Everywhere here in India, the drivers are very skilled. They have to be because most drive like demons and don't drive best-up cars and motorcycles.Drivers need good brakes, good horn and good luck! After breakfast on Fri1/22, the girls went to see a Bollywood'ish movie. They vary from region to region. All stories must have love, music and dance and a little fighting. 'One Life, One Love' had them all. Extra bonus for us was a most handsome leading man. Anne googled him, knows everything about him. Just like in real life, the women in the movie wore beautiful saris. There was a intermission, and wait staff came to our seats ready to take our food and
drink orders. Oh, the movie was not in English and there were no subtitles, but we figured it out well enough. Later, Ganesh took us to see the inside of the Mysore palace. Really lovely. Imported stained glass from Belgium, Czechoslovakian chandelier, blown glass from Murano, Carrara marble and more. Then we explored a very large marketplace; we watched people, cows, motorcycles. What a place! That night we had our farewell dinner on the lawn. Before dinner, Ganesh showed some videos from various movies. It was fun to see him just starting to shake his hips. He is too proper to really do that in front of us, but we could tell he probably has some good dance do that in front of us, but we could tell he probably has some good dance moves. Then we were all delighted to see a video from his wedding twenty years ago. You remember we met his wife earlier in the trip. Theirs was an arranged marriage; they each had an opportunity to meet before the wedding, but they trusted the judgment of their families. He looked a bit bashful and she looked SCARED. They are happily married and still enjoy each other. On Sat, we drove back to Bangaluru while Ganesh recapped all we had done since the start of our tour. We've been busy! Anne won a 'Ganesh' bobble head for answering a question. Yes, Priscilla, you also won one. Bangalore is a huge IT hub. Not unusual to see non-Indians so we've lost our warm welcomes. Bummer. Across from our hotel was a shopping center with a store like Whole Foods. Eulaine, I had a chance to retrieve a balloon for a little girl in the mall; her mother said to the little girl 'thank Auntie, you are making her work hard for you'. While I am working hard to get this message out, Anne is arguing with me about the color of her Tshirt. Silly girl, she knows I have some color blindness; why argue with me about it? I told her to massage my feet but she went outside instead. Anyway, we bid 3 of the girls farewell. Michigan Jean was going home via Abbu Dhabi, Chicago, Kalamazoo. Californians Cynthia and Priscilla via Dubai, LAX. Glad we were able to meet them and hope to see them again. Forgot to tell you an amusing story from a couple days ago. Wherever we've gone, most of The time there are limited toilet facilities; even then, sometimes they are just squat toilets . One of the gals, Dolores from Texas had the urge at a stop where there was no toilet available. That problem-solver Ganesh took her to a nice home next door, opened the gate, told her to go to the door, open it and give the owner a sincere Namaste and indicate she needed the toilet. A very gracious Muslim woman welcomed her and refused any money. Don't you just love this place? Even though Bangaluru is a pretty modern city, I did see a goat riding inside a hatchback car. On Sun 1/24 we bid a fond farewell to our Ganesh who proudly shared with us his beloved India. He is a true patriot. We all believe he showed us more than we ever could have expected. In the paper we see that northern India is having a cold spell. Not as severe as our Atlantic coast, but cold by Indian standards. FYI, every rupee bill has the denomination of that bill written in 15 different languages. Every state in India has its own or several languages. Amazing to think 1.3 billion people in India, speaking lots of different languages, writing with different alphabets, all united. So we flew to Goa and met our local guide Maria. Lots of non-Indian sounding names here. The Portuguese were here for 450 years, I believe, and left/were kicked out in 1961. Maria, who does not wear saris, told us Goa is 60% Hindu, 25% Catholic, 10% Muslim. Maria considers herself a Goan first, Indian second. Interestingly, she was born in Uganda; her father died when she was 10 and Idi Amin kicked all 'Asians' out of Uganda; Maria's mother brought her here to Goa where her family lived. Tomorrow is Republic Day here, so it is a long weekend with plenty of Indian tourists here right now. There are ALOT of tourists from Western Europe and Russia here. We saw 3 churches within the old city. The remains of St. Francis Xavier are inside one of them. And I am not kidding you: his body is there kept inside a vacuum in a glass coffin in the church. Not 'bones', but body. Anyway, old Frank died en route on a pilgrimage to China; he wanted to be buried in Goa. Instead, he is on display. Last night we gazed at the full moon over and through palm trees. This morning we met Maria for a walk through this part of town. Then Anne and I walked back to our hotel along the Arabian Sea beach. Anne enjoyed the walk in the sand. We were sweating like oinkers. Forgot to tell you about manually-operated fans we saw inside a church. There's a frame structure over the pews and a sort of row of feathers attached to a pull rope. Servants would stand on the side and pull this row of feathers back and forth, creating a breeze for worshippers. We are still seeing cows along the roads but very few tuk tuks. In the newspaper this morning, I saw a list of scheduled power outages for the week. DTE could take a lesson from them... There's some controversy brewing since a government minister
decided a cocoanut tree is not a real 'tree'. It's got something to do with developers being able to remove them if they are classified as a plant instead of a tree. Hope to remember to ask Maria about it. Later we hope to have dinner overlooking the sea. Btw, Goans usually eat dinner after 8:30 pm,
some even later. Sounds awful, but people take siestas here. Did I say that it is hot, hot, hot here in Goa? On to Mumbai tomorrow afternoon. This has been a wonderful adventure. Come see India for
yourself!
drink orders. Oh, the movie was not in English and there were no subtitles, but we figured it out well enough. Later, Ganesh took us to see the inside of the Mysore palace. Really lovely. Imported stained glass from Belgium, Czechoslovakian chandelier, blown glass from Murano, Carrara marble and more. Then we explored a very large marketplace; we watched people, cows, motorcycles. What a place! That night we had our farewell dinner on the lawn. Before dinner, Ganesh showed some videos from various movies. It was fun to see him just starting to shake his hips. He is too proper to really do that in front of us, but we could tell he probably has some good dance do that in front of us, but we could tell he probably has some good dance moves. Then we were all delighted to see a video from his wedding twenty years ago. You remember we met his wife earlier in the trip. Theirs was an arranged marriage; they each had an opportunity to meet before the wedding, but they trusted the judgment of their families. He looked a bit bashful and she looked SCARED. They are happily married and still enjoy each other. On Sat, we drove back to Bangaluru while Ganesh recapped all we had done since the start of our tour. We've been busy! Anne won a 'Ganesh' bobble head for answering a question. Yes, Priscilla, you also won one. Bangalore is a huge IT hub. Not unusual to see non-Indians so we've lost our warm welcomes. Bummer. Across from our hotel was a shopping center with a store like Whole Foods. Eulaine, I had a chance to retrieve a balloon for a little girl in the mall; her mother said to the little girl 'thank Auntie, you are making her work hard for you'. While I am working hard to get this message out, Anne is arguing with me about the color of her Tshirt. Silly girl, she knows I have some color blindness; why argue with me about it? I told her to massage my feet but she went outside instead. Anyway, we bid 3 of the girls farewell. Michigan Jean was going home via Abbu Dhabi, Chicago, Kalamazoo. Californians Cynthia and Priscilla via Dubai, LAX. Glad we were able to meet them and hope to see them again. Forgot to tell you an amusing story from a couple days ago. Wherever we've gone, most of The time there are limited toilet facilities; even then, sometimes they are just squat toilets . One of the gals, Dolores from Texas had the urge at a stop where there was no toilet available. That problem-solver Ganesh took her to a nice home next door, opened the gate, told her to go to the door, open it and give the owner a sincere Namaste and indicate she needed the toilet. A very gracious Muslim woman welcomed her and refused any money. Don't you just love this place? Even though Bangaluru is a pretty modern city, I did see a goat riding inside a hatchback car. On Sun 1/24 we bid a fond farewell to our Ganesh who proudly shared with us his beloved India. He is a true patriot. We all believe he showed us more than we ever could have expected. In the paper we see that northern India is having a cold spell. Not as severe as our Atlantic coast, but cold by Indian standards. FYI, every rupee bill has the denomination of that bill written in 15 different languages. Every state in India has its own or several languages. Amazing to think 1.3 billion people in India, speaking lots of different languages, writing with different alphabets, all united. So we flew to Goa and met our local guide Maria. Lots of non-Indian sounding names here. The Portuguese were here for 450 years, I believe, and left/were kicked out in 1961. Maria, who does not wear saris, told us Goa is 60% Hindu, 25% Catholic, 10% Muslim. Maria considers herself a Goan first, Indian second. Interestingly, she was born in Uganda; her father died when she was 10 and Idi Amin kicked all 'Asians' out of Uganda; Maria's mother brought her here to Goa where her family lived. Tomorrow is Republic Day here, so it is a long weekend with plenty of Indian tourists here right now. There are ALOT of tourists from Western Europe and Russia here. We saw 3 churches within the old city. The remains of St. Francis Xavier are inside one of them. And I am not kidding you: his body is there kept inside a vacuum in a glass coffin in the church. Not 'bones', but body. Anyway, old Frank died en route on a pilgrimage to China; he wanted to be buried in Goa. Instead, he is on display. Last night we gazed at the full moon over and through palm trees. This morning we met Maria for a walk through this part of town. Then Anne and I walked back to our hotel along the Arabian Sea beach. Anne enjoyed the walk in the sand. We were sweating like oinkers. Forgot to tell you about manually-operated fans we saw inside a church. There's a frame structure over the pews and a sort of row of feathers attached to a pull rope. Servants would stand on the side and pull this row of feathers back and forth, creating a breeze for worshippers. We are still seeing cows along the roads but very few tuk tuks. In the newspaper this morning, I saw a list of scheduled power outages for the week. DTE could take a lesson from them... There's some controversy brewing since a government minister
decided a cocoanut tree is not a real 'tree'. It's got something to do with developers being able to remove them if they are classified as a plant instead of a tree. Hope to remember to ask Maria about it. Later we hope to have dinner overlooking the sea. Btw, Goans usually eat dinner after 8:30 pm,
some even later. Sounds awful, but people take siestas here. Did I say that it is hot, hot, hot here in Goa? On to Mumbai tomorrow afternoon. This has been a wonderful adventure. Come see India for
yourself!
Basilica of Bom Jesus were the body of St. Francis Xavier is interned in a vacuum sealed glass coffin
Streets of Goa
Walking to the beach, I couldn't resist the following two photos - - Goa's Electric Dept. & a cable marker on the sidewalk like a cemetery headstone
Walkway to the beach in Goa
Selling fresh fish in Goa
Market in Goa
Our beach side spot for Kingfisher beer, fried calamari, grilled King prawns, grilled red snapper, watching people parasailing and a marvelous sunset over the Arabian Sea!
Ganesh and the prize winner with her Ganesh bobble head doll
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