Going to Hampi!

The latest pictures are from Old Goa. It is like the Vatican City of India. Goa is actually a small state – I thought it was the city Nicole lived in –that the Portuguese settled in 1500’s to 1930’s (?). I now have an official guidebook so I will try to be more specific! The Catholic Church converted many in the region with the help of St. Francis Xavier.

We started at lunch at a cute Portuguese restaurant on the second floor overlooking the street. We had to sample the local drink of Palm Feni. I preferred it to the feni drink in Nicole’s area of Oxel (oshell) which is fermented cashews. The small trees are all over the area and jungle.

Our first find was the ruins of St. Augustine’s. They are doing digs under the altar area for remains. It was a huge site that included a monastery and other out buildings. Pictures don’t do it justice.

We next found Basilica Bom Jesus – the most famous and a world heritage site. The altar is entirely gold with some silver! On a side chapel is a silver coffin of St. Francis of Xavier. He died in China and asked to return to his beloved Goa to be buried. He never really decomposed and there are tons of stories with miracles concerning him. They parade the coffin through the streets once a year. We visited another big complex across the park that included St. Francis of Assisi Church and St. Catherine of Siena Chapel. I included a sample of different sculpture I found interesting for many different reasons.

It was a full day and I had enough of churches for a while – so it is on to Hindu temples in the area called Hampi! It was the capital of the region during the 1200’s. It is also a World Heritage site so I have lectured Nicole and she promised to behave! Saturday was Elvis night and when he finished we climbed on the back of two Royal Enfield bikes and went barhopping. Elvis jammed at the next place with a phenomenal drummer. A professional American jazz singer showed up and blew us all away jamming with Elvis! When we were finally dropped off at our car, Nicole attempted to turn around a drove into a drainage ditch!!!! She stood in the road and quickly a van full of boys stopped and lifted her front end out of the ditch! All is fine with the car and us! They need more streetlights!

We were still sleeping at 1:00 on Sunday when GB arrived from Mumbai and asked us to lunch. We quickly cleaned up and made our way to the Taj Resort in Calangute. We had very nice lunch on the ocean. GB presented me with my first Ganesha statue and Hanuman prayer book. It was very sweet of him. Hanuman is the monkey god so I know the writings will help me with the management of Nicole!

The driver arrives at 8am tomorrow morning and we are off to Hampi. I will be out of touch until Friday or Saturday. Hope you all have a great week!