Goan to a Wedding

For more pictures, see the album.

We arrived in Goa during the wee hours of Christmas morning. Unfortunately, it was too late to catch a midnight mass, so we just enjoyed the christmas lights on the way to the hotel. In the morning, we started by touring the basilica, church and cathedral that the Portugese left in Old Goa. The basilica, is famous for its English mass, but on X-mas day, it was just a very busy tourist destination with a very weird nativity scene that included light up dolls. Also, Indians hang their stars the other way than we do. They put two points at the top insted of one. Though the churches are famous for India, they don't compare to the spectacular cathedrals of Europe, so, though it was interesting, we moved on quickly.

After Old Goa, we went to a spice plantation. They had their tourist schtick down to a tea, but it was still fun. We got a short walk through the plantation where we could see how many spices grow including beetle nut, nutmeg, vanilla, black pepper, coconut, cardamon, pineapple, banana, turmeric, ginger and coffee. For the trivia nuts, we found out what pineapple, banana and bamboo all have in common. They are all grasses that grow, flower and fruit once and then die.  After the walk, we had lunch where we could sample an excellent selection of Goan dishes.

On the way back to the hotel, we made a quick stop at a Buddhist temple where we went in and the priests were gracious enough to explain the ritual to us. So we partook even though we didn't quite understand the explanation.

Upon arriving at the hotel, Kim, Amy and Kevin were just checking in. So, we told stories over cocktails and made our way to Upper House in downtown Panjim for dinner. It makes excellent Goan food. We tried a number of dishes including crab xec xec, a pineapple curry and a fish curry.

The next couple of days were full of hanging out with friends and going to the wedding. The first night was the actual ceremony, while the second night was the reception. The girls had fun with the cumulation of their sari adventure where they left the draping to the professionals over at a beauty parlor. They looked fantastic and had many comments from other guests about how well they carried their saris.

The ceremony itself was from Aranya's family. We talked to Utsav's dad and he told us that the ceremony was just as interesting for him because it was completely different. Apparently each Hindi subculture has a very different ceremony. Though we weren't able to follow it all, there was an overall narrative. It included Utsav swearing to be a bachelor forever and running away from Aranya only to become completely smitten and deciding to marry. The actual marriage token the woman wears is a necklace instead of a ring like we do. At the end, they give 7 ritual promises together for the 7 lives that they will spend together.

After the sunset ceremony, we went down to the beach and had a blast releasing Chineese lanterns towards the ocean and then had dinner. The food both nights was fantastic. The first night was all veg, while the second night had some meat. In both cases, there was a gigantic buffet of dishes starting with 3 kinds of rice and moving through a dozen different dishes, plus pickles, plus dessert. I'd say that the favorite veg dish in our group was a sprouted bean dal, followed closely by a coconut thai curry. Although the latter might have been because there was no chiles, which is a rarity around here. For the non-veg dishes, we probably enjoyed some shrimp stir fried in a vaguely Chinese style. On a side note, "Chinese food" in India is its own distinct cuisine unlike anything else in the world the same way that chop suey is uniquely American. For desert, there was ice cream, gulab jamen, cakes and other goodies. Suffice it to say, that we left each night rolling out the door.