Panaji (Panjim), India

Not much to tell of Panjim other than it proved to be all that I hoped it would be.  Commentary on the City will be sparse I regret to say as my time was spent mainly ensconced in an air conditioned room, on a bed of clean sheets and under a solid ceiling with not even the whisper of a crack for a rat to slip through.  Perfection.

On my very brief wanders from the room I went all 'superior traveller' with a little bit of local patronage - lunch was a 30p 'mutton' (apparently goat in these parts) curry secured from the most dingy looking backstreet canteen I could find.  Eaten with chapati covered hands both flavour, experience and all too prevalent bone were enjoyed in equal measure (er, apart from the bone).  Returning to my room I lay down and began the uneasy wait that often succeeds an Indian meal to see if I had just made a serious error of judgement...

Raising my accommodation budget from 5 to 20 pounds a night (all that commuting had to be for something) I turned the TV on, turned up the A/C and turned down the [sort of] crisp [once] white sheets.  The desired outcome became the outcome and having smashed my previous Indian record of 15 minutes continuous sleep I awoke ready to resume the travelling lifestyle where luxury is blasphemous and comfort controversial.

Rucksack on back and rough directions in mind I emerged at 9am into the 30 degree heat of a South Indian morning.  Heading for the bus station which had seemed fairly innocuous (maybe 50 or so belching buses) on my arrival I began the process of trying to locate the bus that would take me part way to my next destination.

Deciding that where I had disembarked the day before may be a good place to embark the day after I began the following process (repeated circa 10 times):

'Margao?'
'Other side, over there.' A phrase combined with a point and a wave in a general 180 degree (sometimes more) direction.

Other side?  What other side? Over there?  Over where? Ah that other side!  Ah over there! My inquiries and repetitious following of pointing hands revealed that I had only previously glimpsed the scale of this particular bus station.  Stretching in all directions and with not a clear destination on the front of any bus in sight I asked again and again, triangulating the angles of suggested direction and zig-zagging between bus after bus.  A snail lost in a forest of human feet.  After about 20 minutes of such pantomime-like behaviour I found the bus I needed standing as an oasis in a desert of false hopes and wrong turns.  Simple.  And my what a bus - with the same number of passengers as seats this was travel of a most orderly nature.  The trip to Margao passed in restrained fashion - traffic jams and congestion inhibiting our speed and thus the worst excesses of the driver...

Margao obtained it was time to find the next bus - a far simpler process this time - as I sat and waited I stretched out over two seats surprised at how empty the bus was - I should have known.  The sign read '50 seated, 11 standing', I assume, with hindsight, that the driver couldn't read.  Stop after stop meant passenger after passenger joined the melee.  I gave up count post about 30 standing - the Central Line at rush hour is deserted by comparison.  Businessmen, families and the entire third grade of a reasonably sized district school stood shoulder to waist to shoulder to waist immersed in heat the like of which would be considered excessive for any self-respecting sauna.  Spending time equally between the left and right hand side of the road the liberal (read almost constant) use of the horn worked its magic once more as all in our path lost the game of 'chicken' our driver revelled in - an overladen bus with dubious brakes and, at times, a seemingly irresistible force of forward motion proving top trump against most other road users.  As we careered ever onwards the already tired suspension became overwhelmed and the bus lurched from side to side as our progress and speed made no allowance for corner or straight.  Acting as one the bus and its human cargo leaned from side to side in perfect resonance; with each extra mile of speed our collective lean gained an extra degree.  Never before I have regretted so much the choice of a window seat.  When the view from said window is invariably of tarmac or sky things are not as they should be...

After an hour which passed at great speed but with an interminable slowness we achieved our destination.  Like the nervous flier I stepped from the bus onto terra firma and thanked the lord of travel for keeping me safe once more...to the beach...