Goa: Paniji and Old Goa

We arrived in Paniji in late afternoon, found a nice cheap room thanks to a young Swiss couple and then had a wander around the town. Paniji is the state capital and supposedly had lots of nice winding streets left over from when the Portugese were there, but we didn't really think it was up to much. Did have a very nice dinner though!



The next morning we set off early to Old goa, a 30 min bus ride away. Old goa now seems to consist of nothing more thatn about 8 large white churches, and was very pretty. Always wiling to take on a climb or walk in the midday sun we climbed to a church on a hill for a nice view over the town, where all you can see was the churches sticking out of all the palm trees. The bus ride there and back along the river was very pleasent, and the local buses the day before had been very easy, so we weren't to concerned about the night bus journey to Hampi that was facing us.



Finishing dinner about 6.55pm Tom looked at the ticket to see our seat numbers and realised that the ticket said the bus was at 7pm, not the 8pm we'd been told. A quick march to the travel agents office and we're told "Go quick, your bus is waiting on the bridge". A quick sprint to the bridge where the buses depart from and there's no bus. Eventually some one tells us that a bus is coming later. The 8pm bus then arrives and they accept our ticket that says 7pm, and we're not sure if we'll get chucked off 'cause we're not meant to be there. Cue stressing through a long argument a mad Swedish guy has with the ticket man, who turns out to have lost his ticket and claims the ticket man took it already (it was in the Swedish guys pocket all along). And cue stressing at every later stop the bus makes where a queue of people to big to fit on the bus, surely, materialises out of the darkness.



The bus was a mixture of sleeper like bunk compartments and reclining seats. Oh and our seats, which were just in front of the entrance to the bus so didn't really recline, though the ones in front certainly did. The road was windy and the engine laboured noisily most of the time, there was not room in the trunk for all the luggage so most had to be squeezed in under chairs and legs. It was also full of weirdo's including a guy who kept demanding toilet breaks, not long after the last one, which seemed more about getting nicotene in his system. When we were finally within 40km of our destination and we were very stiff and had hardly slept a wink we then stopped at a smelly overpriced service station for 45 mins before spending an hour in a trafic jam of lorries. We were exremely relieved when we got to Hampi and I vowed to get the train to Bangalore, now another sleeper bus as I'd considered. Tom in his infinite wisdom booked a 24hr sleeper bus back to Mumbai! (so okay her managed to get on a nice new volvo bus with AC, an option we were too late for before).