Benaulim

Today I'm in Benaulim, a little fishing village by the beach.  I caught a bus from Panjim to Margoa this morning, and then another bus here.

There is an excellent method here for travelling by bus.  Each bus has a driver and a conductor.  It's the conductor's job, it seems, to hurry as many people as quickly as possible onto the bus.  He stands outside his bus, at the station, or when it stops, shouting repetitively - chanting - the bus' destination.  As you walk through a bus station, the conductors will point and shout at you.  You merely shout back your intended destination.  If it's the right bus, he will hurry you on board; if your bus is elsewhere, he points you in the right direction.

They seem to be much more familiar with tourists here on the beach.  There are lots of white people here, even now at the beginning of the season:  some backpackers, some families on holiday (so far the only person I've met travelling on their own though was a South Korean boy who was staying at my hotel in Panjim).  When I sat down for a drink this afternoon at the wood-and-palm-leaf -constructed beach restaurant outside the beach hut I'm staying in, the waiter asked, 'How's it going geeza?' and 'Where's your bird then?'.

I've heard the best English spoken here, not just from the waiter.  The girls I spoke to earlier (who were chatting me up before showing me their wares) informed me that they learnt English on the beach; their parents didn't speak it to them at home.  The waiter from last night's drink in Panjim said the same:  Hindi at home, English only in school and to foreigners.

Yesterday I went on a day trip from Panjim to Old Goa, the former state capital.  There were a number of huge cathedrals, in various states of repair, and lots of images of saints, Christ, and Mary.  I couldn't help feeling that this wasn't what I had come to India to see - religious imagery and architecture that I've seen many times before in Europe.  There were lots of tourists in Old Goa, but almost all Indian.  Occasionally I did see a statue of a saint that seemed ornate in an Indian fashion.

Yesterday evening, as I mentioned above, I went for a drink in a small but trendy bar in Panjim.  Tina Turner, Billy Joel, and Dire Straits' the Sultans of Swing were amongst the musical delights.  There were images of Jesus & Mary on the wall.  A man I spoke to shed some light:  'When I see Jesus on the wall in a cafe or restaurant,' I asked him, 'does it mean the owner is Christian?'  'Not necessarily,' he said.  'Here, the owner is a Christian, but he leases to a Hindu.  It's not uncommon to see Jesus Christ and a Hindu God on the wall at the same time'.

No pictures today unfortunately, as my camera won't work in this internet cafe.