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.
(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.
posted by aligrae | 6:39 pm
1 Comments:
Well, Goa sounds much more appealing, whether you're into cheese and gin or dismembered corpses...getting FX's other hand through customs would be something to tell the grandkids about, and it would drastically improve the excitement on 'Border Security'!
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