When we awoke the shower was full of Indians and the toilets were in full flood, running out along the corridor between the rooms. We gathered up our gear and moved out. Luckily, we found a good room in the Flamingo Hotel where we got a triple room with an ensuite shower for 85 Indian Rupees. We steamed into the shower to wash away the contamination of the Imperial Hotel.
This room was actually fragrant and roomy, with a clean carpet, so we felt human again. We had breakfast in the Tourist Hotel where our policy of not tipping the waiters was rewarded with slow service.
Martin set off to the Post Office to attempt to send home his exposed camera film (Martin was a keen photographer and had taken a lot more pictures than us) leaving George and I to indulge in a favourite pastime – the flicks.
At 10:30 hrs. we sat down to “Escape to Victory” at the Ashok Cinema, a 1981 American sports war film directed by John Huston and starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow and Pelé. It was better than I expected and proved the usual morale boost. Michael Caine and Silvester Stallone led a cast of aging footballers in an authentically portrayed, if farfetched, Nazi prison camp drama.
Afterwards we rendezvoused with Martin back at the Tourist Hotel at 13:00 hrs. George and I had a beer and tricked Martin into getting a meal. His weird sense of one-upmanship forbade him from eating unless we had eaten ourselves. George told him that we had already eaten an egg curry and thus, safe from the prospect of our ridicule (we couldn’t call him a greedy bastard) he ordered and egg biriyani.
This he promptly ruined by ladling on a viciously hot red chutney (This very special Goan Chutney is called Horvem and comprises of Red and/or Green Chillies, Ginger, Garlic, Tamarind, Coriander and Cumin seeds, Turmeric, Jaggery and coconut. Jaggery, also called GUR (GUDA), is traditional form of raw sugar or unrefined sugar derived from sugarcane juice.) which caused him to leave half the meal and grumble for long into the afternoon.
“Look before you leap (or try before you buy) in future”, I warned him, probably to no avail. Last night he had “cut off his nose to spite his face” by grumbling because he was still hungry after a mammoth meal, and after we took him to a café to satisfy his greed, he waited until we had ordered an egg curry each before beginning to chortle at our greed.
He was quite happy to look on, enviously and drooling, at us eating, consoled by the fact that we had given him victory in his silly little game. In fact George and I had adjusted to a much smaller daily food intake and lost considerable weight on our travels, the triumph of activity and exploration over hunger. Now we had spent as much as him and had indulged in two meals and this was a triumph for our podgy chum!
We drifted back lifelessly to the hotel, our weariness fuelled by the mugginess of the damp atmosphere. We slept until 16:30 hrs. and went on a lack lustre walkabout. We ascended the hill overlooking the town, passing some poorer, home-made houses and a temple-like building that looked like that at Bohdnath in Nepal.
This was probably the Maruti Temple which is situated on top of the Altinho hill overlooking the Fontainhas district in Panaji. It is dedicated to lord Hanuman, the monkey god and enshrines Lord Hanuman as the presiding deity. The Maruti Temple is also beautifully lit up at night and as it is brightly lit the temple is visible from a distance.
Lord Hanuman is a Hindu deity who is an ardent devotee of Rama, a central character in the Indian epic Ramayana. A general among the vanaras, Hanuman is an incarnation of the divine and a follower of Lord Rama in the struggle against the demon king Ravana.
Children played cricket and women slammed their wet washing onto stones to clean them as we sauntered passed. At the top of the hill there appeared to be college campuses interspersed with rubbish tips where pigs and crows battled for prize scraps.
Back in town we had a Nescafé in a clean bar and wondered why most café and restaurant owners, as well as hoteliers, made no effort to keep their premises clean or even looking nice. We returned to our hotel room and George changed some cash with the receptionist.
Martin and George set to rubbing neat Dettol on their wounds. A major component of our travel first aid kit was a bottle of this iconic Dettol Antiseptic Liquid which was good for First Aid Antiseptic wound cleaning for cuts, grazes, bites and stings to kill germs and protect against infection. Also for Personal Hygiene this versatile liquid can be used to treat pimples and dandruff. Martin’s new flip-flops had cut between his toes and George had several cold sores.
Supper was taken, as per usual, in the Tourist Hostel to the regular diet of The Police rock band music and Western disco hits. George returned to our room with Martin and I went browsing in a couple of hotel book shops.
The night was hot, humid and sweaty so we left the ceiling fan on. I was reading Robert Ludlum’s “Road to Gandolfo” (The Road to Gandolfo is a story by Michael Shepherd (a pen name used by Robert Ludlum) published in 1975 about General MacKenzie Hawkins ("The Hawk"), a military legend and Army veteran. He defaces an important Chinese memorial as a result of being drugged by a Chinese general and is later kicked out of the Army).
Meanwhile George was reading an Irving Wallace book and Martin slapped himself and cursed under assault from a myriad of biting, bloodthirsty insects.
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