Vamos a la playa

Monday March 23rd, Tuesday March 24th, Wednesday March 25th

Goa is only a short flight from Mumbai (around 50 minutes) and is THE vacation destination for most Indians--besides “Are you married? No?! And you have no boyfriend??!!” the next most popular question I have received from people I meet in India is “Have you gone to Goa yet?“ So of course, we had to go.

We hit it at the end of the tourist season, so it wasn’t crowded and it was hot, but we didn’t mind too much. After another harrowing taxi ride from the airport to our hotel (yes, this seemed to be a theme for the week) we checked into our digs at the Ronil Royale (nice, clean budget hotel, minus the cockroach our second night) and walked around the area on Baga Beach where we were staying before making our way over to Britto’s Restaurant for a few beers while watching the sunset. A delightfully relaxing way to spend the afternoon, I highly recommend it. We hit a Portuguese restaurant for dinner called La Fontana that was cute, had excellent service (not always the norm in India), and delicious. Goa has a huge Portuguese influence, and the chocolate and bananas for dessert really did not disappoint.



Traveling in India, however, is not always smooth (reference aforementioned taxi rides here, also bumpy auto rikshaws). Our first full day in Goa, we headed to the beach early. A staff member at our hotel warned us the guys on the beach would try to charge us for the beach chairs, but that they were really free. Soon we found this was, indeed, the case, as our pleasant morning turned out to be a bit more intense after I engaged in some arguing with the Beach Chair Dudes who tried to charge us for our chairs. (As an aside, this week also marked the turning point for me in that I Started to Get Tougher with People Trying to Rip Me Off).


Eventually, we found a few that we did not have to pay for, but soon found that going to Goa at the end of tourist season did not ensure peace and quiet, but rather that seemingly everyone (kids, men, women, dogs) would try to sell you everything from pedicures to parasailing to Bob Marley t-shirts. Alas, the best recourse was to pretend to sleep, as reading or listening to music meant that you could, indeed, still be approached to buy something from the persistent vendors.

This little guy, however, was content sleeping under our chairs

We did decide, however, to do parasailing. Around noon we boarded a boat arranged by our very persistent new friend Mike who had staked his claim to our business around 9 a.m. by leaving a life jacket next to our chairs. A few men from the British Navy joined us in our parasailing adventure, which was fun but surprisingly peaceful--knowing nothing about parasailing prior to this venture, I had anticipated more of a thrill, but really it was totally calm and not all that thrilling at all, but the view was amazing, and I was still very excited about it.




We spent our afternoon eating great seafood and drinking big beers with our new parasailing friends and our favorite Goa waiter, Tomas. After some encouraging we also road the Banana Boat, which is where you straddle a long boat shaped like a banana and a bigger boat pulls you and tries to throw you off. Yes, this is as fun as it sounds, but we soon realized that the Arabian Sea is very, very salty.

HOLLA!

A banana boat. Booyeah.

The afternoon turned into evening with dinner, drinks, a lost cab driver, and Jes and I playing the role of heartbreakers to our British suitors. So sorry, dudes.

One day was enough beach action for us, so the next morning after our free hotel brekky we hired a driver (who told us to call him Steve, but his name was Santosh) to take us to the Anjunta Market nearby which is held every Wednesday. Despite the fact that it was HOT HOT HOT, we managed to get some killer deals. However, vendors were even more desperate to sell than we were to buy; most of our business went to the less-aggressive salespeople.

We caught a late lunch at Jaime’s Lunch Place, where we were the only patrons but I had the best vegetarian briyani I have had since arriving. We then got Steve/Santosh to drive us to Old Goa and hit up some historic churches and then to the city of Panjim where we stopped outside another church and at Blooming Dales (as a favor to Steve/Santosh) before having some sweet lime soda and lassi.

Yes we are representin’ with our Home Girl Mary

That night took us back to Britto’s for dinner this time, where the seafood reigned and where Steve/Santosh and his friend Nelson Mandela (so he dubbed himself) joined us for a drink and then a longer-than-planned motorcycle ride. Needless to say, that was the end of us hanging out with them. (In case you are keeping track, that’s Leah & Jes 2, Dudes 0 on the Heartbreaker’s Score Card).

CO Girls Reunite

Saturday March 21st 2009 and Sunday March 22nd 2009

When I told friends that I was going to India for an extended period, there were several who expressed interest in visiting, but only a few who I knew that, without a doubt, would be making the trek. My friend Jes and I met in Denver in Spring 2005 when she joined our infamous Friends of the Poudre softball team. Since our days on the ball field we’ve become great friends, and I was very excited to have her come visit.

Jes arrived on Saturday night, and we navigated to the Sea View Hotel in Juhu after a, shall we say, interesting taxi ride from the airport. Happy to have arrived in one piece, we spent a small amount of time admiring the zebra-striped pillows on our furniture before my friend Chirag and his friend Hardik picked us up to go have a few drinks at H2O bar in Bandra. Jet lag be damned, Jes was ready to brave the Mumbai night life! We spent that evening catching up with a few drinks, and enjoyed a stroll on the beach the next morning and a great breakfast at a café nearby while we planned our day.




We ended up deciding to take a tour of the Dharvi Slum, which if I remember right is the largest slum in India (maybe the world--not sure here), and where some of the film Slumdog Millionaire was shot. First though, we made stops at Fab India so Jes could buy some Indian threads, and stopped at Tewari Brothers so she could try her first ever Samosa (which she loved).

Soon after we met with our young tour leader and one other tourist from Sweden and began the 2 ½ hour tour of Dharvi (this is the short version--a longer tour is nearly 5 hours; we were not allowed to take photos while on the tour, but they did email me some a few weeks later). The tour was extremely interesting, as the slum is an epicenter for all sorts of commerce--recycling centers, bakeries, tailors, etc.

About 30 minutes into our tour, our guide excused himself to go get a friend who was late meeting us, so the three of us waited in a large warehouse, where a man brought us (in a plastic baggie) the hottest chai I have had since arriving. I assured Jes it was safe for her to drink--anything that hot would have killed any and all bacteria--but if you would have asked me a year ago if I would have been sitting on a stool in a warehouse in the Dharvi slum drinking chai with guys who worked there, I would have thought you mad. Better yet, if you would have asked Jes 24 hours earlier if she would be doing that, she would have REALLY thought you were crazy.

Our tour resumed and we weaved our way through narrow alleys and around goats and children, checked out pottery businesses, passed by butcher shops, schools, and yes, even a drunk man lying in the street (every town has one, Jes had remarked). Dharvi really is a city within the vast city that is Mumbai; we were both very glad we took the tour. Also, proceeds go towards an NGO run in the slum. The tour company has permission to lead the tours (and it is recommended by Lonely Planet, for those curious) and I felt it was a respectful and educational way to see daily life there; highly recommended if you have the chance/interest.

Notice that we are GLOWING, not sweating…

My favorite sign in the Reality Tours office

We made our way through crazy Sunday evening traffic, stopping at the Shoe Stalls on Linking Road (again, near that 3-story KFC), but this proved to be a bit straining as it was packed, and we were not quite up for bargaining. Instead, we headed back, and dinner that night was at a very tasty restaurant called Mahesh Lunch Home, where we had a very large crab (note our waiter modeling it below) and way too much seafood. After suitably stuffing ourselves, we made our way to Vie Lounge for a few drinks. A bit posh for our style (and our price ranges, drinks in Mumbai are big-city prices at a lot of places) we called it a night after that, as the next morning we were flying to Goa.

Earthquakes, microbrews, and mini-penguins

Wednesday March 18th - Friday March 20th

I spent the morning having a smoothie (I ate a LOT of fruit in Australia as it is a much safer option here than back in Mumbai) and walking around Bay Street, looking at all the little shops before catching a bus a short distance to the South Melbourne Market, where I picked up some tools to fix some broken jewelry and met S& G for lunch where I indulged in a treat reminiscent of my time in Spain in 2001, chocolate y churros.

That afternoon I decided to take a ferry trip to the small town of Williamstown. I bypassed the portion of the tour that involved sitting inside the boat and spent the two hour trip on the back of the boat with the wind in my hair, chatting with a couple from Germany who has lived in Melbourne for 3 years working for GM but is slated to go back soon to Germany as their contracts are ending.

Unfortunately, the last two river cruises of the day were cancelled, so I did not get a chance to walk around Williamstown but I did get some great water pix, even though I did not garner any historical information from the tour.

Pic of one of the many bridges in Melbourne.

After I got off the boat, I had a call from Sarah telling me there had been an earthquake--I had not noticed because I was on the water, but apparently this is not an uncommon occurrence. I can now say I have experienced my first earthquake, though I am not sure it REALLY counts if I didn’t feel it.

Before meeting Sarah I headed over to the Eureka SkyDeck, which is a deck on the 88th floor of a building and the elevator shoots you up in 40 seconds (I videotaped it on the way down; it’s true). I really just wanted some aerial shots of Melbourne. However, while I was there Gareth phoned and I then realized it was probably not the smartest idea to go to the tallest building in the city directly following earth tremors. I soon descended and met Sarah and we trammed it over to the Mountain Goat Brewery.

View from the Eureka SkyDeck.

The Mountain Goat is only open on Wednesdays and Fridays, and a woman is the head brewer and two women were working behind the bar. After being in India for two months and finding almost 0% of women working in any public service industries, it was an interesting change. Plus the space was beautiful, lots of brick and high ceilings, and we got a short tour where we were highly encouraged to bring our beers along with us.

Sarah with her sampler.

I would not be a good friend if I let her drink alone.

Following pizza and some gazing at some handsome Australian men at the brewery (yes, for Patti and others wondering, one of them was even red-haired and bearded) we trammed it to try and make it to St. Kilda Pier to see the Little Penguins in the wild. This turned out to be more of an adventure than first planned, as the tram was broken and we had to bus it over and then re-tram it. I was very grateful that S&G were willing to put up with my desire to see the penguins--they come out at night only, and it is no guarantee we see them, but we saw three! No photos allowed, but it was awesome and totally made me happy.

After we walked over to the Esplanade AKA Espy Bar, where we watched some live rock music but more interestingly, a woman dancing who was some peculiar combination of ballerina/Broadway dancer. I also had my first and most likely last Alcopop--pre-mixed Jim Beam and Coke.

Senor and I were not fans of the Alcopop.

The next morning I had an adventure today trying to find a post office to send off a few postcards, and by the time I got them mailed off, it was almost time for me to meet Sarah for lunch one last time and grab a coffee. After a great lunch we said goodbye, and I headed back to the Queen Victoria Market to get some pix of some of the meat market. Perhaps also it was some sort of subconscious telling me to hang out with meat as much as I could now, before returning to my mostly veg diet, but I also wore my hot dog shirt, so I was a big hit at the market.

I then headed over to the Australian Center for the Moving Image, but most of their exhibits were closed for renovation, so I then headed to the Ian Cooper Australian Art Museum, where I was able to take in some interesting art regarding space and stars and some great Aboriginal Art. I then trammed it over to St. Kilda again to go to a small art gallery that has an exhibit every February-March called the postcard exhibit, which is over 2,200 works of art that are small-ish. Since I did not know if I will return to Melbourne again in these two months, I took the opportunity to see it and was not disappointed.

Gareth gave me a ride to the airport around 6:30 that night, and thus ended this chapter of my time in Australia. Though I spent all my in Melbourne, it is a beautiful city with many friendly Aussies and I could see myself returning here or living here, or in a city like it. It was so great to see Sarah and Gareth too and have the Colorado connection back.

Whilst (as the Aussies say) in the airport, I was asked to complete a 15 minute survey about Australian tourism. Being a researcher, I can never turn down when people ask me to do a survey, and I happily complied, only to realize that I definitely do want to return to the Land Down Under. I also realized that Australian chicken flavored potato chips don’t, indeed, taste that much like chicken.

Once on the plane to Singapore-Dubai-Mumbai, I tuned into the Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman flick “Australia.” As corny as that sounds, the movie was even cornier, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

I finally arrived back in Mumbai around 3 p.m. on Friday, and instead of taking a cab was determined to find a Rik--not such an easy task walking with my pack and having some blisters on my heels from my new lavendar shoes. But I was able to locate one, and the minute I stepped off the plane I welcomed back the Smells of Mumbai; very distinct and always, always there.

I spent the rest of the day unpacking and repacking and organizing, as my friend Jessie from Denver was to fly in the next night (Saturday March 21st) for a week stay here! Reports of adventures to come…

What kind of fried balls would you like?

Monday, March 16 and Tuesday March 17th

S&G had to work during the day while I was in Melbourne, so I ventured out on my own. Luckily for me, Sarah’s family had just visited and her mom had left the Melbourne Lonely Planet book. I hopped on a tram and wasn’t quite sure of my destination, and got off near the National Gallery of Victoria, but first had a coffee at the Eiffel Tower.

Melbournians love their coffee, to my delight. I swear my coffee consumption has increased exponentially since my travels began in January. I next headed into the National Gallery of Victoria and saw special exhibits on Bagetti, Fashion (it was also the Loreal Fashion Week in Melbourne this week) and on satire from France and England in the mid to late 1800s, my faves being cartoons depicting wives in rebellion against their husbands.

Following the gallery, I decided to hop on the free tourist bus for a few stops, which let me off in China Town where I wandered around to some different spots and eventually found myself outside of the Parliament building. Later on, I ended up going to the Roof Top Bar, where I had a pint ($9.50! But so tasty--beer is wildly pricey here) and enjoyed the Melbourne skyline while listening to a Dylan album with a few hipsters.

Beware the Neanderthal Blood!!!

Later I wandered into a few different boutiques and record stores and enjoyed my time perusing the stacks before I had a delightful lunch of dumplings at, where else, Chinese Dumplings restaurant. Melbourne has a lot of Dumps places, and I was not disappointed, plus, they gave me a bendy straw for my Coke. My next step though was very unplanned--going into a shoe store and buying a pair of metallic turquoise pointy shoes and a pair of lavender flats. Nevermind they were totally unneeded.

The rest of my walk about the CBD (Commercial Business District) lead me to another record store, down some laneways, and eventually back to Federation Square, which is directly opposite Flinder’s Street Station.

There Sarah and I had a pint while waiting for Gareth and then we stumbled upon a delightful restaurant for dinner which had the best calamari I have ever had.

Tuesday morning I went for a jog along the bay--so different than the beach in Mumbai, which is so much more crowded, but both are so beautiful. Then I hopped on Gareth’s bike and onto the bike path to visit St. Kilda’s Pier, it was pretty chilly that morning but it was quite beautiful by the water. I then made my way to Luna Park, which is an old-school amusement park with a wooden roller coaster (it was closed though).

View from St. Kilda's Pier

Of course Senor made it to Oz

The entrance to Luna Park

My favorite dumpster ever.

I spent an hour wandering the neighborhood, and then met up with Aoife (pronounced Eee-fah) who is a friend of my friend Angelique in Denver. It was delightful to meet up with her, and I was able to see her home, meet her husband, and her 4 month old son. Aoife is Irish, so was prepping for guests to come over that night for St. Patrick‘s Day celebrations. It was so great to meet someone else living in Melbourne, and we went for a walk along the water and then had cakes in St. Kilda (which is famous for it’s cake shops--unbelievable Mud Cake, let me tell you). Aoife also used to work on tours with bands, and had hung out back stage the previous Friday with the Kings of Leon (did I mention how popular they are here? “Sex on Fire” is a HUGE song in Oz).

I then had to depart to meet Gareth and Sarah at the lawn bowling. What is lawn bowling, you ask? Well basically a fabulous sport that it is a bit like bocce ball, a bit like shuffle board, and like most games, more fun while drinking beer. Notice my best shot of the day:

Basically, you are on this long lawn, and you have two weighted balls, and you try to bowl them to the other end of the lawn and hit the small ball, or get closest to it. There was another group there that day, of about 15 to 20 people all 20 and 30 somethings, but if you go inside, you know this is a sport more reminiscent of VFW Bingo Halls. No wonder I loved it. Note the flair inside the women’s washroom.

That night, since it was St. Paddy’s day, we decided to go to an Irish pub. However, we scrapped that plan when we realized we could go to a Backpacker’s bar that we could ride bicycles to and they were having a St. Paddy’s (how it was spelled here) celebration. We made our way over, but had not had dinner, so that is where we made a poor eating decision--we went to The Meetbowl.

Meetbowl is a “fast food resto” where you get a bowl of meat of your choice, similar to Pho in a lot of ways. In retrospect, when the man behind the counter asked “What kind of fried balls do you want?” I should have known that this was, indeed, a bad choice.

Alas, we ate our Meetbowls, and headed to Bev and Mick’s Backpacking Bar. There I felt like we were spectators at a play--though it was 9 p.m., everyone there seemed to be between 18 and 25 years old, already wasted, and making some poor choices in the type of apparel to wear that night. It was entertaining though, and there was a chap playing mostly Irish rock songs on an acoustic guitar and he got the rowdy crowd dancing even more. There was however, someone there older than us that we befriended:

He was leaving the bar as we asked to take the photo with him, but that did not stop him from asking if either Sarah or I were married. I never did get the story of why he was wearing a neck brace, but he was disappointed to find out that we did not go to that bar often.

We headed back around 11 for the apartment, and considered drinking some OTP (Old Tawny Port) but decided against it. However the next day, we did pass by the Meetbowl again, oh, poor, poor, poor stomachs; just walking past sent ours reeling, but we did get a good pic of Gareth outside of it.

Closed Platapussary and paying the RENT

Sunday March 15th

The next day in Melbourne after our wine and jamming-out party, poor Sarah had to wake up early to go to her all day Yoga school and Gareth and I made it out about noon to meet her for lunch, where I had the MEATY BREKKY (this is not something on display in restaurants much in India).

Oh yes, that bacon is as good as it looks.

Since I didn’t see any Australian animals (alive) during our winery tour, Gareth and I made our way to the Melbourne Zoo so I could get some snaps of Koalas and Roos. First, though, we met up with the BURGER MONSTER and we hit up an outdoorsy store that had the Vail and Aspen ski reports up!

Me and the Burger Monster. This may be my fave photo of my travels thus far...

We also stopped by the Queen Victoria Market, which was a crazy fun place, but then again, I enjoy a good market. And who knew that the American Doughnut Bus would be there?

The Zoo did not disappoint except on one important front: The platapusary was CLOSED! We were disappointed, but did enjoy the rest of the animal-filled meandering. Some token Aussie animal photos for you all:

Notice the lettuce in the emu's mouth; he was tossing it up and down for 10 minutes before he decided to eat it.

Those are some major claws.

Koala profile.

These birds were wild.

The irony is not lost on me that I had to go all the way to Australia to finally ride an elephant.

On the way back from the zoo, we were privy to hear the vocal stylings of another tram passenger that really, really, really loved the RENT soundtrack, as he was singing the song, not once, but three times in a row before his stop. It is hard to describe the humor in this, but luckily, I have video that eventually will be uploaded...someday.

That night we walked down to the bay area (AKA ocean, but the Aussies like to call it the bay here) and took some pix on the pier and of the Spirit of Tasmania, which is a large boat you can take from Oz all the way to Tasmania! Next time I visit, I plan to do this. The weather in Melbourne changes constantly, bouncing from blue skies to cloudy to cool to sunny to rainy all in one day (sometimes, one hour). We were rewarded, though, with a rainbow in the late afternoon that made all the schizophrenic weather worth dealing with.