Arriving at the at the train station at 6am in Magaon, we waited for
2 hours on the platform, even the next train came before ours. This trip was
hot and long, as we didn’t book a seat in AC (air conditioning). Jacquie had
her first stomach problem, so she slept for most of the journey. With us there
were a middle age Indian couple. The lady pointed out to us every time there
was something to see outside, a nice view of the jungle, a waterfall etc... Later
in the trip she tried to talk to us with her limited English and in the end
resorted to giving us a picture of her favourite guru: Baba-ji. This excellent
passport sized photo that she produced from her purse looked like a cutting
from a magazine out of the 1980s. A dark skinned man wearing an all in one
orange robe sporting a huge fuzzy afro. Excellent! When we arrived in Goa the hills were covered by a
thick jungle and we could imagine the train was like a big snake winding its
way along the mountain side, in and out of tunnels. We arrived in Madgaon at
night, checked in to an hotel (with AC!) and rested to be ready for the next
day. Madgaon was a fun place, quite laid back with a very different vibe from
the other Indian cities we had visited. Many buildings had a distinct
Portuguese colonial feel and there was a nice well kept public garden in the centre
of town. Walking around we managed to find several interesting cakes to eat,
including the famous and unique Bebinca. A layered eggy cake that combines
aspects of Indian and Portuguese cooking to create a very tasty an unique
dessert. Jacqui is now looking for a recipe J
We started the day by a dry toast breakfast and set off on an
adventure. We saw on the lonely planet a little ferry that we could take to
cross a river, so we decided take the bus to Cavalossim (a nice touristy town
with a beach with white sand) and walked to the ferry. However, the ferry was
not as close as we thought and the river was not that big ether! We followed
the road to the ferry to the end at the river, we finally saw the ferry which
was used by local pedestrians, motorbikes and cars, not so exiting, but the
river was really beautiful and peaceful and we saw the local fishermen swimming
next to their boats. At the other side of the river we asked a guy with a posh
car for a lift to a nearby town but instead the guy took us a bit further to a
bus stop near a fruit street vendor in town. We waited 5 minutes and a guy with
bad English (and worse teeth!) started to speak to us to tell us several times that
the bus for Cabo de Rama was at 12.30pm at the corner of the road and also it
was Sunday so few buses were operating. Another bus arrived and we decided to
take this one instead because it stopped at the “bus station” in a nearby town (or
more several buses parked next to each other) and we still could take our bus
for Cabo de Rama from there. On the bus we saw some local Goan women who had a
very different style to Indian ladies. Instead of the red and while chains of
flowers in the hair they wore a red rose. Instead of saris they wore a blouse
with flowers and a severe pencil skirt – all very Portuguese. At the bus station
we bought few things to eat (some fried potatoes) for lunch and waited for the next
bus. Near the shop some guys were playing a strange game, it was on a table but
it looked like a cross between snooker and curling. They had to slide a “puck” to
hit the other player’s pieces and to pot them into a pocket in the corner of
the table.
The bus finally arrived and we finally made it to our destination 30
minutes later. Cabo de Rama is an old ruined Portuguese fort on a cliff
sticking out into the sea. We went around the fort for one and a half hours
seeing local people snorkelling off the rocks and we had a stunning view of the
sea and Goan coastline. In the fort wall at one point there was a little
passage down to a little beach, we decided to go down and investigate and put
our feet in the hot blue sea. The driver of the last bus told us that another
bus came at 3pm to Palolem, our next destination, but 3pm arrived and…
no bus. We decided to go to the bar beside to ask, we met a nice French couple
and two completely drunk guys saying that we were like their children and we
were a nice people etc etc, In the end we discovered that Sunday in Goa is
worse than france! There were no buses in Cabo de Rama for Palolem. The owner
of the bar called a taxi for us (probably her husband…) to go to our next
destination and as could be expected it was quite expensive 600rps (10euro). It
was still a fun drive through the countryside listening to Goan music on Root
FM stopping to give someone’s grandma a lift on the way!
Finally we managed to get to the beach and to have a little swim in
sea full of tourists (western and local). It was crazy to see the local girls
swimming fully clothed in sari’s next to the western girls in tiny bikinis! At
the end of the day we needed to take the bus to Magaon for the night, but
Sunday in Goa it’s difficult to move, the last bus to go back was at 5.30pm and we missed it by 30 minutes. So we went to the bus station of a
nearby town and waited for the last bus of the day which supposed to arrive at 6.30 pm but as usual it was late of 30 minutes and full of people.
What a day!
The next day we took the train from Madgaon to Mumbai, it’s a 12
hours journey.
