Had this accurate description been given beforehand we may never have found ourselves eagerly volunteering for what we thought was an innocent yoga class... Instead an enthusiastic yoga instructor, with a rather sexy (?) ponytail, had us maneuvering into the shape of a banana whispering soothing phrases like "you are a banana", "just be a banana", and my favourite; "a banana doesn't want to be anything other than a banana". I cried inside with laughter, but the seriousness with which the class was delivered meant I held in my giggles and instead something of a snort sneaked out; I quickly pretended it was a deep breath of inhalation (not sure I fooled anyone!). Surprisingly, I felt pretty good following the class, although I wonder how many people can say they've started off their day by pretending to be a banana?
'Goa is a fridge, everyone gets chilled here' was written across someone's corrugated garage door and this local insight has set the tone for our weeks here. When Klas and I checked-in to our little bamboo hut (complete with 4 permanent resident lizards) on sleepy Mandrem Beach in Northern Goa, we immediately felt the extent by which we'd been moving around up to now; we both needed time in one place for a while and to surrender our backpacks. We'd agreed that if we liked Mandrem we'd stay for a fortnight, which is exactly what we did.
As well as the typical sun worshipping, getting stuck into a good book, strolling along the beach and dipping in the ocean, we also spent quite a bit of time with our new friends. Dominik, a friendly Austrian guy who, when he spotted that I was reading 'The White Tiger', came over to share thoughts on the book, and Bart, a charismatic Dutch guy who seemed to attract the ferocious stray dogs on the beach during his early morning walks. The four of us claimed our own set of cushions at the Riverside Cafe, where we were all staying, and worked our way through the locally sourced fresh fruit, gossiped about the scantily clad Russians and let the sunset dictate when it was time for a beer.
After a week, having only seen an area of Goa the size of a toe nail, we felt we should get off our backsides and explore a little more than the area around the next coconut tree! We borrowed one of the waiters' scooters for the day and first headed to the railway station to sort out onward tickets; we would have to leave eventually! On route we witnessed a cow smash into the side of a lorry (it seemed to be okay though), a man on a motorbike carrying a huge tyre around his waist and I realised that Klas' scooting skills were erm.. interesting (although very glad he was driving and not me!); dare we carry on to Panjim, the capital of Goa, by way of the Indian 'Highway' without helmets?? Beach laziness guilt got the better of us - we'd made it this far and had to carry on.
Having made it to Panjim, we wandered through the Portuguese inspired old streets of this pretty, Mediterranean looking city and stopped for a truly delectable Goan feast for lunch which included dried, salted mango; authentic Goan food had proved hard to find close to the beach. We also survived the next part of our scooter excursion to Old Goa where we visited some very old churches, one of the largest in Asia apparently, and the Museum of Christian Art which housed sculptures and artefects too valuable to remain in the churches.
On our way home I nearly got my leg bitten off by a dog who decided to chase our scooter at full pelt after we scared him during his fight with a coconut. With leg intact we were then hailed down by the police and asked to produce an international driving license! Crikey, get me back to the beach for Banana Yoga!
