Back at the beach I immediately lather myself up with two layers of SPF 65 that I found at the local shop, hoping it will make up SPF130… hey, travelling in India is tough, okay! After a few hours I feel my skin burning – yes, I must be tanning nicely by now. I spend the next hour and 60 percent of my battery trying to connect to the internet. Yesterday I brought the whole Apple colony with me, today I’ve just scaled down to my phone. As I am repeatedly pressing on Join Network I notice my fingers have stopped looking like fingers and are now more resembling little German sausages. I ask Utom, our local bartender, for another beer as I patiently wait for a connection.
At noon it gets devilishly hot so I decide to go for a dip. I go to the ocean once a day as I’m not on a first-name-basis with the water. It’s windy today which means the waves are big, I see a surf-size one coming and nonchalantly try to make my way back to the dry land when I get smacked in the face with five kilos of salt and lose my bathing suit. It stings in my eyes and I hope I still have corneas… I twist the water out my hair, in which they could marinate fish, it’s that salty. Hair dries within minutes because of the salt – it takes the natural water out of your hair so it starts to curl. I look like I could soon play in the sequel to Brave.
New day, same face
After getting home I run to the bathroom, anxious to see todays’ results. I have mixed emotions as I look in the mirror… I have turned into another shade of white with just a slight hint of red. Shit. Right then and there I decide to ditch the SPF 65 and the 50 as it’s clear to me I could sunbathe on the bleeding star itself with those ones and not burn.
As I open a bottle on the balcony and relax, I hear loud music coming from somewhere behind the woods. I didn’t know this happens around here. I’m let known they’re practicing for the disco tonight… “WON TO TRI. WON TO TRI. MICROFON. WON TO TRI.” echoes across the whole block.
It’s hard to make out all the sounds around here, there’s so much fauna that it’s impossible to match the noise and species together. Although I can definitely say those are bloody roosters that crow outside my window at 5AM every morning. There is also a herd of jackals living nearby in the woods next to our flat complex. At night they’d come to the edge of the forest and have a two-hour howling competition with the village dogs. I’ll tell you it makes a fun time of sleeping.
In Chandor
The following day we took a road trip down to Chandor village to visit Casa Menenez Braganza – a true heritage house once belonging to and named after Luís de Menezes Bragança, an Indian journalist-turned-activist in the turn of the 20th century. He was sort of a Dr. King of Goa of his time.
The 350-year-old Portuguese style mansion, while still serving as a full-time home for the descendants, now looks like a live-in museum housing period furniture made of rosewood, antiques, gems and the most fabulous ballroom. It holds personal gifts to the once owners from foreign rulers like a pair of chairs bearing the coat of armour given to the family by the Portuguese king Dom Luis, and unique historical artefacts such as the first refrigerator in Goa.
As I walked through it I couldn’t help but be in awe of the crystal carved doorhandles and massive Belgian glass chandeliers, ruby candlesticks and ancient Chinese porcelain dishes. To think that someone lives there. I felt like I was dancing on the Italian marble floors in decor heaven… Until I was shown a fingernail of Saint Francis Xavier kept under a glass in the chapel. Thanks for that.