Panaji

After the learning session, I felt like doing something. Since there was no moving imminent, only tomorrow, I wanted to visit the capital of Goa. The men in the family could not be persuaded to go on the excursion, but luckily I have a daughter who is immediately interested when I mention the word 'shopping'.

After the learning session, we took the bus to Panaji. In India, it is really convenient that the bus stops everywhere, you just need to wave. But which bus is the right one? Once again, it was fortunate that we were standing in front of a group of taxi drivers who firstly understood where we wanted to go (some people couldn't understand it based on my pronunciation) and secondly willingly helped us to stop the right bus. Taking the bus is an adventure like in Nepal. I wonder how these cars can still drive. In our country, they would have ended up in the junkyard long ago. What also surprises me is that the public vehicles are inspected by the TUV every year. What is the TUV checking?

In any case, we arrived safely at the bus station. We also crossed the bridge, which had collapsed twice in recent years, unscathed.

In Panaji, we wanted to visit the Portuguese quarter, which is about 9 km away. So we asked for another bus. Once again, hardly anyone understood where I wanted to go. Thankfully, an Indian helped us who understood me. I need to speak the words faster.

We drove for about 5 minutes, then we were supposed to get off. At first, I refused, as we couldn't have traveled 9 kilometers. But after several people on the bus made it clear to me that this was indeed the quarter, we got off. We didn't get very far because Flora spotted a juice shop opposite our 'bus stop'. And since we were hungry, we also had something to eat. The ice cream sundae on the menu looked so delicious that we ate unpackaged ice cream for the first time. We have become quite brave. We drink Masala tea at the roadside stalls and eat samosas from passing Vespas. By the way, they were the most delicious I have ever eaten.

The Portuguese quarter was nice, but it was pretty run-down. It must have been very beautiful in the past.

We quickly walked through the quarter and now we were drawn to the shops. I remembered that I often read 'Market' on the buses, so we asked our way there. We were directed to take the bus. So we stood by the road and took the bus to the market. It drove for about a minute, then we were there. It was about 200 meters from the point where we asked an Indian woman about the market. The way to the street where the buses were probably driving was further. But now I know that Indians can't imagine walking.

While strolling through the lanes, we discovered a flower shop called Florence Flora. Of course, we had to go in. We chatted a bit with the salesman and I explained to him that my daughter's name is Flora. He then gave her a very beautiful flower.

It wasn't immediately obvious where the market was. I have learned to look where, in this case, the women go. They led us through a narrow alley, where one stall joined the other. I also noticed that some women went up some stairs. We followed them and entered a huge hall with fruits and more shops.

After browsing through the shops extensively but not being able to buy anything because we had no more space in our backpacks, we wanted to walk back to the bus station. It couldn't be far away. After asking a few passersby, who only referred us to the bus and didn't know the way on foot, we tried it on our own. We eventually found it because it wasn't that difficult.

Either the same bus always goes back and forth, or it was just luck that we caught the same one again. The ticket seller who walks around on the bus and also lets us know when the bus should stop caught our attention on the outward journey. He can whistle so funny. Some Indians had real problems drawing attention to themselves when they wanted to get off, as the bus was crowded and the ticket seller boarded from the front and rear. I just thought, luckily I can whistle. So I tried it out. The funny seller noticed it and since then I was allowed to whistle when the bus should stop. Only at our stop it didn't work. He was busy counting money and so we had to walk back quite a bit.