18th to 25th March, 2017

Well, good news, we are still here in Goa and still having a wonderful time. Last time we were together we had been for our statutory trip to a market and you got an insight into the wild time we are having. Nothing much has changed, you will be glad to hear. We are still playing table tennis (though shock horror, the table is out of commission today – Val is almost having withdrawals) and I even won the afternoon competition. Ok, it was only Val, me and a couple of kids, but it did get me a free cocktail. Unfortunately we have been pipped twice in the pub quiz –  next week! Val has also discovered pool and is determined to improve to the extent that she disappears at times to put in a bit of extra practice. We have even had a go at darts, though we are so poor that we had to abandon one game as neither of us could get a double to finish.

Other than that it is lots of exercise (Val gym, me pool (as in swimming)), relaxing, reading and using this wonderful free time to catch up on things like planning our next trip, doing our cash flow (so we can afford the next trip!) and Parkinson’s stuff An such like. We have now played game 636 of Yahtzee and Val has opened up a lead again of 9. It won’t last long…… (he said, confidently).

We have been sampling the local restaurants one by one. There is plenty of Goan food on offer with many different masala sauces. It is quite useful really as you can really brush up on your knowledge of Indian food and work on the difference between a Rogan Josh, Korma, Chicken Tikka, Tandoori and Biryani or try the different dahls, parathas, naans or roti. Goa is the home of the vindaloo, which comes from the Portuguese, vinho d’alho, literally ‘garlic wine’, originally an extremely hot and sour pork curry.

We had an interesting time last Saturday as we signed up for an evening of Latin Jazz Funk with a live band at the hotel and South American and Mexican buffet. The music was excellent, food good and we met a fascinating lady called Jenepher Bramble who had brought the band leader to Goa from Brazil via Rome. She was born in India, is descended from General Napier of the famous Latin quip ‘peccavi’ ‘I have sinned’, after he captured the city of Sind (gettit?), has lived many years in Rome, but spends some months of the year in Goa in a wonderful old Portuguese house she and her brother (ex Lord Mayor of London) bought and renovated named Quito de Halicarnassus (check it out online). She asked us to come for dinner, but it is sadly some way away and dinner wasn’t going to start until after 9pm. We could have stayed overnight, but it was probably a bit too much, so we declined.

We have had a day out though to the capital of Goa, Panjim (new name Panaji, that no one seems to use) and the old capital, Old Goa. The best news is that Anthony, our taxi driver from our last trip, was not next on the taxi rank. Instead we had Izzy in a very nice, almost new car which he drove at a very good pace and enhanced the trip by being a fount of knowledge on many things Goan. Some interesting sights on the way to Panjim reflecting the Catholic influence of the Portuguese who were here from 1510 when Afonso de Albuquerque captured Panjim fort to 1961 when the Indian government launched ‘Operation Vijay’ in defiance of the UN sending in the troops having lost patience with negotiations with the Portuguese dictator, Salazar, to cede the territory to India. Other religions other than Catholicism having originally been banned by the Portuguese and enforced by the Inquisition (who themselves were banned in 1820), the numbers of Catholics have declined from about two thirds in 1851 to 25% in 2011. However, their representation in churches, chapels and names like de Souza, Perreira, Braganza, d’Mello, and da Silva belies their reduced status.

We were dropped off in an area of the city called Fontainhas where many of the buildings have retained the Portuguese injunction that all buildings must be colour washed after each monsoon. Sadly, even though Goa is a big improvement on all the rest of the bits of India we have seen with regards to building maintenance, many of the rest of Panjim has seen better days. As my guidebook so appositely puts it, most buildings in Fontainhas are ‘in a state of charismatic decay’. I really hope someone describes me like that one day (though not yet).

A few photos, including the local chapel, sadly closed, in which there is an eerily lifelike crucifix which formerly hung in the Palace of the Inquisition in Old Goa. Unusually Christ’s eyes are open – allegedly to inspire fear in those being interrogated! I have also included a photo of what must be a more unusual tree decoration apparently made from bits of plumbing!

We wandered on via the azulejos or Portuguese tiles gallery to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1541 and to Church Square with a decent park and on to the oldest building, the Secretariat. The latter was originally the summer palace of Goa’s 16th-century Muslim ruler, the Adil Shah and latterly of the state legislature. There is a wonderful statue nearby of Abbé de Faria (1755-1819), a Goan priest who emigrated to France to become one of the world’s first professional hypnotists.

Other than that we did not wander far in the 34 degree heat, but I did snap a few street scenes including the mildly disturbing sign included below (you have to hope that the two institutions are not linked) and the Archbishop’s palace. There is obviously more to Panjim including your standard commercial and retail areas, but we had limited time and energy!

Next on our itinerary was Old Goa or Velha Goa which was the capital until 1843 when the river on which it is situated silted up and the ravages of malaria, plague and cholera epidemics meant the city was virtually abandoned in the 18th century. It had had a population of as many as 200,000 in the 16th century, bigger than London or Paris at that time, but was only 1,500 by the 1750s. Sadly there is nothing left of the old city, but the magnificent churches are still there and are a UNESCO site and a place of pilgrimage for Catholics and Hindus alike specifically to pay homage at the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, about whom, more later.

Our first stop was to a church dedicated to a different St. Francis, that of Assisi, built in 1521 and mistaken by us initially for the cathedral next door. It is a really interesting design and has a mildly ruined or unfinished quality to it that gives it real spiritual quality, helped by a lack of tourists too. The entrance, with its archway was different and the side chapels were beautiful with intricate carvings. I think that the lack of gold everywhere which you can so often find in other examples of this kind, helps give it a more attractive allure.

Wonderful though this had been, it was not the main attraction one of which was almost next door, the Sé (Portuguese for See) aka St. Catherine’s Cathedral. It is larger than any church in Portugal, took 80 years to build and was consecrated in 1640. It only has one tower now, which houses the Golden Bell whose tolling announced the start of the gruesome auto da fés in the square outside when heretics were tortured and burned at the stake. The interior is designed to shock and awe and does the job well, with the massive gilded main altar and 15 side chapels dedicated among others to Our Ladies of Hope, Anguish and Three Needs (?). Not sure what the last ones are, but I am sure they all came in useful if you felt the Inquisition breathing down your neck! The chapel with the ornate carved screen is that of the Miraculous Cross, found in a Goan village on which Christ was said to have appeared.

Not much more than 200 yards away is the big draw for Goans, Catholics and many Indians, the Bom (as in Good or Holy) Jesus basilica, holding as it does, the remains of St. Francis Xavier, the ‘Apostle of the Indies’, who was born in 1506 in Navarre, was ordained in 1537 and was a founder member of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits having been recruited by St. Ignatius Loyola. He was despatched to Goa in 1541 to smarten them up a bit and worked throughout southern India, Sri Lanka, Malacca in Malaysia and, with limited success, in China and Japan. He died near China in 1552 where he was buried, then removed to Malacca for a year and then reexhumed and reburied here in Goa. Luckily for all concerned, his body had miraculously failed to decompose, though it has never really rested in peace as chunks have been removed over the years by relic hunters. In 1641 the right arm was dispatched to the Pope in Rome (where it allegedly wrote its name on paper), a hand was sent to Japan (but only made it to Macao) and parts of his intestines to Southeast Asia. The most gruesome mutilation occurred in 1634 when a Portuguese noblewoman, Dona Isabel de Caron, in a moment of spiritual ecstasy, bit off one of Francis’s toes. So much blood spurted into her mouth that it led a trail to her house and she was discovered. Nice! His now very decrepit body is exposed every ten years for pilgrims to view and touch it, the last time being in 2014.

Anyway, first up here is the exterior of the front of the cathedral and a side view with the church of St. Francis of Assisi on the left and a nice sign of slogans of cultural heritage and a very leaning tree.

Next the exterior of the basilica, complete with a posing lady having her photo taken outside, with Val trying to shield herself from the sun and heat with her scarf!

The interior is fairly standard, but suitably impressive.

And then there is the tomb itself, a gift of the Medici, Cosimo III, in 1696 and a rather gruesome cross and his original casket. His body is in the glass casket on the top of the altar in the photo below.

And so after a warm but rewarding day we headed back to the air-conditioned comfort of our resort. A very interesting view of a very different part of India.

More soon!