Goa, India Trip

Candolim Beach right by our hotel.  They told us we were going during the off season but we didn't realize that a lot of stuff was closed including the beach.  We had a lot of fun walking along the beach but it is not that fun to swim during high tide time.  The water looked kind of muddy anyways.  There are normally a lot of shops along the beach but those were also closed for the off season.  

Our hotel.  It had a lot of Portuguese stained glass.  

The lobby.  Those poor guys at the front desk saw a lot of us when we didn't know where to go and how to get there.  

The hotel was really quaint.  

This is a bad picture of a really cool frog.  I saw a couple of these but I didn't want to get too close, it could be poisonous!  

Ship wreck.  I have no idea what went wrong but it is cool I guess.  

If you look closely you will see the wall of a Portuguese fort.  We really wanted to visit the fort and it seemed walkably close to our hotel so we started walking to save some money on a taxi.  

Then we encountered some rocks.  There were some stairs up to a resort just before the rocks.  We figured we would just pass through the resort instead of try and brave the rocks.  

The beach was mostly pretty clean for India but there were some gross parts as you can see.  

At the top of the stairs we got to a gate with a big lock but easy enough to climb over.  Then the security guard came over and he was not going to let us in, so... we had decided to brave the rocks.  

It got a little sketchy though.  So we turned back and went around a different way and ended up having the get a ride to the fort the traditional way.  We should have thought it out a little more though before trying to just walk up to a fort and get in.  They call if a fort for a reason I guess.  

View from the top of the fort.  The Portuguese ruled the Goa, India for many years.  The town is a very interesting mix of Portuguese and Indian.  There are a lot of Buddhas, Hindi gods and crosses all in one place.  

Inside the fort and the big white light house.  It was still running until the 1970's.  

We made some friends at the fort. 

The grass was really green and pretty. 

Not super flattering but this gives you a good idea of how hot and humid it was.  The day before we left it was 95% humidity, I didn't even know that was possible.  

It had a pretty cool mote.  

We got our friends to take a "snap" of us.  We had to trade them for some "snaps" with us though.  

The sign about the fort that I skimmed and directly behind the sign is another tourist.  I didn't talk to her but she is probably from the UK.  There are apparently a lot of UK visitors because they all though we were from the UK.  

We found a short cut down the hill through the vegetation.  

Some of the houses here are beautiful.  It was very different from other parts of India.  Many of these houses would we really nice for the US.  

The Lemon Tree Hotel.  Boy was I happy to see my home away from home, the swimming pool.  I have been dying to go swimming since I have been here.  

They had a pretty cool swim up bar where we ordered lunch and drinks.  The guy in the lower left corner can't swim, so he just hung out in that tube.  I thought he was kidding when he said he couldn't swim, but when he was impressed with Lexi's handstand on in the pool we figured he was serious.  He told us some pretty funny stories of when he worked for Direct TV calling people in the US.  He had to make up an american name so that they wouldn't hang up on him.  It was interesting to hear the story from the other side.  We were cracking up when he demonstrated his american accent.  

This is the view from a place where we had dinner one night.  

Lexi and Ale at dinner.

I went all out and ordered the garlic crab since we were on the beach .  It was really good too!  

They even had some live entertainment including the indian stylings of one of my favorite George Michael songs "Careless Whisper"  haha 

Portuguese cathedral

 A lot of farming in the area. 

The first Hindi temple we visited.  We went inside and sat down on the floor and watched everyone.  It was pretty interesting to see people making offerings and laying on the ground in front of the god statue. An all around good experience I'd say. 

We visited a spice plantation.  

They had a book of all the different spices and what they will cure including but not limited to diabetes, stress, infections of all sorts, nausea, nervous disorders, sleeplessness, and many other issues.  I thought of a spice for just about everyone I know.  

Bitter nut palm.  Many people here namely the auto drivers chew on this nut.  It is like a chewing tobacco type thing.

The flower of paradise, not to be confused with the bird of paradise flower (I think the bird of paradise is one of Granny Leta's favorites?).  

The "scratch-n-sniff"  cinnamon tree

Pineapple plants, this may clear up some confusion about pineapples growing on trees.

Our guide.

A very mini very hot pepper and behind it are aloe vera plants.  We asked the hotel people where we could get some aloe vera jell for our sun burns and they looked as us like we were crazy.  I just Indians don't get sun burned very often.  

Monkey tail tree

It is tradition at the end of a spice plantation tour to get some cold water and spices poured down your back to relax the spine.  

They served us a tasty lunch.  

It rained on and off the whole time.  It rains really hard though!

Me and a water buffalo just chillin.  

These little caterpillar things were all over (I just assume that everything is poisonous)  

Babo the elephant doing his "salute" trick.  

He is 35 years old but has been with the spice plantation for 10 years.  

He speaks Hindi.  

The driver/trainer says he never gets mad.  

He likes to eat bananas and prefers them two at a time.  He also eats a certain kind of palm leaves and some other fruits.  

I was planning on pealing all of the bananas for him but the trainer laughed at me and said he likes them with the skin on so I guess that saved me some work.  

The church at the top of a hill in Old Goa

The view of Old Goa from the top of the hill.  

It was weird to see a cross amongst so many Hindi gods and Buddha statues.  

The back of the church.

The st. Cajetan cathedral

The cool building next to the church.

St. Cajetan in the garden

St. Cajetan reading on the wall.  

The alter, the carving was amazing.  

They had a bat problem and it smelled like it (those are bats hanging from the alter).  

The ceiling is really pretty 

This looks kind of creepy.  I don't know what exactly it is seeing that I can't read it.  I tried to ask the security guard there but he didn't know how to tell me so if you can read this let me know.  

An ancient cathedral.  These weren't any signs about this one so that's all I've got.  Very cool looking though.  

Exotic stink bug

This is at the airport, I just thought it was ironic.  

Lexi wearing and India shirt at the airport.