Port Mormugoa is rather unprepossessing with an expanse of ore barges moving from multiple docks to waiting ships at anchor. Through the coal and iron ore dust distributed through the air by dozens of giant scoops, which dump tons of material from raw ore and coal mountains beside the harbour into the belly of the rust coloured barges, one can barely observe where the same barges are being unloaded upon the outlaying ships - with more dust filling the already polluted air.
MS Amsterdam was docked at the barge refuelling dock, where a long fuel hose emerging from an oilsoaked shed was manhandled by half clad men onto the rafted waiting barges all tied together at their sterns with oil and dust saturated hawsers. The bargemen must live on those rust buckets, as their laundry was fluttering in the breeze, and was hung across all that dirt on the poop decks. Maneuvring is rather rudimentary, involving a lot of banging of hulls to get the whole business in position and cast off again.
Vasco da Gama town about 2 miles away is a nondescript small town with nothing much but dust, traffic, hardware and grocery stores, a few temples and the odd building left over from colonial times.
A word about Colonial Times...
Mormugoa is near Old Goa, the ancient capital city of the present state of Goa. Goa's history begins with a succession of Hindu sultanates, full of intrigue and fights for control. Only in the Middle Ages, worry about foreign invaders forced them to unite. Arabs, then Europeans followed the lucrative spice routes to Asia, and finally Portuguese merchants seized Goa from the last Bijapur kings in the early 16th century. Goa thrived, with silk, ginger, nutmeg and saffron passing through it one way, and fine European goods travelling East to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and China. But in the later 16th century civil fighting broke out, and attacks by the British, Dutch, Arabic and Hindu reduced Goa to a plague ridden backwater. Mid 18th century most residents left, and formed a new city nearby, Panjim. But the Portuguese colonial landholders stayed on, and their influence is evident to this day in the carefully preserved architecture of Old Goa.
So Old Goa was my destination for the day.
Not taking a preorganized tour it involved securing one of the many taxis clustered at the Port Gate. Getting to the gate turned out to be an exercise in jumping over the deepest and murkiest puddles of slushy coal dust. They water the harbour roads to (unsuccessfully) reduce coal dust from flying around. It still does blow in humidity soaked clouds from the mountains piled up all around.
The heat was atrocious even at 9 a.m.- even dressed in the lightest airy cotton clothing rivulets of sweat flowed from every pore.
Three of us braved the onslaught of eager drivers, after we had successfully passed through a little turn style flanked by guards, armed with machine guns. At least a dozen drivers clamoured for attention, and offered to take us to Old Goa for $100 - one way.
Too much, I said, we are going to find a taxi that is cheaper.
How much do you want to pay, all of them cried simultaneously.
I looked at one of them and said: thirty dollars for all three of us, one way.
Seventy, one of them answered.
Thirty, I said, and started to walk away.
Ok, follow me to my taxi, two of them shouted, running after us.
I looked at the choices, selected one saying; thirty dollars, one way, Old Goa and nowhere else.
Thirty dollars, he nodded.
We followed, and he opened the doors to a pretty decent looking Toyota Van, with airconditioning.
You want airconditioning, he asked.
No, I said, for thirty dollars we just open the windows, that saves you some gas money.
OK - we were off to another 'interesting' ride of 50 kilometers, interspersed with hearstopping near misses of vehicles, cows, bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, trees, retaining walls. Actually the driver clipped the elbow of one construction worker, directing traffic amongst a mess of road equipment and smoking tar spreaders. He did not stop...
A constant barrage of suggestions of all the things the driver could show us, drive to, introduce us to, divert to resulted in denial on our part of all of the above, but after the first 30 kilometers and a couple of heart attacks later, we compromised to an agreed upon return drive (O God, another one of these) for a total of 60 dollars, unlimited waiting included. Ok, everybody almost happy...he continued with a few feebler attempts to convince us of the error of our ways not to tour further afield, but to no avail.
We drove through rice paddies, past half dried up ponds replete with garbage, empty plastic containers, lotus blossoms, water lilies and egrets, through small rural villages, and a couple of enclaves for the local rich replete with colonial style mansions of grandiose proportions. We drove across a long bridge across a mangrove studded large sea inlet, and finally arrived in Old Goa, which covers about a square kilometer. It is a Unesco World Heritage site, and deserves that designation.
Sayed, Taxi number 2684, parked himself at the beginning of a generous tree lined old avenue, giving onto the centre of Old Goa. We did not yet pay him, so were assured that indeed he would be at this very spot whenever we returned from our explorations.
The most important one of those is the massive Basilica of Bom Jesus, sheltering the tomb of St. Francis Xavier. His silver coffin is atop a intricately carved monument in a side chapel. The monument was presented by Cosimo, one of the last Medici of Renaissance Italy, and designed by the Florentine artist Foggini. One could glimpse parts of dessicated Francis through small windows high above the monument. It is said, that some worship took rather bizarre forms, like that of a woman, who bit off a toe from the sacred body, and carried it back to Portugal in her mouth. But, photos of the relic displayed in the cathedral, seem to show the saint with all his digits intact.
Beautiful convents and gardens adjoin the Basilica, where Jesuits had their old training centres during their ventures into Asian territory.
Just across a central park adorned with Norfolk pine (not an ancient native I suppose) is Goas largest church, St. Catherine's Cathedral. Lots of Gold work, beautiful clean lines, and vaulted ceilings. Of course even here the Spanish Inquisition left its horrific mark: 15,000 trials of accuseds, who suffered in basement dungeons awaiting their fate. Only at the beginning of the 19th century those trials ended.
Despite the raising midday heat, we perspired our way across more manicured parkland to the Convent of St. Cajetan. Corinthian columns, a pair of bell towers, seven intricately carved and gilded side altars, and a main altar with over the top baroque adornments. To top it all, many of the pure white vaults in the ceiling were filled with pure black lively flocks of bats.
We braved another little sweaty jaunt to the Archeological museum housed in another colonial convent, where we purchased entrance tickets for 20 cents each (there are toilets inside). More sculptures both of Roman Catholic and Hindu origin. The most impressive display however, was the rogue gallery of almost every Portuguese Viceroy who graced the seat of government in Goa from day one until independence. Quite fun to see the portraits of men from the 16th century through the age of Louis the XIV of France, to photos and oils of modern day people.
Anyway, back to the ship via taxi and a repeat of the ride from hell, except this time we asked for pit stop at a beer store close to home. Indeed, an hour later back in Vasco da Gama, we stopped at a small hallway like store, and I bought 10 half liter cans of Kingfisher, the local brew, for 400 rupees - 8 dollars.
We made our driver happy by giving him 15 dollars more than what we had agreed upon, helping him with the education of his boys (one of whom wants to become a pilot, and has an 85 percent average at school)...
Back through the gate, loaded with 10 beers in a plastic bag.
Aha, trouble!
The armed guard inspected our handbags, then the plastic bag, when he shook his head earnestly and said:
No beer or whisky, not allowed. Bottles of beer, yes, but no cans. And there are too many, you are only allowed three.
Well, I said, there are three of us, and that makes 3 1/3 each.
No, not allowed, he said, unless you get special customs clearance.
How, I asked.
He waved us over to a small sentry box, where his buddy stood over a ledger, pen in hand, machine gun leaning agoinst the wall.
We approached and stopped in front of the shed.
No, no, our guard said....you are doing something wrong, come in further, out of the sight line of the video monitors.
Aha, it clicked in my little brain....
How much does the 'special clearance' cost, I asked winking at him, and getting a wink in return.
He shrugged.
Two of us extricated a dollar each from our pockets, handed them to the guard, and magically special customs clearance happened without further ado.
He waved us very politely through the turn style, beer and all. Cost per can had now increased from 80 cents to 100 cents - still a good deal.
And that is all, folks. Four days at sea coming up.
