It will probably not come as a surprise to anyone that Ana and I spent the first few hours in Goa taking pictures of Portuguese things. Even after eighteen hours walking around, we are still fascinated every time we see a familiar surname in front of a house or a shop with a Portuguese name. At the end of the day, it is quite rare to see something so familiar in a place that is so alien to us.
Our day started at 2.30am, since our taxi drive to the airport was a bit of a question mark due to the floods, which have now taken five lives. The scenes on the way to the airport were even more impressive than yesterday’s, as it literally looked like the opening sequence of a Zombie movie. Cars abandoned everywhere, people still walking home from the day before, streets still more apt to be tackled on a boat than in a car. At the end of the day, we just about made our 5.10am flight and, despite feeling like absolute death, we were at least gifted with a pleasant sunrise from the window seat.
Arriving at our hotel at 7am to find out that we had to wait another twelve hours to check in was not a step forward. Our only way to deal with this was to take a long walk over to the Immaculate Conception church, about an hour away and where there still is a daily mass in Portuguese. We stopped for breakfast at a cafe packed with locals dipping their bread and butter in chai - as simple as it may sound, it is a pretty perfect combination and it substantially improved our mood for the rest of the day. A pretty heavy but short lived downpour that had fallen on us while we were at Miramar beach made us a bit worried about the weather (especially after Mumbai), but the bright sunshine and boiling temperatures that followed led us to brush those worries aside and rent a scooter, which had been recommended by multiple people as the easiest way to get around Goa.
Once we got checked-in and took a much needed power nap, we started making our way to Colva, where the plan was to grab lunch and then check out the beach. However, after getting delayed while having to bribe the first policeman of this trip, we had to re-adjust and ended up at a place called “Sunset Beach”, as we were just desperate for a place to lie down for a bit after eating at a nice seafood shack nearby. The beach had another handful of assorted people lying around, but was overall pretty quiet and therefore ideal for me to pass out until sunset. With dark clouds approaching followed by a quick shower just to keep us honest, we slowly made our way home through the Goan darkness.
From my experience so far, Goa feels like 1960’s Portugal lost in the middle of the Indian jungle. Not only the architecture but also the inside of shops in Panaji are often resemblant of villages back home, but it only takes a ride through the surrounding countryside to find yourself immersed in a surreal tropical landscape. It is a stunningly beautiful but immensely confusing place for me to process, which I guess just adds to it. I guess the sleep deprivation probably does not help either.
Cheers,
J-Wowww
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