Catching Up: It's all Goa-n on!

Dearest lovelies,

This post was originally written in March updating you on our adventures in Goa! It was sent out by email, following requests by you our lovely readers, you can read it here for your viewing pleasure!

Editor update: a map!

And so it is after our cricket/art jolly in Kerala, time moves on and we have now moved back into our old house, the one that we rented for four months in 2011, here in Arambol, Goa. It has been upgraded since our last visit, and the landlady with the paan-stained teeth, Maria, has insisted on showing us how to fix our bedroom door - with her favourite machete, if you must know.  It was fixed for a day, which is just long enough for us to forget about...she has also invited Paddy to join her for Mass next Sunday at 6am...he's tempted!

Anyway, it's wonderful to have a gold painted kitchen, a western style bathroom with periodic warm water, psychedelic dolphins on the bathroom walls, a slow release toilet seat (so to speak), a 3D relief model of the Last Supper on the kitchen wall and kitchen tiles advertising chocolate, oh and pink and purple walls - all the home comforts!

And the porch, ahh, our second home. Also the home of Hunter, our electric mosquito frazzling tennis racket. Karma be damned, it gets plenty of use usually around 6pm, or G&T o'clock as it is fondly known.  

Our dear friend Lindsey arrived for a two week beach jolly straight from freezing cold London town. Rather than giving her much time to recover from the 90 minute Indian taxi experience from the airport (is it strange that we've become used to double overtaking?) we pushed her straight into the Goa hippie life by taking her to a party at a house in the jungle full of hippies who have been here since 1975. Well, they think it might have been 75, or maybe that's just when their visas ran out. It was awesome, seriously talented musicians were jamming, disco lights were twinkling, Paddy was (in the loosest sense of the term) dancing to some kind of techno flamenco. We think the night can be summed up in the words overheard by us, spoken by a fellow guest at the party when a waiter said "The king fish is ready if you'd like to help yourself" to which the guest replied "No thanks, I'm waiting for the lobster."

Paddy's been busy working in the Balanced View cafe kitchen, serving up delicious meals for all to enjoy, and bringing total benefit to our marriage as a result! He has been wearing a very fetching apron complete with rubber clogs and frankly has been quite manly about the whole thing! He was recently promoted to iced coffee extraordinaire - delicious!

So whilst Paddy has been busy, Maddy and Lindsey were tanning perfectly on the beach...tough times.

Last Saturday we went to a beautiful swanky Greek restaurant called Thalassa, where we drank cocktails and wine, and ate souvlakis – om nom nom - thanks to Usher Adam and his wife Victoria for this wedding gift! 

Afterwards we went on to the Saturday Night Market; this market is like no other, think of it more like a festival with live music, at least three dance floors, plenty of eateries, drinking establishments, amazing clothes and jewellery stalls, and most importantly for Paddy, a sports bar where he could catch up on the latest soccer matches. Paddy later joined Maddy & Lindsey on the dance floor to learn some of their moves though after one outrageously strong Long Island Iced Tea, let’s say it was less Saturday Night Fever and more Do the Funky Chicken. The Mumbai-ites who had come down to the market to witness this spectacle were, oddly, perplexed: Paddy goes to Bollywood?!

We have been taking Lindsey round to sample all the curries of course – current favourites include chana masala (chickpeas), garlic cheese naan, masala dosas (massive crispy pancake with curry inside) and vegetable pakora (think deep fried Mars bars but replace the Mars bar with chills, peppers and potatoes) and of course the Laughing Buddha’s winning brinjal rogan josh (aubergine).

We went to a friend’s movie night where they put up a giant screen in the jungle, and watched “Beasts of the Southern Wild” – it’s a fantastic movie but we were almost too busy to notice what with all the fruit bats pooping and spitting on us throughout, and we got the giggles instead.

We celebrated six months of marriage at the local pub quiz – we didn’t win, worse, we didn’t even come last and therefore were not eligible for the booby prize – free desserts for the team. There was a puppy that proved a distraction, but in any case, we thought it might be fun to share some of the questions we learnt/stole/guessed with you all, so without using Google, send us your answers to these questions!

1.     Where was former UN Secretary General Buchas Buchas Gali born?

2.     In which language was the novel Lolita written?

3.      What is the name of the protagonist in Lolita?

4.      Which company supplies the crystal that sits atop of the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree in New York? (Maddy was fined a beer for not getting this one as it falls under the sparkles category)

5.      Which country was the first in the world to adopt Christianity as its national religion?

6.      4x² – 2 = x² + 5     What is x?

(As an aside, all the teams at the quiz got this question correct – whoever says that hippies don’t know their algebra from their elbow, we say this: navel gazing works! Fact!)

On Valentine’s Day the three of us decided to go all out on the romance front. We bought a bottle of Indian champagne (not too shabby actually) and then went on to martinis and posh nosh at Café Nu, an Asian fusion restaurant on the next beach down. We danced home along on the beach underneath the starlight sky. Lovely.

Maddy was asked to do some babysitting for a two year old named Grace. She was completely adorable, sticking bindis all over her tummy and legs…

  

On Lindsey's last night we had a very unseasonable rainstorm and so we line-danced to Dolly Parton on our porch, much to the bemusement of our drunken landlord who waddled past twice just to check what his eyes were seeing - next stop, Bollywood!

Oh and let’s not forget the pig castration by torchlight that happened outside our front door this week. Apparently a cut and two stitches and some tumeric and the pig fattens up nicely and tastes much better. Needless to say, bacon butties are off the menu for a while…

And so it is that we wave a sad goodbye to Lindsey, and get ready for the next week when Maddy’s parents come to India – it’s all go here!

With much love,

Maddy & Paddy xxx