on a bike right away. I walked to the beach, and had a look at the rocky outcrop filled with Indians dipping their feet into the Arabian sea. There is no leisure beach here- you need to go to the next town for that.
I opted for an ayurvedic massage, Which is a greasy affair of long strokes up and down the naked body. I admit I was tired and went into a cheapo place that had space for me. An Indian Girl named Ambika from Kerala would be my masseuse. She brought me into a little shack of a place with palm frond woven walls, tall enough so now one could look over but if someone wanted to peek though the space in the palm fronds they could. But we would have also been able to see them, so I deemed it safe, thought slightly uncomfortable.
I took my clothes off and sat on a stool and got a sploosh of oil directly into my hair. A rigourous head massage followed, and I could feel strands of my own hair falling onto my chest and knees. A lot of it! Next I got the body massage, which in a lot of ways felt like Ambika was busy washing a car. Wax on, wax off. Slathered in oil, I flipped over and she waxed on, waxed off a little while longer until every part of my body was covered in a strange herbal-smelling ayurvedic oil. Then she was done! She wiped me off with an old rag (Like the kind you seen in mechanic's shops) and said "finish!"
I took a few minutes to wipe off more oil with a few tissues, but what I really needed was a shower. Ambika stood in front of me smiling as I wiped my dripping butt cheeks, waiting for a tip. Soon I was out on the street, oily hair, oily skin slid into my clothes, and really really, dusty, dirty oily feet. but I admit, my skin and hair felt great! Though I admit I looked a little like a wet oily dog.
On a walk back from the grocery store (closed on a Sunday) A taxi boy stopped and asked me if I needed a ride, and I quickly shook my head and dismissed him. He shrugged his shoulders and accelerated at such a clip I wouldn't have liked to ride with him anyway. Ten seconds later I heard a soft thud and an "ooh!" and a slap. When I turned, the taxi boy had hit something and had landed head first on the road. Blood was pouring out of his skull and he wasn't moving. An Indian store keeper emerged with a large bucket of water and poured it over his head, but it looked too late. The traffic began piling up, and I watched them move his limp body to the side of the road along with his motorbike. Later, when I got a motorcylce taxi back, we drove over the river of blood, stretched across the road in a long, wide river. I don't have any idea why but at the end of the stream, there were a pair of shoes, His shoes, maybe. So my chillin' day ended in a chilling way. And I have successfully scared every foreigner I have met so far into wearing a helmet when they drive here.
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