We were awoken at 07:00 hrs. by the usual commotion from the early risers. An Indian lad began to relay Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” from his Sony Walkman to the world at large in a loud squeaky monotone.
I was stowing my kit when Martin came into the dormitory to explain that we were obliged to make a “voluntary contribution” for the hostel staff. The warden’s wife, a stern authoritarian woman, had kindly entered us into the donation book for 10 Indian Rupees.
We were sick of being treated as a travelling charity mission and when the woman went into the kitchen to put the kettle on, Martin led our flight from the hostel through the unguarded door. As we hightailed it up the road a loud wailing behind us signified that the alarm had gone up.
We left the shouts of “come back”! in our wake as we set a cracking pace into town. The locals were using the shore slip road as a toilet as usual and I dodged the shit and tried not to breath in too much of the nauseating stench.
The proprietor was not about in the Hotel Imperial, so we had breakfast first in the Tourist Hostel, which did a nice porridge and curd. The balcony provided a pleasing living mural as the morning traffic rumbled alongside an ornamental park and brightly coloured boats and coaches assembled along the waterfront.
Long rusty barges drifted lazily out towards the Arabian Sea. An apathetic day ensued. We waited for “our room” at the Imperial Hotel to become vacant, meanwhile walking across the long Mandovi Bridge, passing fishermen with huge long lines on the bridge and fishing boats harbouring at the wharf below.
The Mandovi bridge is now a set of two bridges which carries four lanes of NH66 over river Mandovi. It was Russian in design and the first to be used in this country. The first Mandovi bridge was built in 1971 and the second one in 1998. On 5 July 1986 the first bridge collapsed (typical Indian engineering).
We wandered lazily through the palm trees on the far bank and consumed several cold drinks to replenish our rapidly dehydrating bodies under the blazing sun. We returned to find that our room was still not available yet, so we went back to the Tourist Hostel for a snack.
The staff in the Tourist Hostel were invaluable in helping us kill time with their exceptionally slow service! By now Martin was annoyed because we had “wasted the day” and George wanted to get away for a bit of time to himself (space away from Martin)!
We returned to the Imperial Hotel and were offered an alternative room as the occupants of “ours” were obviously there for the duration. Martin and I went shopping while George got acquainted with the town’s lunatic fringe.
Martin and I started off with a spot of sight-seeing, standing sun-blinded on the steps before the dazzling white Church of the Immaculate Conception. The Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church (Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Imaculada Conceição), a colonial Portuguese Baroque style church which was first built in 1541 as a chapel on a hill side overlooking the city of Panjim.
It was eventually replaced by a larger church in the 1600s as part of Portuguese Goa's religious expansion. This church houses the ancient bell that was removed from the Augustinian ruins of the Church of Our Lady of Grace (Nossa Senhora da Graça) in the once famed city of Old Goa. This bell is considered to be the second largest of its kind in Goa, surpassed only by the Golden Bell which resides in the Sé Cathedral in Old Goa.
George was covertly cohabitating with a seedy-looking
in the bushes so we left him to it. We shopped in the market, buying rubber flip-flops and Martin (a candy ass) an inflatable pillow and some scented talcum powder.
We returned to the hotel and lazed on our grubby stained mattresses while blood-thirsty insects dive-bombed Martin’s legs. A crash at the door signalled George’s reappearance. He bid me join him chatting to a fruitcake (from the phrase “nutty as a fruitcake”. The adjective nutty meaning "insane, crazy or idiotic" was first recorded in 1821; the similarity to fruitcake, which literally contains nuts as well as fruit, was first recorded in 1935) down in the hotel bar.
At first it was difficult not to laugh. He was dressed like a gambler in a Western movie in a black suit, white dress shirt, black bow tie and a black 10-gallon cowboy hat. He was drinking an obnoxious alcoholic coconut concoction, the reek of which nearly made me sick.
It was probably a lesser known Goan spirit, not many have tried, the sweet tasting Cabo. With a flavour profile similar to the Caribbean rum Malibu, Cabo is basically a coconut liqueur. Made using a blend of coconut extract and white rum, it has a distinctly sweet taste with a strong hit of coconut in flavour and aroma and is around 21% alcohol by volume.
He was very drunk and obviously “tuppence short” in the sanity department (a variation on “Sixpence short of a shilling” which is an old English expression for a half-witted person or one who is crazy or eccentric). I watched fascinated as he passed through moments of madness, sadness, aggression and some lucidity.
Through his ramblings came a sad picture of a man who’s reason had been shattered by war or armed conflict (looking back it was probably Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Formerly a French Gendarm he had been certified and invalided out of the service. The use of military organisations to police civilian populations is common to many time periods and cultures. Being a French concept, the French Gendarmerie has been the most influential model for such an organisation.
The National Gendarmerie is one of two national police forces of France, along with the National Police. It is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior—with additional duties to the Ministry of Defense. Its area of responsibility includes smaller towns, rural and suburban areas, while the Police Nationale, a civilian force, is in charge of cities and their centres. Because of its military status, the Gendarmerie also fulfills a range of military and defence missions.
It would appear that he had killed and defended against killers until a mental fuse had shorted out. He was shell-shocked (now called P.T.S.D.) and his body was also badly scarred. He had little feeling in his right hand and he revealed to George an empty holster on his right hip and a “shooter” (hand gun) in his left jacket pocket.
We didn’t know how to react as he changed his tack from confident bravado to tears and occasionally a burst of song. We took our leave of the Frenchman and the grubby bar, leaving him to abuse the bar staff in no uncertain terms, and made our way across the street to the Tourist Hostel for supper.
The food was good, and the portions were large. I dined on an old favourite, sweet and sour vegetables with egg fried rice. We finished our meals and moved out and wandered the deserted streets at 20:30 hrs. before calling in at the “Booze Bar” for coffee and another egg curry.
Back at the hotel a 3-inch layer of water on the floor did not compensate for a lack of running water from the taps. The toilets were nauseating, and George was not amused when he skidded on a turd in the river of poo and toilet paper slurry in the corridor.
Our room was a disgrace with it’s dingy yellow walls and a filthy battered cupboard in one corner. We had one old iron bed and two mattresses on the dirty stone floor. These were blemished with unsavoury stains and a host of ants were only a small sample of the insect life which they hosted.
We had removed the whisky bottles, half full of water and dead insects, earlier in the day. We settled down on the thin palliasses on the floor (George had up ended his horrible bed during a determined assault from the bugs) and slept out the night with the light on to keep the nocturnal vermin at bay. This seemed to do the trick and we were relatively unmolested.
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