Goa 1

Ho ho ho

A belated Merry Christmas from Goa! We spent Christmas eve exploring Old Goa, which held some of the most famous and visible products of the days of Portuguese colonialism. Driving through the back roads of Goa was a lovely experience (despite our shared battle against motion-sickness) - Huge ancient trees overshadowing the worn and often crumbling old Portuguese architexture, streets full of lazily meandering cows and adorable and seemingly healthy stray dogs scampering among the widely mixed traffic - as many overtanned and underclothed older European tourists as there were locals, the ubiquitous Hero Honda bikes, more often than not cozily hosting two men (I can now confirm my sister's insistence that India is the original land of the "bro-mance"), the thumping Royal Enfields, the absurdly bold variety of four wheeled vehicles, and so on. We spent most of the afternoon slowly exploring the old churches -

Mid-afternoon snooze in front of the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Goa

Church of Saint Cajetan

Basilica of Bom Jesus

I think the little white speck up in the center is Baby Jesus himself -  happy birthday little guy!

Gave this poor guy one little scritch on his head and he followed me for a good 10 minutes

One thing I've learned this trip is that cows always win these confrontations

Then back to Candolim for a light dinner at one of the hundreds of beach-side restaurants. This one had candle-lit tables set up out near the surf, and a few very solid Goan curries-- fish vindaloo and chicken balchao.

Not a whole lot to add about Christmas its self. We really spent the whole day just lounging on the beach. Despite the inappropriately under-attired Euro-holidayers and the wealth of persistent gawking locals, the set up in Goa is pretty sweet. Perfect temperature water with moderate surf, clean white sand, plenty of beach beds and umbrellas that are attentively staffed by employees of the corresponding beach shack. A frosty, enormous Kingfisher beer, banana lassi, a few fried snacks and plenty of sun (and shade) - not the worst way to do Christmas.

THIS guy

Hard to miss home this time of year, but this isn't so bad - and yes, that is Harry Potter (the obvious choice from the thin crop of freebies at the hotel)

We ended the day back at a local restaurant that we had dropped by a number of times while in Goa (in a heavily trafficked tourist town with many restaurants catering a bit too much to the most common visitors' tastes, we find it's wise to find a good thing and stick with it). We had a reprise of their perfectly rich and creamy Chicken Shahi Korma, smartly peppered with chewy little pieces of dried date, and the Goan Sausage Chili Fry, which packed an enormous amount of deep chili flavor, and finally the level of spice we were hoping for. Then back to our one day splurge hotel (it was tough to find a wifi connection in Goa for us to video call our families) for the luxury of a soft mattress (by Indian standards) and two (two!) pillows each-- a Christmas gift to each other.

Today took a quick flight to Bangalore, with the night laid over in another splurge (by our standards) hotel before our 6am flight to Trivindrum, Kerala. What a treat to have a hotel with a gym, excellent water pressure, room service (my first time ever using it - dinner was fantastic), and again, two (two!) pillows each.