Day 7 in India

I’ve been having some challenges with sending blogs and posts through to social media, it’s annoying. The dodgy internet is worse here than Australia. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Same with the electricity. You’ll be in the middle of something important and suddenly the lights go out. It’s usually mid-afternoon, although it happened three times tonight. The first time it happened to us, we were looking at jewellery (very expensive jewellery I might add) and precious gemstones in a shop in Jaipur and all of a sudden the lights plunged us into darkness. Good thing were honest people, otherwise the owner would have “misplaced” a few items.

 

Today, we had to go through another presentation for the resort we’re staying at (it’s a time-share resort), as part of the conditions for our holiday prize. I used my Australian charm on the male presenters and had them in fits of laughter. A couple of blind jokes went down well too. We turned down their most wonderful offer, which they were quite ok with, as we’d entertained them enough.

 

The beach beckoned again, so back to the same beach of yesterday, just down further. We met Lila again from yesterday, once again insisting that I buy her jewellery or get a henna picture on my hand or ankle. After much persistence, and me saying no, she tells me she can also cook meals for us, do mani and pedis, and eyebrow and face threading. She’s very versatile. Still I said no. There are lots of beach dogs here. Some are owned, most are not. The majority are friendly and look quite healthy. They feed in the fish caught by the fishermen and scraps given to them by tourists or restaurant owners.

 

We continued on our beach trek and came to a group of locals pulling a boat up the beach. They called Peter to join them, and together they all heaved and pulled and yelled, “Anjala” to get the boat up the beach. One of the overweight fellas was standing on the side balance arm of the boat and eventually broke it. They still had another 20m to move the boat, so Peter decided to escape while he could, as his hands were blistered and chafed badly. The sellers at the beach were en masse because the sun was out and lots of tourists had headed for the beach. All the women were crowding around us wanting us to buy their jewellery. They all sell the same stuff. And they all tell us on the sly, that they can give us the best prices. They are taking a risk by being down the beach though. If the police catch them, they’ll have their items taken off them, or they can pay a hefty bribe for the police to look the other way. It’s mid-season, and very little trading taking place. Next month all the British tourists arrive (Australians in November/December), so trading will be busy. They are happy to pay the police then.

 

Tonight after dinner, we decided to try a local Goan dessert called Bebinca. It’s cardamom and cinnamon flavours are beautifully melded into the layered semi-hard custard. There was also a slight ginger taste too. And very sweet. Great if you like sweet foods, however, I’ve been reducing my sugar/sweet addiction intake all this year and now sweet foods are just too sweet. I must be improving, eh?