At this point, let me talk about Ana. And Ana’s book. The book with all the facts of Goa, which never left her side. In fact long before she even reached Goa, Ana was all agog about which places we should see and which restaurants we should try.
One such restaurant was Anand Ashram which ‘the book‘ told us was over a 100 years old and served authentic Hindu Goan Thalis. Ana was so enthu about going to Anand Ashram, in fact we heard the name mentioned so many times from the moment they arrived that all the rest of us thought it wise to have lunch there immediately to save our ears the rest of the trip 
When we reached there however we were all in for a surprise. The place is over a 100 years old & as DV put it, doesn’t look like it’s been done up for a 100 years. It’s really a small little place frequented only by single men (all sitting separately on the edges of a wall). After a little hesitation we decided to give it a try. They had no table for us & had to actually get two tables for us. Even the chairs we got were all old wooden ones, one different from the other.
The food was however brilliant. I don’t know if there’s anything different about authentic Hindu & Catholic fish though. And you can’t beat the prices @ Rs. 20/- a plate!
After that we moved onto the Wednesday Anjuna Flea Market. It was unbelievably crowded and we parked about 2 kms from the actual market & walked. This turned out to be a good thing eventually because as the day passed, the traffic just became more and more crazy & eventually seemed like it wasn’t even moving.
Took the above pics at a lovely little coffee place we stopped at on the way to the market (as we really wanted to use a loo!)
The market was crazy, busy, crowded, hippified. It’s an experience in itself & though it’s not my type of place, I definetely recommend going there. One should be fully prepared to meet Bombay people in Goa during peak seasons (May & December) & it was no surprise that we ran into many people we knew at the market. What was possibly surprising is that the Aussies in our group also ran into fellow Aussies at the market too!!
Between the lot of us, bought lots of junk jewellery, embroidered wall hangings, lots of t-shirts & other things to wear. I even picked up some terrible rave cds for a friend (which I ended up forgetting to carry back with me!).
It was pretty late by the time we all re-grouped - we had broken off into groups of threes in order to browse more effectively and make sure no one got lost - and to add to that traffic was crazy, so we decided to go directly for dinner.
After lunch, we had decided to give everyone a chance to choose a restaurant, so by Geh’s choice we went to ‘Bombra‘ an up-market Burmese restaurant in Candolim.
Since we didn’t go home & I was very chilly - it was hot during the days and pretty chill in the nights - I bought a lime green sarong to keep me warm. It turned out to be a good investment as I got to use it again the next day on the beach
The food at Bombra was excellent. We ordered several dishes including the Burmese Khow Suey (pronounced Cow Sway) which we had at Sim’s engagement too.
Word to the wise though, check all your bills in Goa throughly. Don’t know if it’s just coincidence but we were overcharged a lot on the entire trip. Think it may have something to do with all the phirangs in our group (haven’t faced this problem before). At Bombra’s they made the mistake of overcharging us for 2 extra Lobster platters (which substantially increased an already humoungous bill). Hmmm.
(Leave your comments only at the end of this adventure!)
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