India- The incredible story continues. Goa and Mangalore

Well, Mumbai had left us in an unbelievable state of mind, what an incredible place!  so with a new ship load of passengers we set sail for Goa the next port of call.

We arrived about noon and after clearance from the security mad Indian Customs left for the next excursion.

Goa is the smallest State in the Country and has a distinct Dutch and Portuguese flavour as they were the original invaders in the 16 hundreds.

We visited two cathedrals in old Goa and apart from the fact that we had arrived on the anniversary of the founders of the Churches, the place was packed with people. Luckily the celebration wasn’t until the next day, otherwise there would have been over 10000 people all involved in a huge Mass. They were everywhere, every bit of space was occupied and we still couldn’t come to terms with the poverty and filth all around. Theyj ust dump rubbish wherever they feel like, it’s unbelievable.

This is a small sction of chairs set up for the Mass about 10000 expected.

So we then visited a private residence which was nice but obviously owned by an extremely wealthy family. 

 This is coming home for Christmas.

Lady Gloria resting in the beautiful garden.

We then travelled through the Capital City of Panjim which was really nice, almost clean, but much better than we had seen. Unfortunately it was just a drive through, we would have enjoyed this area more if we had the opportunity.

One of about 10 casinos, casinos on land are forbidden, so they have floating ones.

Our next Port of call was Mangalore the Port for the State of Karnataka (i’m sure you know your geography better than we do).

Our first stop was another private residence not nearly as nice as the other, but quite a large home right in the middle of the City. It was very busy at 9am with buses chock a block full of people getting to work mostly dressed in traditional costume.

 An example of the rubbish in the street!

These happy girls are the cleaners and below we sweep the rubbish into the middle of the street and let the traffic drive over it making it even worse

 150 lb of potatoes on my head!

Want to buy my lemons!

A taxi in Mangalore!

The highlight  by far was our visit to a large market of tiny shops selling everything from electronics. silk, fruit and vege you name it they had it. It was fascinating they are all so friendly and just wanted to talk to us and above all have their photo taken. The place was still extremely dirty, there was an attempt clean it, although a miserable failure. But it was great to see how they work and just how happy they are.