West Coast Travels Part I

1) Goa the Edible
(alternative titles: “Goa the Magnificent”; “Your not Goan at all are you Darlin?” [RAC ad from the 90s]

Imagine a land where coconut trees grow amongst 16th Century Portuguese churches and buildings; where you can happily eat seafood and particularly Goan fish curry all day long. You can even get a glass of red wine, which we have not had since we left Perth on the 24th June. Mind you it was Indian wine and fairly sweet (port-like), but it was strangely compelling and we were desperate! We have never been so grateful for Catholicism and its pro-alcohol stance. We really can’t find anything to make fun of here (unlike Chennai and its toilet roll- long list of negative attributes), except perhaps the altogether strange fascination with the body of St Francis Xavier (d.1552). His dead body is on display in the Bom Jesus Basilica in the hold part of Goa (aptly named “Old Goa”) , where people shuffle past and view him. Gross out! Apparently FX’s body has not decayed properly (a miracle) but from what we saw of it, he looks like that selfish Nazi in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade who “chose badly” and drinks from the wrong cup. Karrrr-booom! We even saw postcards of FX’s fingers (or what used to be his fingers) dangling over the edge of his casket- Why? Why? Why? But there’s worse to come! Apparently most things in Goa are edible, including the saint himself. In 1554 a Portuguese lady by the name of Dona Isabel de Carom bit off the little toe of the right leg as she wanted a keepsake. Poor FX! Reading a little booklet we picked up in the basilica it would seem that not much of him actually remains because he keeps getting shifted around. At expositions in 1890, 1894 and 1910 he managed to loose 4 toes off his right leg. The desire for relics of FX meant that these toes had fallen off an already dissected body: in 1614 his hand was amputated and sent to Rome and in 1691 the rest of his arm was removed and sent to the Jesuits in Japan. His shoulder blade was divided in three and sent around S-E Asia, China and India. Holy Shit! We fell sorry for the poor saint, and so when we filed past his 454 year old corpse, surrounded by people praying for good health, more wealth or more food, all we could think about was beef jerky.

2) Train Picnics

Our trip to the west coast of India was all about enjoying ourselves and the journeys between places was no exception. Trains invariably ran 3 hours late, and so what better way was there to pass the time than by having train picnics? Outside of Tamil Nadu you can get delicacies like olives, cheese and gin which the incredibly conservative state we are sentences to does not have. On our arrival in Pune (near Mumbai) dad had waiting for us Danish Blue cheese, pears, water crackers, nuts and gin and tonics for a midnight feast. This theme continued on the trains. 12 hour train rides whizzed by with the aid of Gilbeys gin. Clickity-clack, glug glug; clickity- clack, stuff olive in mouth [repeat]. Only real incident worth noting involved tipping the olive juice from the bottle out the window, not realising that there was a group of school children waiting to cross the track. Needless to say they would have smelt decidedly Mediterranean that night.

A day in the Chennai-life of AliGrae

(or the day the President of India visited)
4th September 2006

Theme song for the day:
Oh what a beautiful morning!
Oh what a beautiful day!
I have a wonderful feeling,
pollution is coming my way! [repeat ad nauseam]

07.00am: Our toilet blocked.
07.15am: Showered in brownish water, which we know is in someway connected to the toilet blockage
8.00am: Flag down autorickshaw out the front of our hotel.
8.00- 8.15 am: “Ride from hell”, so called for the following reasons; i) the driver started smoking a joint whilst navigating Chennai’s disastrous peak-hour traffic ii) He re-arranged his rear-view mirror to get a better look at A’s boobs (they were already more viewed than the Mona Lisa) iii) He tried to charge us double the price.
8.15-8.30am: frisked vigorously by security lady and had bag (with camera and passports) seized. We managed to get the passports into G’s pocket, but the camera was forbidden. We sent the next four hours hoping camera was sill in bag.
8.30- 12.30pm: Four very long hours were spent listening to Chennai’s “elite” speaking about the university and how modern it is (note: the other day a large chunk of the roof fell down outside our room); how technologically advanced it is (note: there is one computer between 23 full time teaching staff in English); and how wonderfully situated the university is (note: today, the 5th, it smells like drying fish, and yesterday it smelt like someone had pissed in the office). There were however some very funny moments, like when the chief minister of Tamil Nadu walked on stage (sorry, we mean waddled) and took his seat next to the president of India. The chief minister looked like Jabba the Hut, the chair was engulfed and Jabba leaned his body to one side to prop up his head on the back of the chair. He could not even walk to the podium for his speech, which was in Tamil and went something like this: “dur wean surum –ho ho Hans Solo”. The performance was only to be outdone by the President with his “Hair-part of Destiny”, so called because a Grasshopper (or something of that size) would view his head as a theme park, complete with slide down to a deep crevasse and a chairlift back up the other side again. Then there was the Vice Chancellor, and his list of thanks which sounded more like a horse racing announcer: “the president is in front by a head, and the chief minister is sticking to the rails.”
12.30-1.00pm: View the newly renovated Senate House. We were not sure if we were to be part of this elite party, but we tried to get in, and (perhaps thanks to the much admired boobs?) were successful, and were able to steal food. Yay!
1.00pm Pub! Found a beauty a couple of weeks back, or Lonely “the bible” planet did. Actually could be a pub in Freo; the Waiters are dressed like Jedi Knights (to keep with the Star Wars theme) and food is pretty good too and not too pricey. Yay! There goes the arvo….. Actually it is our second wedding anniversary, so we celebrated in style!
Sometime in the evening: Beery goodness makes Chennai disappear. Only other highlight was waiting by the phone (humming Lawrence of Arabia theme music) for dad to ring to let us know that he had indeed survived the camel safari he took into the desert in Rajasthan.
Late evening: toilet still blocked.