Goa - ing to Stay

Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a hot weather person. I don’t take vacations in January. I’ve never been to Mexico or Hawaii or Palm Springs because I don’t love the sun. Or more accuately, the older I get, the less it loves me. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t fantasize about going to these places - it looked so good on TV - The Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii or any episode of Fantasy Island, ”Boss, the plane the plane”.

And Goa has been on my bucket list for quite some time for two reasons - because it seems like such a magical place with some 60’s vibes and because I just don’t think of India as a beach resort country and so I just wanted to see what the heck all these Europeans are talking about and flocking to.

Well, Goa certainly didn’t disappoint. it is stunningly beautiful with miles and miles of beautiful beaches on the shores of the Arabian Sea which is warm and salty, and has big beautiful waves that you could play in all day. And I did. Like a kid. I felt giddy like a kid too.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera during that portion of the good times so you’ll have to contend with a much calmer photo of the beautiful Arabian Sea.

We decided to stay at the Taj hotel because it is a five star resort with a private beach and so I thought that will be best. It will not be as busy and my mother will get the Cadillac treatment and I really wanted this trip to be special for her.

One side of the beautiful lobby.

The hotel and the grounds are exquisite but it’s the service that sets this hotel apart. All the employees are polite, kind and attend to every need even before you know you need anything. When we first arrived, we were greeted with shell necklaces and then a welcome song sung by the roving resident minstrel and then given a piece of chocolate cake with “welcome” spelled out in chocolate sauce. It was wonderful but also very odd like twin peaks meets fantasy island.

I couldn’t get the song out of my head - ’-we welcome you. we welcome you. We welcome you to Goa and have a happy holiday!

With some of hijinx that is to be expected by me and my mother, it felt a bit more like I was on Gillian’s island.

Where’s Waldo? Or more appropriately, where’s Walpreet?

Goa is also a very historic city because it contains India’s oldest Catholic Church and of course it was colonized by the Portuguese so traces of Portuguese are very much visible - in the names of the people - our Indian driver was named Francisco. Portuguese style houses remain and even some new builds still try to emulate the old style.

And of course, once Catholicism was brought in many people stayed within that religion not to say that there aren’t Muslims and Hindus and Jains and other religions here, but a big percentage of the people are Roman Catholic.

Now everybody knows that I’m not a religious person so I had no interest in seeing the church or any temples or mosques for that matter. But once the kid found out about Goa’s Catholicism roots he insisted I go to the church and buy him a rosary, preferably pearls. Now this is my vacation and my intention was beach-spa-room repeat. I wanted to relax and have fun so I told the kid sorry, ain’t gonna do it.

But I forgot that I was travelling with a religious zealot. Best laid plans and all…..

Well it was a beautiful church.

And the rosary wasn’t that expensive.

And the Durga temple we just had to see wasn’t that hard on my bare feet…

Look who tried to join us at the temple.

The Catholic Church

New rosary to add to the kid’s collection.

We also took a tour of Goa’s famous spice garden. This was a fantastical place. You basically walked into the forest and looked at how spices grow and learned all the things they can be used for. The many ailments that can be healed by nutmeg was mind blowing. I thought it was just used in baking. This place grew everything - cardamom, vanilla, allspice, coffee, cocoa, etc. The craziest thing I learned was that a certain type of leaf (shown below) is used to give basmati rice its flavour. All this time, I thought it was a particular kind of rice that gave it that flavour.

After the tour you get a shot of something Goa’s very famous for, almost as popular as its beaches - Fenni also called Urrak - an alcoholic drink made from cashews. This becomes freshly available in February when the cashews are in season and people travel from faraway places to drink it. We drank some old stock and all I can say is, it was very strong - I may have grown a few hairs on my chest or that may have been unrelated.

You are also served a buffet lunch flavoured with all the fresh spices from their “garden” - I couldn’t believe how delicious and flavourful the food was!

But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. We were in the middle of a forest, so the facilities were a little rudimentary, which you know for me is always an issue, but I grinned and beared it.

I was afraid when I walked up and saw this but it turned out to be just fine, or maybe I’m acclimatizing.

All in all this was a trip I had hoped my mother and I could enjoy together. But the course with family never runs smooth but that’s for another day and another blog….right now let’s enjoy some photos taken from the balcony of our hotel room. You can see why I don’t want to leave….

View from hotel room

Very odd sight on a beach but it is India after all….

Picture doesn’t do it justice but there were stunning sunsets….

Hotel was gorgeous