Hello Hello. Back again. It's 11pm at night and hot as hell. Today was just another relax on the beach, sitting around eating and drinking kind of day. Man oh man. I'm not exactly sure where I left off but there really isn't much to talk about either. I've come to the definate conclusion that 10 days is no time at all when traveling around another country. Of course I knew my time was short but I kept thinking that for sure I would be able to at least see a couple of the Main attractions. Well it's just not going to happen. The decision has been made to just stay here in Paradise for the whole of my time and fly into Kolkata the day before I leave. I'm disappointed of course at not seeing the Taj Mahal but I'm just going to use it as motivation for coming back. At least when I do come back I'm pretty damn sure I know where my home base will be. I guess the one story I have to tell is the day we hired a driver and drove around the State of Goa. At least if felt like we drove the whole state. This guy was great and very friendly but I think a prerequisite of being a taxi driver in Goa is that they have to be certifiably insane. How else do you explain driving in the wrong lane towards a vehicle easily 3 or 4 times our size. Like that puny horn will stop that thing. Anyway, we left at 9am and headed for Old Goa. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not in the least bit religious but that doesn't mean I don't have an interest in old ruins or ancient artifacts involving the "Church". We hit Old Goa and made our way through a number of ancient catherals and Indian temples. One of the coolest things we saw was the Chapel of St. Fransic Xavier which houses, believe it or not, the consecrated body of... St. Francis Xavier, who died in 1552. The legend goes that he died while out of the country on Missionairy work in China. When he died the people of China didn't want to give up his body and so covered him in quicklime to destroy what was left. Despite the quickline the priests body instead was unharmed and in 1554 was sent back to India. His body is still held in the church today and every 5 years his intricatly carver silver casket is opened up so people can view his still preserved body. I guess we're supposed to believe that, despite no embalming, some devine intervention prevented his body from being destroyed and instead he has been preserved for all time. Oh yeah, one of his arms was taken to Rome in 1614 and is preserved at an altar somewhere. I hope I got all that right. We also went to the Chapel of St. Francis of Assisi where we were able to touch a cross used in the Goan Inquisition. Super old but I can't remember the date. We visited some Indian temples and tried to understand what the hell we were seeing but I've got to admit I was a little lost. I do know that the altar room itself can only be entered by certain people but the rest of us can circle the altar in marble walled corridors. If we circle these corridors 108 times our blood will be purified. I made it around once in each temple. Not quite pure yet but getting there. Beautiful places none the less.
After the Churchs and Temples we headed out to a spice farm where we got a great tour. When we got to the farm a guy threw handfulls of flower petals at us and a young lady put flowers around our necks. Kinda cool but I'm still finding those damn pedal in the strangest places. We had a really nice and knowledgeable guide who played it more like a game quizzing us and making us work for the answers to the spices we were looking at. I should have known and I'm sure I did buy why was it a surprise when he peeled the bark off a tree for us to chew on and we discovered it was cinnamon? Did you also know that Bannana trees are in the "GRASS" family??? At the end of the tour we were then surprised by a cup of ice cold water poured down our backs which was actually very refreshing. We got a free shot of some coconut liquor and a buffet style lunch before we were again on our way. If we had wanted to we could have gone back and ridden some elephants but Corina and I had both done this at some point in our previous trips. Just before we left I bought some saffron which I hope I can get home through customs since it seems to cost more than gold back in Canada. We headed off again and our driver took us to the Goan Zoo. Not a very nice looking place and the animals were somewhat bored looking if not a little lethargic. Must be the damn heat. We saw one bear that looked a little sickly but after discovering that it was called a Sloth Bear didn't feel so bad for it. The animals where all pretty neat and the snakes great since they scared Corina. The funny thing was that at a zoo of ours back home the monkeys would be in cages but here they roamed free. We left just in time as a bus full of kids showed up and started to terrorize the place. That was basically it for the day. By the time we got back to Arambol it was 7pm and after 10 hours we only paid the driver 2000INR which is only about 50 canadian bucks. Split 2 ways not bad at all. Since then we've just been lazing on the beach and wandering the village. We found a restaurant called the Double Dutch (they're Dutch) and had a great dinner. We starting with a cheese plate with bread and garlic butter and then Satay Chicken for an appy and then we each had a steak dinner with mashed potatoes. mmmmmmm soooo good. I had a Garlic Cream Steak and it was by far the best steak I've had in ages. Better by far than the last time I was at the Keg and twice the size. The whole dinner was 600INR ($15.50) Anyway, it seems that the days ahead are more of the same. Beaches, swimming, sleeping, reading..... just plain relaxing. Tomorrow we buy our plane tickets to Kolkata and then we may rent a moped for a drive around the country side. Damn cows better stay out of my way. If I have time or if anything interesting happens I'll write another blog before I leave. Till then Go Canucks Go. Oh yeah.... Go Seahawks.