Day 16
Sitting at the hotel River Sal after a busy day of sight seeing in old Goa...
Last night we organized for a driver to take us to Mobor so we could see in the new year on the beach. The drive took ages, 40 minutes, due to the detour we had to take around the river as there was no bridge. On the way we passed churches gearing up for mass, street markets and festive decorations and lights everywhere. The driver dropped us at the blue whale and from there we walked up the deserted beach to the brightly lit beach shacks in the distance. It was a pleasant walk and soon we arrived at Sam's beach bar were we decided to have dinner and drinks, at a lovely candlelit table right on the beach. The beach was actually fairly quiet, just a couple of families and a couple of locals. We ordered two large kingfishers, and some Goan curries and relaxed to the cheesy thumping dance numbers being pumped out of the various shacks. We also ordered Feni's, a local spirit made from cashew fruit or coconut. Feni has a pretty strong taste and high alcohol content and is mixed with Limca in these parts... soon we were getting into the festive spirit. The new year count down finally commenced and the fireworks lit up the skies. We sat on the beach and enjoyed the show before heading back to our hotel.
We slept in and only met up with our driver after 10am and soon we arrived in the center of Old Goa. This was the area the original Portuguese colonized and developed. First we visited the Basilica de Bom Jesus built in 1594 by the Jesuit order. The church facade was built with red laterite, which seems to be the building material of choice due to its abundance, each of the doorways and windows were flanked with carved basalt pillars. Once inside it was the gilded alter at the far side which caught our attention. The experience was not unlike being teleported from India to Europe, so complete and authentic were the details of basilica. We made our way along the aisle, and then took a right before the alter and came to the tomb of St Francis Xavier. The elaborate tomb contains the actual remains of the saint. The saint came to Goa to win converts but later died on a sea voyage to China. His remains were returned to Goa over a year later but still did not show any sign of decay, leading to his cannonization. We made our way through the sacristy and into the cloisters and back out to the entrance. We took a few more photos of the Basilica and were approached by various random Indians requesting photos with us. We still can't grasp what exactly makes us so exotic or interesting, it's not like they haven't seen goras before?
We headed over the road to the Se Cathedral, claimed to be the biggest in Asia. The early morning cloud cover had parted and the sun was starting to make itself felt. First we visited the church of St Francis of Assisi before heading into the archeological museum (Rs10). The museum used to be the cloisters of the church. The museum featured some stone sculptures from temples, a huge bronze statue of some Portuguese poet, portraits of viceroys, a map of the voyages undertaken by various navigators, models of ships etc.
We worked our way around to the Se Cathedral. It was in fact really huge and imposing building. The outside was plastered and whitewashed, with red roof tiles. Overall the inside of the cathedral was not all that noteworthy except for the gold altar at the front, and the barrel vaulted ceilings above. We made our way out and took a few snaps before meeting up with the driver and heading to the next site.
The driver dropped us off at the church of St Catejan, designed along the lines of St Peters in Rome, built in the shape of a Greek cross. Of interest was the high dome and the intricately carved pulpit and altar. A short way off we also saw the remains of the gateway to Adil Shah's palace. This place was used by the catholics during the Goa inquisitions to hold condemned prisoners before they were burned alive. The inquisition killed thousands and was only abolished in 1812. During this time hindu temples were destroyed and ceremonies banned in an attempt to convert the local population to catholicism.
We got back in the car and made our way down to the Mandovi river, passing through the laterite viceroy's arch. Over a 1000 ships arrived every here every year bringing new arrivals to Goa in the 17th century. In the 18th century the Mandovi river silted up forcing the capital to be relocated downstream to Panaji and sending old Goa into decline.
We drove along the river, and then back into town again and up to the ruins of the church and monastery of St Agustine. Really not much to write about here, all that remains is a 5 storey belfry tower, and a few walls providing a hint about chapels and alters that once existed. This would have been India's biggest church had it not been abandoned when the Augustinian order was disbanded.
Next some forced shopping which we managed to quickly and expertly negotiate our way out of.
We drove out of old Goa and headed for Ponda. Here there a number of interesting temples built by Hindu priests fleeing the inquisition. We visited Shri Mangesh Temple, Goa's wealthiest temple. The walkway from the car park to the temple was a shabby filthy lane flanked by junk shops offering tattoos, tourist clothing, fruit, drinks and snacks. In front of the temple was a large sacred pond or tank, now filled with septic green water and rubbish. Just inside the temple archway we deposited our shoes, and headed into the main temple. Inside we caught sight of the Belgian chandeliers hanging fromthe ceiling, and a gilded inner sanctum we could not access directly. On the way out we saw the white and yellow 7 storey lamp tower. It was an interesting detour as this was the first time we had actually been allowed into a Hindu temple.
Back on the road we headed for Sahakari Spice Farm. We paid our entrance fee (Rs400) which included a lunch. The tour started right after we had some lemon grass tea and a snack. We walked into the plantation and saw the usual suspects, betel nut, tumeric, bananas, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla, cardamom (queen of spices), all spice, curry leaf, chillies, cashew nut. What stood out about this tour was the emphasis on healing benefits of some of the spices. We also saw an impressive display where a worker climbed a betel nut tree using only a rope to bind his feet and his arms to pull him up. It looked so effortless but some visitors tried and failed dismally. As we left the plantation, we were invited to have ice cold water,mixed with lavender and citrinella, poured down our back at the neck, which is a shock but does cool you down instantly, apparently a tradition on the plantation. The tour ended with a delicious lunch of bananas, bread rolls, dhal, rice, veg curry, popadoms, icd cream and a tot of Feni. Nix tried the chicken Xacuti but as usual was disappointed by all the bones, it's as though they beat the chicken to death, breaking all it's bones and then cook it up in curry. We got some complementary spices and then called it a day and headed back to the hotel.
Earlier in the day our driver alerted us that our flight to Mumbai was the next day, and we checked and in fact there was a mistake. We got into touch with our travel agent and they managed to push our flight back another day. This as a relief as we really wanted to spend another day in Goa.
Back at the hotel we chilled out in the hotel restaurant, drank kingfishers, ate Goan kingfish vindaloo curry with rice, which even when toned down still made us sweat a bit.
- Van
No comments:
Post a Comment