South Goa

Today my driver Edwin (Boxer's cousin he sent because he was unavailable) took me all over South Goa. I went to a few churches in Old Goa, one of which had a museum inside with tons of portraits including an Indian former Goan Prefect who looked kind of like Obama and another Portuguese guy who was a dead ringer for Dick Cheney but with a big 19th century mustache.

The Churches Of Old Goa





I also went to the largest Hindi temple in Goa (still not that big). I got out of the car and had about a 200 yard walk to the temple and it was raining so I finally cracked after 3 and a half weeks of being in India during monsoon season and went to one of many vendors that were right there and bought an umbrella. After about 5 minutes of trying to pick out an umbrella that wouldn't break apart immediately (I was gonna buy a different one and the guy went to show me how to open it and the handle fell off in his hands) I made my purchase, and opened the umbrella just as it stopped raining. Regardless the temple was cool.




As I was leaving this bad ass old guy was selling coconuts that he cut open with a machete for you to drink the milk. I couldn't resist.

The Coconut Man


I also went to a spice plantation where they greeted me with pooja flowers, a red dot on my forehead (that took long enough) and lunch (yum!). Then I got a tour of the plantation where the woman would rip off different bits of bark or leaves as we went and just hand them to us to smell. The best were cinnamon bark, which I learned is where they actually get the cinnamon from and clove leaves. Afterwards I bought some oils and a liquor they gave me a shot of during lunch made from the fruits of cashew trees called Fenny (fay-knee).

Me at the Spice Plantation. If I'm smiling it's because the Fenny was strong





On the tour I noticed a sign that read "This way to the Elephant" and yet we saw no elephant. I asked the tour guide and she said the elephant is only there in the winter but that if I go further south to the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary I could see elephants. So off we went, Edwin and I, to Bondla where I saw all kinds of animals. They normally offer Elephant rides but unfortunately do to rains they weren't allowing any rides...at all...trust me I tried to bribe them...repeatedly. They wouldn't even let me sit on one. I did manage to get to stand next to one and pet it's trunk.

Me with the Elephants


The rest of the animals

Then on my way back I stopped to by my new friends a new cricket bat. They were overjoyed when I brought it and I made them promise that by accepting it they would play for fun with sportsmanship towards their brothers and not fight over the game. Then we played a few games where I fielded and bowled very well but hit atrociously.