Initial Thoughts

Even though we’ve barely been here 48 hours, it feels like a week has gone by. Upon arriving in Goa, life has switched from an easy trotting pace to indie five hundred speeds. I’m completely exhausted. My muscles are sore. My mind is sleepy. I’m sunburned, and I’ve produced more adrenaline from anxiety, fear, and excitement than I thought my body capable of.

As I sit here in our hotel room with the sounds of our fan clinking, AC buzzing, and toilet bowl dripping (sometimes I confuse it with the intermittent downpour outside our window) to soothe my mind, I try to organize the chaos and beauty of these last 2 days……………the energy in the entire hotel just went out….ahahaha! Oh man, hello India!

What to say. What to say. I have not had diarrhea.....but I also haven’t had any bowel movements. Maybe this is TMI for some of ya’ll out there but I consider this a small victory. Hiro and I have been pretty adventurous in our restaurant choices. With the exception of having some veggie patties (If I ever become vegetarian, I might need to hire an Indian personal chef because those patties were dare I say…Bangin) at our hotel restaurant, we’ve dined at some authentically Goan restaurants with locals.

Here are some highlights from each experience in bullet point form (bc there is so much to say & bc I love bullet points)

· Complimentary breakfast at the bar was delicious mainly because of the veggie patties. The real highlight was meeting the bartender Surain. He had a t-shirt with a cartoon of Mr. Cheeky on it, is in Goa learning English because his hopes to work on a cruise ship, hooked us up with mopeds for $5 day, is a trained carpenter and loves to party.

The jam on that bread tastes like jolly ranchers.

· Goan mini bananas from a local outdoor market. The bananas were milky and firmer than regular sized bananas, and I bought a whole bushel for a dollar. Other options at this outdoor market (where women were selling items that were pretty much sitting on the bare ground if not for the thin sheet of paper or cardboard separating produce from mud) were papaya, mangoes, and a variety of fish. I’ve also noticed you cannot escape flies in Goa. They were circling the mackerel in the market as well as every meal I had outdoors. They don’t disgust me as much as they used to, but it is definitely quite annoying having to spend half your meal swatting bugs away.

· Dinner at a local shop specializing in Tandoori style of cooking. I probably wouldn’t have gone in if I weren’t with Hiro because every single person sitting in this place was male. It was about 10:30 at night, and there were no women in sight….anywhere. Night in local Goa is ruled by men. They congregate at restaurants, drink beer, share a meal together, karaoke, and even go to local discos together. No, I wouldn’t even have left the hotel if I wasn’t with Hiro. We did meet a couple of nice guys that came up to Goa from Chennai in a caravan of young men ready to party. A few things I learned from them:

o Chennai is unbearably hot right now which is why they took a trip out to Goa. (I can only imagine what kind of heat we’re going to face in Mumbai and Delhi.)

o Indian people love Chinese food. (Almost every restaurant had Chinese options ie. Fried Rice and noodles).

o Goa is a party town. (During the non monsoon season, there can be up to 45 parties on a single street. This place is quite popular for Europeans looking to trip out and dance to trance music too. There were a couple of shops specializing in tattoos and Rastafarian hair braiding.)

o It’s hard to know what’s appropriate in male/female interactions. (The entire time Hiro and I were sitting there chatting with these 2 guys, I kept thinking “should I avoid making too much eye contact like the online forums on India suggested?” I wish I could just sit and observe women, but I rarely ever see them interacting with males outside of a couple setting unless they’re selling something)

o Drinking and driving is not a big deal in Goa and perhaps a lot of India. These guys told us that they were boozing and driving for the full day it took to travel from Chennai to Goa. The hotel owner at Castle House also mentioned that people pregame at his bar and then take mopeds out to parties during peak tourist season. This blows my mind because we barely felt safe and capable on Goan roads sober.

This is from the end of dinner. The fluorescent lights, cobwebs swinging from the high ceilings & dusting of dirt on the walls around us made me feel like I was having an eerie dream.

· Frozen yogurt at Cocoberry. This was AWESOME and an obvious rip off of our beloved Pinkberry. Stepping into this place felt exactly like being at any Pinkberry in NY. Interestingly enough, traditional fruits that are quite common in the states (strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, snickers, kiwi) were considered exotic and the local fruit options included muskmelon and chickoo.

New York or Goa? After this picture, a firefly dived into the open fruit containers. Interestingly enough, this didn't bother us as much as it might have if we were in NY. The beginning signs of our adjustment to the culture.

· Lunch at Tamarind. The owner/waiter was an extremely friendly fatherly figure. We ordered delicious prawns cooked in tons of chunky red spice, and this spicy chicken dish that looked a bit like pureed spinach and oil with chicken and onion chunks. When the menu says it’s spicy, we will never second guess that again. I could hardly eat more than a few pieces of the spicy chicken. My mouth felt like it was going to burn right off. I’m sure I’ll eventually get used to this but there are flies everywhere. They seem to always know when food is around and swarm around you as you eat. I spent half the meal batting them away.

o This was on our way to Old Goa after seeing an old Portuguese Fort (Fort Aguate. 100 years older than the birth of our nation) and mopeding through the monsoon. We were completely and totally soaked. I can hardly believe we made it through that alive actually. The cold rain was slamming our faces so hard that I could hardly breathe. I have no idea how Hiro managed to maneuver through the small winding streets, buses, cars, mopeds, & motorcycles while squinting the rain out of his eyes but thank god he did.

Beautiful Hindu shrine along the side of this deserted road. After we took this picture, some religious music started playing in the shrine and I think some small light bulbs turned on. We saw this right before it started pouring rain.

Friendly old man who wanted to take a picture with us at this Hindu temple we found after lunch. Personally I thought he was a bit too grabby, but no harm done.

· A snack on the 5^th avenue of Panajii (capital of Goa) at Real Café. The masala dosa was delicious but the fried breaded peppers were intensely spicy and felt like they were sizzling through my stomach lining. When we were walking into this place I heard someone say the word Chinese. Everyone always asks us where we’re REALLY from when we answer New York. Japanese, Chinese, or Korean? I don’t think India is actually a popular tourist attraction for most East Asians because we are stared at quite a lot. In fact, in Old Goa, there were 3 different guys from the same group that wanted to take pictures with us! I finally know what it feels like to be a white person in China!

Other notable experiences:

- I love Hong Kong is a funny Chinese movie that I saw on my plane ride to India.

- I’ve seen more cows in one day than I’ve seen in my entire life. These little guys will just sit there in the middle of the road hanging out and sipping some ground water while everyone swerves around them. Unfortunately dogs and cats don’t have it so good. They’re honked at and frequently run off the road.

These guys and gals were just hanging out in the middle of the street eating grain left out for them in huge barrels. I'm pretty amazed by how calm they are around loud traffic and crowds of crazy humans. Mother Cow, teach me to be as zen.

- Mopeds are allowed on the highway and people go at their desired pace. I frequently saw people walking alongside the highway or right in the middle divide that separates the opposite flow of traffic.

- Outdoor advertising is BIG. You can see vodaphone ads painted on people’s garages alongside the road. Kingfisher ads pasted on the tops of your dinner table. Highlights from Tito’s menu splashed all over a car repair shop.

- Litter is everywhere. Bottles, papers, slippers, cow pies get all mixed up out there in the monsoon saturated mud. The red, iron enriched puddles are actually quite pretty though.

- People have really strong stomachs. On our first day, I saw a guy walking along the side of the road stoop over and just gulp a palm full of red puddle water. Wow