Goa, India (By Kev)

20.3.2025. Today is my birthday, I'm 45. Getting bloody old, and cranky! Honestly, it's just another day to me, nothing special. I know however, it is special to others. I see that with the messages received, phone calls and how I feel when it's someone I care abouts birthday. Mel always posts something on fb, and I like that. The best thing tho is the little things I got from the kids. We're travelling so we can't pack presents or a cake, so what did I get? Some little notes and pictures from them, adorable. I received an award for being an awesome dad, debatable. Andrew made up a PowerPoint presentation for me, I think he just wanted to use his computer(kidding). But the best thing was the cuddles, they're tighter and longer cuddles on your birthday, love it. Also, it's moving day, yay! Pack all our stuff again and get going. We organised with our taxi driver from 2 days previous to pick us up and run us to the train station at 11am. At 11:15, he still wasn't here. He forgotten or got a better offer. An old guy in a Tuktuk cruised past, honked and looked at us. Waved him down, yep mate we'll take a ride. Bags and kids loaded up, we were off to the station. Turned out way cheaper than what the taxi would of been. It was just after lunchtime and we're hungry. There's a veg restaurant attached to the station, how bad could it be? Turns out, pretty bloody good. We all had a tasty meal, except Emma who is having a little trouble with the food here. Getting grumpy with her isn't going to fix anything, and she's not gonna die from starvation any time soon. Just something to ride out with her. Now we just have to wait for our train, should be here in an hour or so. Nope, it's delayed. Supposed to be here at 3, now 4, great. 4 o'clock turns up it still not here. Guy from the station comes over to check on us, “you've been here long time, what's your train”. We tell him our train number, according to him it's about to arrive and we should move to our spot on the platform. So we do, tho we haven't heard an announcement. We go and stand near the spot where our coach is supposed to pull up, and wait. How long did we wait? Not sure, another 10-15mins, couldn't tell you for sure. But finally, around 4:30 our train arrives. We have to haul arse and get on because it's only stopping here for 1min. We kick the kids and jump on, find our seats and settle in. We were scheduled to arrive in Goa at 7pm, that's gonna be 8pm now. As we travelled along, Mel kept checking the trains progress on a website they found. We're getting later and later. We finally get to Goa, it's 9:30pm and too late to go out and find some dinner. So, we showered and put the kids to bed. Mel apologised that I didn't have a great birthday, that they had planned travel on this day. I reassure that it doesn't bother me, it's just another day to me really. I spent another day with my lot, in other words, I had a good day.
21.3.2025. 45 and one day today. We had a slow start since we had a late night. Unpacked our things a bit as we're here for seven days and really checked out the place. Two rooms with a queen bed in each, great. An aircon in each room, brilliant. Turns out we don't need the AC, it's nice and cool with just the fans. There's a small kitchenette with a fridge, sweet. Downstairs there's a water filter/purifier so we have access to plenty of water, outstanding! You start to realise just how easy we have it in Australia, when you can't trust water out of the tap. When you have to check the bottles you get from restaurants because there is counterfeit water bottles here that are just untreated tap water. We haven't found one yet, but you have to check. I took for granted being able to drink straight out of the tap/hose any time I want. People still sook about fluoride in the water, for fucks sake, just drink your fresh and safe water, that's pumped directly to your house! What did we do after that? We went to a supermarket, got some juice to put in the fridge. Got some butter and cheese, to put in the fridge. Got some eggs for breakfast, they're in the fridge! Simple things, I know, but you don't realise how much you miss it until you don't have it. This new place we're at is the best so far. It's cool, it's comfortable, it's got conveniences, it's got laundry. It’s a bit far from things but eh, nothing’s perfect. After putting our groceries away and having some lunch, we did some more planning for the next part of our trip. In the evening we walked to a restaurant we found on Google, turns out it's actually there. Google has sent us astray a few times, so we're always pleasantly surprised when it's right. Tried a new beer, People's beer. Brewed here in Goa and only allowed to be sold in Goa. Glad we found it as it tastes pretty good. Tried a new type of spirit too, called feni. Distilled from fermented cashew fruit. Didn't know cashews had a fruit too, weird looking things. We ate the fruit in Laos, they called the Laos fruit, bit like an apple to eat but not as sweet. Check it out, looks funny. The feni was ok, not my favourite so Mel finished it. Home and sleep.
22.3.2025. We have a taxi booked for 9 to take us to a waterfall. Before any of that tho, I cooked toad-ina-hole for everyone for breakfast, if you don't know what that is or call it something else, I'm talking about bread with a hole in the middle fried in butter, and you cook an egg in the hole. They all love it. It's been months since we had one. We were getting ready for our day, when Mel's phone says our taxi is on the way. Shit, it's only 8:15, we had it booked for 9. Quickly get our gear ready, by that I mean I left my phone and battery pack on the bed when we took off. Hopped in the taxi, who was starting to drive off looking for us and set off for the water fall. About an hour and a half ride, we stopped short of the waterfall. Google says we still have 30mins to go. Our driver parked, and asked if we had a taxi back. After we said we had to organise that yet, he said he would wait and take us back after. Helpful I suppose and he gets paid both ways. We were notified by a bloke there that to get to the falls you had to take a 4wd, supplied by the park the waterfall is in. Ok, fine, how do we do that? We get taken over to a counter, “have you booked tickets online”? Um no, didn't know we had to. 192rupees if you booked online per person, 540 if you haven't. Checked online to book, need an India number to book online, well that's friggin helpful, guess we're paying full price. Our taxi driver, who stuck with us to make sure we were ok I guess, booked for us online with his number, helpful again. Saved us a bit of money, which we then spent. So, bought tickets to enter the park, went around to another counter where we now had to pay for the 4wd to take us to the waterfall. Around 4000 rupees, bloody hell I just wanna a ride I don't wanna buy it. Then around to another counter where we had to get lifejackets, yep compulsory they are at the waterfall. Though we didn't use them and the lifeguards at the bottom of the waterfall didn't seem to care. We think it's because in India, swimming isn't a life skill they learn early in life like Australia, so they mandate lifejackets. We hopped in a “jeep”, a busted old Indian 4wd that has done this rough road a squillion times, stopped to pay a 100rupee each forest entry fee each and bumped our way 30mins to said waterfall. When we got there we got told we had 90mins to be back, after all this we had a time limit. Walked into the place, smaller than I thought it would have been. Lots of people, and as we stayed more and more turned up. We had started our way back to the jeep, when I heard “my friend, we need to go”. It was our jeep driver, come to get us. I said yeah mate we're on our way, payed a bloody lot to come in here ya know. On our way back I asked, how long he worked as a jeep driver. 10 years was his answer. Who owns the jeeps? The forestry does. How many jeeps are there in total? 450 he told me. 450 jeeps, running in and out, with up to 7 people per jeep! No wonder they only let you stay for an hour and a half. That's a lot of paying people moving through the place. I agree it's not a big enough place to let that many people stay as long as they want, and honestly after 20min of swimming in cold water I was done. We got back to the entrance and our taxi driver found us. Led us back to his car and we were soon heading back. On the way back, I thought to myself. That's a shitload of money moving through that place, where the bloody hell does it all go. It doesn't go to the upkeep of the road that's for sure. It doesn't go to keeping the forest clean. Who's pocket does it stop in? I won't dig too deep, lest the authorities come after me. So, an expensive 40-50min swim at a waterfall. We're still alive so it wasn't all bad I guess. We got back and had a late lunch. Rested and refreshed, by that I mean we made some stinky kids have a shower. Made our way to the beach. Mel had found that a bar here, the Tiki Bab, was having a rock fest night. That was right up our alley, some local Indian bands playing some rock covers. Was supposed to start at 7, so that's when we got there. Warm ups for 2 hours and finally kicked off proper at 9. The kids played on the beach for ages. We left a bit after 10, as Emma was knocking up. We only got to the second group out of three, and there hadn't been any original music, which we had hoped for. It was a fun evening with a few beers, none of which were local stuff(big disappointment), had to lower myself to drinking Budweiser, might go without next time. Made our way back to our room and crashed.
23.3.2025. We contacted some good friends this morning and had a chat. Was nice to catch up, 2 hours flew by and i'm sure we could have chatted for longer. After that we were off to a museum I found, well actually three museums in one area. Three museums and a cafeteria in one place. Sweet, there's the rest of the day and lunch taken care of. Walked there as its only 20min from our stay. Had to have a tour guide, which was ok, but we felt rushed, “come, come, this way”. Well, turns out, when I feel a bit rushed I get more interested in things and start asking more questions. He seemed happy to answer, but kept checking his phone. For a place that claims it has 40,000 artifacts, stretching over 1500 years and me pushing back to slow us down a bit, we were still done in 50mins or so. We finished the tour, and asked about the cafeteria. No that's closed, great. I try to plan stuff and this is how it works out for me, maybe I need to stop trusting google maps so much. Well now we need to find a place for lunch, ah good old google maps. Found a restaurant and off we went. Yep that place is closed too, get stuffed google maps. Now what? We walked about 40 metres, there's this little family restaurant on a corner. Yep that'll do, in we went. Language barrier, what language barrier. Food ordered, drinks ordered, never got the drinks but hey. The guy came and put a cold water bottle on our table, Mel grabbed it and took the lid off. It wasn't sealed, Mel was taking a REAL good look at it when the guy came back and said something like “mistake, India only water” and gave us a different bottle. This one was sealed and was a brand we had before. The food was good, I had chicken biryani and it was very nice. Mel's, as it seems with vegetarian food here, was very spicy. Emma had plain rice, as I said before she is being a little difficult with food atm. Andrew is starting to enjoy his food more again, which is encouraging. While we were waiting for and while we were eating our food. We noticed the mum, watching us while she made our chapati. Watching with a smile. I think the smile was because we were different, but we enjoyed her food. We were different, but still the same, a family. We've been watched a lot since we got to India, but not like this. We had a small laugh together when she came to sit nearer to us and we tried our best to explain that the kids don't like too much spicy. Her smile was genuine and beautiful and it made my day. This small connection was more to me than seeing a museum. Happy and full, we headed back to our room. Laundry time and some blogging.
24.3.2025. We organised another taxi to take us to an area and drop us there, from there we'd make our way across the city to our end spot. First stop was a science museum. It was a pretty good museum, lots of interesting and interactive things for the kids to do. Optical illusion stuff, marble run things and electric/magnetic activities. That was just the first room. We watched a 3d movie about the sea. Sat back in a planetarium and learnt about the sun. Sat in on a small science show. There was an exhibit on the ocean, including a quiz game. A whole room full of mirrors and the illusions they can create, also a mirror maze. Outside, there's all sorts of devices. One which focused your voice, and directed it 15m away where it was then channeled to another person's ear. You could hear clearly from that far away, outside, without shouting. Others that helped us understand pendulums, levers and pulleys. The kids saw how a lever could help you pick up something you otherwise wouldn't be able to move. All in all a fun museum. After that was lunch time, we'd spent nearly three hours in the museum. We kept on moving to our next stop. One thing we've worked out about this place is it's bloody huge! We walked for ages! Eventually, we found what we were looking for. A temple. It looked good on Google maps(yep google), in reality, it's pretty small. Looked closed too, oh well. Well let's not dwell on this minor setback, it was only 40mins or so of walking. Let's move onto the next spot we selected in our tour. Believe it or, we were starting to run out of daytime. We were hoping to see a bit more than we had actually managed to so far, and it was looking like we were gonna have to choose between two. We chose to visit the Immaculate Conception church, as it was big and white and closed. Yep closed, we walked and walked and stopped for a drink cause it was stinking hot and walked some more. The steps up to the church were roped off, foiled again. Well that was that, we sat there for a while trying to work out what to do next. Truth was, not much. It was getting dark and we'd had enough. We messaged our taxi driver and made the long trip back to our room. Shower time because the kids were smelly, then a movie and bed. Our day didn't go completely to plan and we were reminded just how big this place is.
25.3.2025. We're getting to know our taxi driver, Raza. We're happy to stick with him, it's been a bloody nightmare trying to organise taxis or Tuktuks here. Uber doesn't work in Goa and other apps or websites have been shit. This is a bit more expensive but it works. Any way he took us to Old Goa today, more churches. At least these ones are open. The first was Basilica of Bom Jesus, which was built in 1605. Walked across the street to Se Cathedral, then a museum at the back of it. Then a short walk up to the ruins of St Augustine Church, which collapsed after it was left abandoned when this sect of religion was driven out. While the ruins are fascinating, the whole church would have been amazing to look upon. There is a tower still standing, which is 46m high. Walked back down to a restaurant we saw on the way up, fed the masses. I may have said it before, there's good food here. A quick message to Raza, he picked us up in the parking lot and we were off to another part of Goa. It was time to see one of the many forts at Goa. Built in 1612 by the Portuguese to protect the river and Goa. Aguada Fort, a massive fort with a huge water reservoir in the middle fed by a fresh water spring. Said to hold 2,376,000 gallons of water, which they used to resupply ships. After the fort, we stopped at some boats. Raza had told us on the way in that the boats would take you out for an hour to spot some dolphins. Why not! Off we went, into the blue. Within 15min we had our first sighting. We cruised around “chasing” the dolphins. There were 6-7 boats from this company and another big boat joined in from another company. All racing around chasing dolphins. I can't help but think about what we're doing to the dolphins. Sure it was exciting to see them, but as soon as one came up the area was surrounded by boats. They need to fish, they need to breathe. Are we interfering too much? As far as I know the boats run in and out all day. Maybe, after years and years of being annoyed by people now they don't give a shit about us and just go about their business. I hope so. It was time to head back again, hours out in the heat knocks you around.
26.3.2025. Another day, another taxi ride with Raza. This time to another part of Goa, for a cooking class. We learnt about masala tea and were shown how to make it. We were shown how to make cinnamon coffee, as well. We didn't prepare everything, but we got to make our own porotta and masala. We mixed and kneaded dough. We rolled it out and cooked it up. We mixed and fried spices, marinated chicken and tofu. Cooked everything up and smashed it afterwards. Bloody tasty, we were all stuffed. On the way back, we stopped at a new Hindu temple. It was almost completely made of white marble and was carved all by hand. After that, back to the homestay, organise with Raza for our last taxi ride tomorrow to the train station. Inside, coffee, blog. That is all.
27.3.2025. Moving day. Pack bags and head out for some breakfast. Back to the room, finish packing, finish blogging. Move upstairs to the covered roof and wait until it's time to go to the station, about 4 hours.
KevRead more