The one I wrote before:

I couldn't access blogger in Panaji, so this went to my old journal. I have cut and pasted it here for your viewing pleasure (or...whatever)

In Goa, in a little place called Panaji, which is apparently the capital but I don't believe them. It is small, there is a river with an arched footbridge, there are a few whitewashed churches and lots of little red dirt lanes lined with pleasantly disintegrating rainbow coloured houses with wraparound upstairs balconies and lots of walnutty old women wrapped in lengths of coton sari sitting on the ground selling mini bananas, sardines, red pebbly fruits, fly-buzzing shrimp but remarkably no packs of tissues or tree sap flavoured chewing gum. I suppose that must be a Turkish quirk. It is lovely here. There are palm trees and lots of lazy dogs sleeping everywhere. I frequently feel the urge to stop and place mirror to dog mouth to check if alive or run over. There are endless fresh lime sodas and Portuguesey Goan foodstuffs with coconut milk and pao. The public buses cost pennies and are filled with mini shrines to Jesus and Mary and Ganesh and Santa Claus, ringed with garlands of flowers and flashing christmas lights, divided into disregarded sections for Ladies, Eldery, and Handicapped, with torn seats, absent suspension, absent lane differentiation, scooter dodging, chicken playing, standing room only except when you are inexplicably invited to sit up front with the driver on a padded bench, divided from the masses by silver bars like a gogo girl cage. The outsides are like multicoloured smaller versions of school buses, but muchmore beat up. They don't stop to pick up passengers or to drop them off- they merely whistle, shout, and slow down. In the past two days we have visited the abandoned old Portuguese capital of Old Goa, caught a tiny ferry to Divar island somewhere across a river near there, hiked down a marshy palm treed lane to a tiny village, sipped a lime soda, watched the world fail to pass by, hiked from Hindu temple to Hindu temple, hired another auto rickshaw driver to take us to an organic spice plantation near Ponda where I bought cinnamon oil for muscle stress and depression and lemongrass oil for nice skin, muscle tone and stress, and several baggies of organic whole nutmeg, cinnamon bark, lemongrass stalks, freshly ground garam masala and whole cardamom seeds. My bag smells lovely.