Goa

Hello Everyone! We are in Goa and today is our last day. Goa is really nice and has a very European feel. The buildings, roads and culture are inspired by Portugal as Goa was a colony of Portugal until the 1960s.

When we arrived we went straight for the beach and holy cow, the water was really warm. Like bath water. You will see from the picture that the beach is clean and that is exactly how our beach is. We are staying at the Taj Exotica which is on Varca beach. We have a lot of privacy and our sharing the beach with about 10 other people and a couple of stray/wild dogs that are harmless and very lazy. They even understand hindi as i told them JA! and they went away. We basically spent most of our time in Goa relaxing on the beach. It has been really nice! The resort reminds us of Punta Cana and thus we were able to adjust quickly. hahhah!

We went for a city tour in the afternoon on our second day and saw 2 of the main churches here in Goa. The first one had the relic (body) of St. Francis Xavier. This body has not decomposed very much in 400 years and it is considered a miracle. They have viewings of this body every 10 years and people travel from all over to see it up close. The second church was a cathedral built by the Portuguese and it was very beautiful. It took almost 100 years to bulid and it even had some Mulsim architecture incoroporated. We then went on a city tour of the newer parts of Goa. We saw the high end neighborhood (where the ministers, ambassadors, arch bishop live) and these houses are very nice and it reminded us of Europe. There was even a An Audi Q7 parked outside.

We then went on a boat cruise on the Mandovi river. The cruise was one hour long but felt much longer. The boat cruise included entertainment and there was a big stage where they called people up to dance. They first called up all the kids on the boat and allowed them to freestyle for a few songs. It was like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa chote and it was hilarious. The funniest was when they called up everyone and 90% men went up on to the stage and did their moves. This was hilarious!! We saw characters from all over India in one spot and it reminded us of all the TV shows that come on ZTV. These people here are all really just like they seem on TV. We felt like we were in the audience of an Indian TV dance - athon. There were also some dance performances of Goan Folk Dances and Portuguese dancing.

We came back and had dinner at the Lobster shack. We picked our own lobster and they cooked it the way we wanted. Overall, Goa has been a nice, relaxing experience and now we are ready for the hustle and bustle of Mumbai. We will update from Mumbai.

Take care everyone!

Saima and Azam