One happy thing I forgot to mention a few days back: when we were waiting for our bus to leave Dharamsala, our friend Palden came on to the bus to surprise us and say goodbye. He had a bracelet for each of us. It was nice to be able to see him again and say goodbye. I only wish we had a gift for him too.
Our time in Palolem has been very relaxing so far. There actually aren't that many people selling things on the beach as we thought there would be. It's pretty much the same young girls runnning up to us. Yesterday two got to talking with us and convinced us, against our better judgement, to look at their jewelry. They laid out sarongs for our princess-selves to sit on while they unloaded their bags of trinkets, bracelets, silver, and pendants and splayed them out before us. Everything you touched or showed some vague interest in they set aside and insisted that we put a pile together of things we liked before they gave us a price. So, just for fun, I picked out several things. In the meantime, two other older ladies (probably relatives) came up and sat with the group of us to give the two young girls some extra bargaining power and support I imagine. When it came time to find out the price I was flabbergasted to hear her price quote of Rs. 1050 (about $21US). I then unpicked from my pile a bracelet with glass beads (they were insisting they were stones) and some other things and left myself with two carved stone dolphin pendants. She said they were Rs. 150 each but I managed to get them both for that price. Magi had a sandalwood necklace sized to fit her and paid Rs. 100 for it. We were both satisfied with our purchases and we walked back to our room to do some reading while the rain poured outside.
Today we woke up late and noticing the sun was out, we meandered down to the beach. We walked for about an hour admiring and collecting some very unique seashells with beautiful patterns. We ate some Indian dishes at a hangout that seems popular with travellers. It's really different here in terms of local to travellers ratio. I mean, it's still mostly locals but we see more tourists here than any other place we have been (we hardly see anyone anywhere so it's not that hard to see more).
It is Independance Day today in India which they say is the biggest federal holiday of them all. We have seen a few plastic Indian flags hanging from motorcycles but here in Palolem things are pretty quiet. Goa was colonized by the Portuguese and the locals look a like a mix between southern Europeans and Indians. The Hindu temples are replaced with crosses and Virgin Mary statues decorated with Christmas lights. Sadly, the food is not that great around here. Indian food takes second place to Portuguese dishes made of fish (and there is none of that around either). We are resigned to sticking with staple dishes like Aloo Gobi (potato curry) and rice. We tried the local alcohol last night called Feni. It's cashew liquor which sounded great but was much too strong for our liking (hard cider is about as strong as we get). We ended up having to drown it in Pepsi and close our eyes tight to drink it in large guzzles.
We'll probably be here in Palolem for two more nights before heading to the state of Karnataka.
tothesea,
k&m