Goa'n on vacation

Blue skys, miles of sandy beaches, palm trees waving in the breeze, cocktails by the pool, and a villa with a private porch. Sounds like heaven. Almost- we had a few misadventures, but all in all it was an absolutely delightful time.

Arriving in Goa by air, you land at a small airport with no taxiway, so when the plane gets to the end of the runway, it turns around and goes back towards the terminal, pulling off to a side track for a short bit to let the next plane land. The planes outside the terminal were lined up, business was brisk. No photos as it is also a military airport and photos are prohibited. They open the door, and the humid air hits you like, well..., actually it didn't hit too hard. I expected worse, having traveled in Hawaii and Mexico as well.


I think the first thing I noticed which was different from Bangalore was the riot of colors on the buildings-- Purples, yellows, pinks--nothing subdued. The pictures don't really do justice, but they give an idea, unfortunately they were taken through the window of the car. The airport, and ugly oil storage depot in Vasco is up on a plateau which appears to be fairly dry, but to get to the hotel, we dropped down into the plains, obviously river delta country, with Palms, rice paddies, and other greenery.
The other thing I noticed right away, is that there is construction everywhere. Goa is bursting with new buildings. The really interesting part is that they look like they are being built with Adobe (even multi story buildings), but they are actually being built with these bricks. They are rock, cut from a quarry in the shape of large bricks. They seem to be very good building material as the church in downtown "Old Goa" is built out of the same rock and is pretty old.

Arriving at the hotel, after tearing down one lane roads with 2 directional traffic, it was wonderful to just relax in the sun and enjoy the flowers, and have a drink by the pool. They kept cut flowers by our room and replaced them every day or so. There were of course flowers growing all over the grounds of the hotel, and several kinds of birds, even Cashews, but more about them later.

Maya had to study for midterms, which she told us were immediately when we returned, so we spend the first full day just doing nothing by the pool, well almost nothing. Cindy and I got in a lot of reading, swimming and relaxing, oh and Cindy also worked on her tan--well it was supposed to be a tan. Maya spent much of the day reading her texts and notes. Luckily she figured out by a day or 2 later that her tests were not till the end of the week after we came back, so she did have some more time to spend with us on our various adventures. Cindy has documented them pretty well,so I won't repeat all that.

I think my favorite part of the trip was to the spice plantation. We hired a taxi for the day and the taxi driver took us several places of our choosing. First we went to the plantation. We were greeted with a lovely lemongrass/ginger tea, all natural and organic. Once we had collected a group of about a dozen, we set off down a small trail, following our guide. The ground was very damp, even wet with puddles. This was the day before it rained, and they obviously kept it wet. The red earth was almost like a dark red soup in spots. We learned about pepper, which is not a tree, but a vine. It starts out green, and can be harvested then in an unripened state. It ripens to red, which can be picked then. If dried, it is red pepper, if boiled and the skin removed, then it is white pepper. And if let to dry out black, becomes black pepper. We didn't get to see any cardamom growing, but learned that chewing 1 pod a day is good for depression. There was a cardamom plant, but no pods. Jack Fruit seemed to abound. Apparently they are related to the "stinky fruit" found in Malaysia or Viet Nam. This is our guide standing next to a Jack Fruit tree. She was very knowledgeable about the spices and what their uses (other than cooking) could be. We saw a Mace tree, which is also a Nutmeg tree, and we saw a Cinnamon tree, the leaves of which are also Bay Leaves. But most interesting to me was the brightly colored Cashew Apples. I knew that the Cashew grew one nut to a flower, but I didn't know that they are the only nut to grow outside of the fruit. The fruit is a bright yellow or orange. I didn't notice them anywhere at first, but then later as we were driving around, I saw them in many places along the road. The color is hard to miss. They also had them at the hotel, by the walk to the beach. The cashews are harvested off the fruit, and are roasted to get the shell off. Then they crush the fruit, and ferment. It is then distilled into Feny. There are 3 kinds of Feny locally in Goa, Coconut, Palm and Cashew. I've tried 2 of them, they are strong, and rather sweet. Not really my thing, but we picked up a bottle just for fun in Panjim later that day (or was it the next while on the tour?).

Somewhere along the way we got to watch how they climb the palm trees to collect the Betel Nuts, and how they swing from tree to tree. Unfortunately you have to turn your head sideways as I don't know how to rotate it. And walked back to the compound. The tour ended after we watched the elephant rides. Just before getting back to the lunch, there was one last stop. There was a bucketfull of cold water, with citronella in it. Each of us stepped up and a ladle full of water was poured down our backs, starting just above the neck. It was very refreshing, but startling. Everyone sort of jumped and stood up straight. I wish I had videos of this. Maya got a good picture of me and I hope she posts it soon.
Well, I've probably been Goan on long enough now, so I'll continue about the rest of our adventures another time.