Goa is nice!

Hello guys,

Before Yasu tells something about his adventures in Formosa, let me also give you a bit of insight into the last odissey Lu and me did: we went to India, more specifically to the small state of Goa. Strange, no? Why to go there and not somewhere else in India (Agra to see Taj Mahal, Delhi, Mumbai...)?

The answer is that in our group of two there was a portuguese: me! And being one, I always heard in school the History lessons about the great journey of the navigator Vasco da Gama from Lisbon across the south of Africa until arriving to the west coast of India, thereby establishing a fundamental and new trade route to Europe. Vasco and his successors established the capital of the Portuguese empire of the East in Goa, and from there sent expeditions all across Asia: Persian Gulf, East India, Malaysia (in particular Malaca), Indonesia (therefore East Timor...), China, Taiwan/Formosa and until reaching distant Japan! Belem area in Lisbon (that you visited last year) celebrates all of this, but Goa is for me a more striking symbol of this far distant period. It's also there that it is buried St Francis Xavier, the jesuit that was a main actor behind expansion of Christianity in Asia.

Besides these "national" motivations, there were also two more: visiting a friend teaching Portuguese in Goa (he was professor of Portuguese in the University of Newcastle and we met there - Juliane may have known him, he was also Cristina's friend) and enjoying the fantastic weather and beaches at a time of the year when in Brussels it's so rainy, grey and depressive! All in all it was a great experience which I think Lu also enjoyed a lot, although it seems to me that between India and China there is always a sort of tension and we did not see too many Chinese around. It was funny to see the incredulity of some Indian we met during the trip to meet a Chinese married with a Portuguese and traveling in Goa. It seemed quite an impossible conjugation, until we explained "we met while studying together in England"!


But this little state of India (the smallest with " million people) is nowadays more known for being the main tourist spot in India, and attracts people a bit from all over the world at this time of the year. We met a lot of english, american, russian, but especially Indian from Mumbai and Bangalore. A lot of young people (especially guys) come for sun, beach, disco parties and western girls. It's clearly an outcome of recent economic development of India: more and more people have more money and travel around in holiday periods. The result is that some beaches are overcrowded with people, resorts, salespeople and are a mess as I've never seen (and I was in Torremolinos in south of Spain!). Some other beaches are paradise on Earth, almost empty stretches of sand, sea and palm trees and that's the sort of place where we've been for several days in the south of the state: Agonda beach! Near there was also the Palolem beach where it was filmed the beginning of the movie Bourne Supremacy, with Matt Damon - did you see?



Rest of the time we were mostly in the capital, Panaji, and the region around it: north coast, spice plantations, hindu temples, old colonial spots (including Old Goa) and a lot of cows (and also elephants) everywhere on the road!!

Hugs to everybody,

Nuno