India day 3: Old Goa.

We get up early and after breakfast at the accommodation with incredible views, we take a bus from Panjim to Old Goa.

Panjim Bus Station

We go a little crazy at the bus station to find the bus. We almost can't fit and we get on the engine. There is no glass in the windows, and they have to close the metal blinds to keep out the water.

Bus station sign

Old Goa is interesting, it has the cathedral and several Christian churches surrounded by large gardens. The Jesuits arrived with the Portuguese in South India and left their mark, building forts, churches... We are surprised by the number of them, but not really by the buildings, since we are used to seeing this type of construction.

Old Goa sellers

Old Goa stalls selling

Old Goa sellers

There are a lot of stalls selling flowers for offerings. We had a beer on a terrace with a view. The cows do of theirs among the piles of garbage, we are getting used to see them everywhere and that people respect them, something that they don't do with the dogs that treat them with sticks, the Hindus believe that if you are bad in this life you reincarnate in dog, poor things, the truth that there are many.

Church in Old Goa

Old Goa Cathedral

We take a taxi to Madgaon. We eat in a very old Portuguese style restaurant very cool.

We visited a typical Indian market, there was a liquor store... my God, you smelled, you came out stoned without tasting it.

Madgaon Train Station

We go to the train station, we want to buy tickets to travel that night to Ernakulam (Kochi). It's quite difficult to buy tickets, we have to queue up and elbow out to prevent people from slipping in, we haven't been able to buy sleeping car tickets and they sell us the general. Although it is a small station, the fares and schedules are written on a board on the wall. It's quite a curious place. Some kids come to talk to us but they only want to talk to the kids, they are very funny and they always go either hand in hand or with the hand on their friend's shoulder.

 Timetable

Train to Ernakulam

Around 8pm our train arrives, we have no seat or bed assigned so seeing the state of the car we are supposed to go in (totally crowded), we find an apartment with 4 empty bunks. We settle down there, we have 14 hours of train ahead of us. If the conductor came we would talk to him to pay the difference, but seriously the car with the unassigned seats was scary.

It's a very curious train, the seats are made of sky, the windows don't have glass, only metal blinds, but it goes so slowly that it's not necessary to close them. We tried to sleep, the journey will be long.

Train ticket from Madgaon to Ernakulam 840 rupees 4 pax.