India Week #6 Mobor Cavelossim

Still in Palolem Beach and booked a cooking class to learn about Indian spices, Marsalas (combination of spices, and there are a lot of varieties, but our chef suggested making a basic one and then buying the rest already prepared in a box from the supermarket. Now who would have thought a chef would cheat!) We shared the experience with a couple from Warsaw, Poland. Fun evening and we ate what we cooked and got to take recipes home with us to share :). There are few bars and nightclubs in Palolem because they have a noise restriction law. So a couple of creative club owners have "Silent Discos" that offer patrons headsets from 10 till midnight so you can still dance away, not sure how that works....we didn't give it go! On the beach they had a Laughing Yoga class, we watched and it was very hard not to laugh and enjoy their fun. All beaches have lots of stray dogs. They run together, play together but also fight and growl if one of them crosses into their territory. They walk into the open restaurants looking for scraps. 

Some times things get tense, but no attacks on tourists thank goodness. Cows roam freely on the beach too. So sometimes you have to watch where you step. High tide does a great job of beautifying the beach twice a day. In between the beach and our room are many huts where locals live with free range chickens and wild pigs with piglets, they are very cute but skid dish. Our last evening we dined in an outdoor theatre eating fire oven cooked pizza, watching "Osage County" with Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep. We didn't see the ending as the electricity went out with no promise of when it would come back on. On Wednesday, we moved 7km north to the Monsoon  Guest House on Agonda Beach. Our accommodation was beach hut on stilts = 1 room with balcony and an outdoor bathroom down below. As you can tell by pic, toilet paper is blowing in the breeze and if you're going to spend any time here, wear a hat and sunscreen. Shower didn't work so we  took bucket showers, with cold water. No place on Agonda Beach or area offers air conditioning due to poor source of electric power. Hence we were unable to stay connected to wi-fi and send and receive e-mails other than on Bill's cellphone. We slept under a mosquito net, more to protect us from cockroaches then Mosquitos. It was hot, humid and because of inconsistent electric power the overhead fan only worked sometime. Agonda is not a good place to swim  as the beach drops about 2 feet at high tide with undertow. 

At night instead of being lulled to sleep by the waves, they roared and crashed, it was almost scary. A couple from Scotland suggested taking a 10 min taxi ride to the LaLit Golf and Spa, pay -1500R ($26) to use their pool for the day, so we did. It was beautiful and decadent. Suites go as high as $400 a night, so we looked like high rollers! Lol. On Friday we had an appointment with Dr Mirashi at Ayurveda Clinic who suggested we would  benefit from a 10 day complete detox body cleanse...we passed on the purge and were happy knowing we were in good health. Our body types are both dominant "fire" with my second being "air" and Bill's being "earth". We're a hot, flighty and grounded couple.

Saturday brought us north to  Mobor/Cavelossim Beach with 5 star resorts starting at $100 a night. We found a great place, Casa de Cris for $45 a night, a/c, balcony overlooking gardens, breakfast and wi-fi included. A 5 minute walk to a 20 km beach, wide, hard sand for walking, very few people and great for swimming. We booked here for 10 days so leaving on April 1. Bill stopped in at the barber today on our walk back from lunch and got a great cut for 100R, $1.80. It was sooo cheap Bill gave the guy 100R tip. A bit tired of eating out so we bought a pineapple, grapes, oranges, bananas for $2 total and a large mango for $1.80 for dinner and chocolate cookies too! The restaurant across the street has live music every night until 10:30 so we sit on our balcony and enjoy the entertainment.