My favorite part of any Indian meal is gulab jamun. I was relieved to find out the dessert I’ve devoured all these years outside of India is pretty much the same as it is in India. With food, there’s nothing more annoying than knowing exactly what you’re missing. What is gulab jamun? It is delicious…
I didn’t realize how much I notice boats until I found myself snapping away in Goa. I saw, among others, busy ferries, working boats (although, I’m not sure what these boats accomplished since I saw many of them going back and forth carting unchanged volumes of dirt), and beached boats.
The Portugese knew what they were doing when they constructed this fort back in 1612. Fort Aguada guards the mouth of the Mandovi River and enables views over every twist and turn. The lighthouse was built in 1894 and is the oldest of its kind in Asia. Down the road is the peninsula’s operating lighthouse….
This red-stone structure is the last resting place of St. Francis Xavier, Goa’s patron saint. In 1541, the saint embarked on a mission to right the sinful lifestyles of Goa’s Portugese colonials. He ended up in a glass-sided coffin.
This 1661 church was built over a 16th century chapel. It’s not been kept up, but you can still see the extravagant woodwork, murals depicting the life of St. Francis, frescoes of elaborate flowers and angels and Portugese tombstones.
Mapusa is the largest town in northern Goa and is known for its markets. The most popular one is Friday Market, which I missed. Although I was not seeking any of the items sold, it was fun to look around at the piles of textiles, bins of household tools and spreads of produce, flowers and…
This is not only the largest church in India, but in all of Asia. Construction began in 1562 under Portugese King Dom Sebastião’s orders to commemorate the victory of the Portuguese over a Muslim army, which resulted in Goa’s capture. Since the day of the victory fell on the feast of Saint Catherine, the cathedral…
This was a great meal, but not the best we had in Goa (see below, Sher-E-Punjab). The menu featured local cuisine, which meant a lot of spices and seafood. Yum! We had the crab xec xec (in a roasted-coconut gravy), pork vindaloo and mixed vegetable xacuti. In true Indian fashion (well, sometimes. You’ll see.), you…
Some church! The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is an enormous white wedding cake of a church smack in the middle of town. It was built in 1540, back when Panjim was a sleepy fishing village and the first port of call for Portugese sailors, who would then worship here after a…
Okay, okay – THIS was the best food we ate in India. It was, of course, a total dive. The menus were laminated, the air-conditioned tables were sectioned off and it was consistently busy with locals. The menu featured spicy Punjabi dishes as well as miscellaneous Chinese entrees. We thoroughly enjoyed the Paneer Tikka and…