The one way town

Al and I were very brave and took 2 buses to the capitol of Goa called Panjim. This cost a total of 100 rupees, which is a far cry from the 1200 rupees we would have paid for a taxi ride...so I guess we were more cheap than brave. So, we decided to leave on the first and only slightly sunny day in over 2 weeks. I tell you what, 2 weeks of relentless downpours can really mess with ones mind. So we made it to Panjim dry and ready to find a place to stay...I can tell you all that Al and I do not suffer fools gladly these days in India and the Mumbai taxi experience has long since turned us! We were ready for a fight and the first taxi driver to approach us felt my wrath...so I guess that makes me the Angry Traveller. We haggled and haggled and finally agreed on 50 rupee for what we thought would be about a 20 minute drive, but once again, we were manipulated and lied to and it was only a 5 minute ride and that was him taking us the long way from the station. I did make a rude comment about how short the ride was and that he was ripping us off and that means bad karma for him, to which he replied, "I'm Christian." So, I guess Christians don't have to worry about karma. We did end up in a lovely little hostel with a television and it is run by a super sweet English speaking couple who were blessed with 3 daughters who all reside in America and London and have boyfriends and jobs and like to act...normal things. The husband of this duo sat Al and I down like his own daughters and wrote us out a little map describing where the safe and not so safe places were and what time to be back to the room and special places we should see. It was kind of refreshing really to be parented a bit...
We have spent the last 2 days roaming around Panjim, which is a total walking town made up of all one way streets so the crazy drivers seem a bit less scary...we found a delicious vegetarian restaurant and have eaten there 3 times in 2 days...disgusting I know, but here in good old India, when you find a place that is clean and does not make you sick, you just stick to it. We have eaten some very yummy food there as well and all the children in the restaurant love to stare at us. I think one of the parents in the restaurant was telling her son that the 2 big bad white people would take him away if he did not sit down and behave, as he cowered and hid in his mother's lap as we passed by. We think that is a very good parenting strategy and will pass it along to the parents we will work with upon our return. We will jsut tell them that we will send them to India where they can use the street for toilet paper! That will straighten them out! After that, it began to rain and rain and rain some more so we decided to go to the INOX (an actual cineplex with multiple movies that is reminiscent of a movie theatre in America) and have since returned. We saw Salt and Inception...Salt was entertaining, though highly unbelievable and Inception was very thought provoking and very conceptually interesting. Not particularly the true Indian experience, but we did have to stand for the Indian Anthem and ate tons of caramel popcorn...mmmmm good! We left and wandered down to the beach which is made up of brown water, but I don't think that is due to filth, but more the actual colour of the water and then found ourselves in front of a highly disturbing statue of a man that appears to be strangling a women (it wasn't initially disturbing, as we have been in India so long and forget that abuse towards women is actually a bad thing, but upon reflection, we decided it was disturbing). It turns out that this is a statue of a famous hypnotist and he is hypnotizing his assistant, who has unusually large breasts for a statue. We have seen many churches and gorgeous streets with mini-houses and flats painted every possible colour of the rainbow due to the heavy Portuguese influence littering Goa. We spent some time in a tiny little cafe called Venite, which has these tiny balconies that Alex slid into like butter, while I had to squeeze the old big boned shoulders into and we sipped on Kingfischers (beer). The front door and staircase is made up of a mosaic consisting of shells and colourful beads, which is such a sweet and bonny marriage of Indian and Portuguese influence...gorgeous. There are very few dogs (other than the very healthy ones that hang at the INOX) and also very few people with deformities or disfigurements here in Panjim - minus the one poor sod with hard nodules covering his face and body...not the contagious type, just the fatty ball type that cannot be surgically removed, as there are too many blood vessels connecting them to his skin...bless him. Tomorrow we leave Panjim for a mini day trip to Old Goa and then off to another Indian beach town called Anjuna...you may remember this from the news, as a 16-year-old British girl (Scarlett) was drugged, raped and killed by some Indian Fisherman there in 2008. The mother has been demonized in the media, as she took all of her children to India to live, yet was still collecting benefits from the UK and partying herself. People seem to have forgotten that her daughter was murdered by Indian men and the media here equally demonizes this mother and blame Scarlett for doing drugs and being a slutty white girl, which tends to be the mentality here. It will be interesting to visit this beach, as Sue and John love this place and it is known to be very beautiful and even more exciting will be the International Animal Rescue in Vagator (a 45 minute scooter ride from Anjuna), which we have already made contact with to volunteer. Going back to the room now to wash ourselves for the first time in days and watching the trifecta of amazing films provided by the 1 English channel. Tonight we will watch Hannah Montana: The Movie (my personal choice for the evening as well as Charlie's due to his recent fascination with the white sparkly Hannah Montana boots he wants for Christmas), Duplicity and a James Bond movie (Alex's favourite).