Day twenty 5-11-10

Diwali is it today and it is a day of celebration. At 2am in the night, Hindus burn a home made doll of around 2 meters high which is suppose to be Rawana (the evil god). It seems that this god still has some influence on the process. It is very peculiar that every year during the same time (2 days before Diwali) it rains! You can think that the evil god don’t want the people to burn their statue of him, so he makes it rain. It is even so peculiar that the two days before Diwali it rains this year (see previous blogs) what it the time in where the people make the doll (the water spoils the papers and hew where the doll is made from) and then on the day before Diwali it was dry but at 1am on Diwali it started raining what made the people not able to build their creation. All a bit suspicious when you think of it from my point of view.

Liny and I also wanted to look at the burning of the statue so we planned to set the alarm at 1:30am, but for some reason we didn’t wake up. You can say that Rawana don’t like tourist to take pictures of him being burned.

Once I woke up I had tummy upset. This continued throughout the day unfortunately. So it was overall a slow day. We went roaming around a bit en ended up at the beach.

 

Because the season was started now there where an uncountable army of sellers on the beach who would like to sell you some dodgy necklets. On after the other popped by and set down next to us.

At a time we where surrounded by four of those women for more than 45 minutes. They where just talking in their language (Konkani) and we where talking a bit about them. The sea breeze made me feel a bit better but still not ok so we went off again. We ended up at “Sea Rock” which is one of Liny’s mum favorite places in GOA. There was life music

so we sit there for around 4 to 5 hours after I couldn’t sit there as well not anymore. So we went home where I brought the evening through being pathetic.

Day Nineteen 04-11-10

Today we planned a trip to Arvalem waterfalls, which is a trip of around 35 kilometers. On the way we got a bit lost therefore we ended up on a ferry to bet back on course. This turned out to be quite a nice trip

Here we saw on the lake that we crossed an old method of dredging, where Boskalis (Dutch dredging company) has big ships that consume thousands and thousands of litres of fuel per hour, is this way of dredging more sustainable but less sufficient. The technique is as follow: as a dredger company you do some acquisition to find some people who can swim, you put these guys on a boat, give them a long stick with a bucket at the end and a boat. and let them scrape the sand from the bottom in the bucket into the ship. On the other side of the canal we were surprised by a shower.  we found some shelter in a local bus stop.

Once it was almost dry, we continued to the waterfall which we couldn’t find initially but after an hour search. We found it finally

So after more than 4 hours on the moped ( including 1 hour in the bus stop) we found the waterfall

It was a nice view!! so worth all the hassle to come there. On the way back we were surprised by another storm. so we arrived just like yesterday soaked!

The reason why I think it was raining all the time, is because of the certain god that will be burned tonight!! It is about a evil god called “Ravana”. Ravan being the demon god who was killed by the god Rama, so to celebrate this the effigy (dummy) of Ravana is burnt on the night before Diwali – the festival of lights, calling it the Narakachaturthi. ( See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali for more info about Diwali)

Day Eighteen 03-11-10

Flea Market Day:

 

The day where Liny’s mom is trialling her shop for the second time and the day that we have been washed away by the rain.

The day started off very promising with not too hot not too cold weather, it was the day of the famous Flea market at the Anjuna. It happens every Wednesday during the season time (November- March) where you can buy trinkets to second hand motorbikes . I went there with a limited amount of money because Liny said that I will buy a lot!!!! and she was right after 10 minutes I was broke and I wanted to buy more stuff. So we flew into the restaurant to get some food and not spend much more. However while we were sitting it started drizzling a bit soon after that heaven came down and all the people were running to protect their shop from the rain.

The Flea market was supposed to be from the morning till 7:00 PM. However everyone was gone at around 2:00 PM

After the food, we went also back to get some more money in the hope to buy the things that I wanted. On the way we soaked by the rain unfortunately, once back at the flea market most sellers were gone. Lucky enough sellers were I wanted to buy my stuff from were slow in leaving, so in the end I was able to buy my stuff I wanted.

Around 3’o clock the rain stopped, so Liny and I went roaming around on the moped again. We ended up in some kind of big super market, where I only bought a bar of Cadbury chocolate made in Mumbai. However it had the Brummy name Cadbury on it, it tasted like some chocolate gum. On the way back, we saw some football

and dropped by subway to get a sandwich and landed at a place where they had some live music with power from a generator. Namely, it is very common when it rains that there are electricity cuts. Lucky enough for some reason our place was the only place which had partly electricity (Liny’s mum s house, all the pubs around the place no electricity. We had only two of the four light switches working).

So yeah, not a very interesting day but quite full.

Day seventeen 02-11-10

waking up, going to work (painting), roaming around such a nice day!!!! and a nice life of Goa.

here are some shots of the day

that’s it

Day Sixteen 01-11-10

Painting Day: Painting is how we started the day, namely because Liny’s mum is about to start a small restaurant in Goa. We helped out in painting some parts of the place. It was smoking hot and I was sweating like crazy!!! After an hour and half I was done with it and went out for lunch. After a bit of swimming in Anjuna beach and on to curlies.

As you see life is very easy in Goa, you work for an hour and half and relax for the rest of day by moving from restaurant/bar to restaurant/bar. Taking some pictures………..