A 7am start, probably my earliest ever for a boxing day. After breakfast I rented a scooter and headed north towards Anjuna, where on a Wednesday the flea market is held.<\/p>\n
The roads are furious and hectic, but quite fun. The roadsigns are reasonably good, and enough to get me near to Mapusa, from where I head to Baja beach, which I noticed was the only beach in India with a surf report on the MagicSeaWeed website. This is either because this is best surf here (although I have read that Patnem has the biggest waves), or because it is the only beach with a bouy reading they can use on the website. <\/p>\n
It’s probably the later, as when I arrive at Baja beach the wave is no different to that of Patnem. But boy are there a lot of people there. There are so many sun loungers and people that I have to weave my wave through them to see the sea. This is exaclty the sort of place I don’t like – wall to wall tourists, surprisingly many of them are Indian tourists. I thought they would long for somewhere quieter. I need a break from the scooter, which has given me a numb bum, and rest with a banana lassi and my first sandwich on the trip, and quit possible the strangest toasted sandwich I have ever had. There was barely enough filling to qualify it as a sandwich. Any less and it would have been toast. But it only cost 50 pence, and always remember, when in rome….<\/p>\n
Onward then to Anjuna. After deciding not to go down what I though was the lane for market, I end up at the beach and walk a few kilometers to the market through the sweltering heat. I pass through little settlements that, as always in India, as quite interesting. There are a lot of rooms available for rent. <\/p>\n
As if by magic the lads I met on Elephanta Island pop up and ask if I am famous again. We chat briefly, they are looking for rooms. <\/p>\n
Eventually I see the market in the distance, which is huge, and walk in.<\/p>\n
Unfortaunately the market seems to be filled with only the few different types of stall one finds in Indian tourist places ( jewlery, clothes, music and food) and they all seem to be selling the same stuff at seemingly infalted prices. I guess this is a very tourist zone with tourists spending money, so what else would one expect?<\/p>\n
My girlfriend’s sister (Becky) asked me to buy her some India jewelery parts so that she can make some necklaces and other things. I was expecting things to costs around 50 pence per item. When I ask they cost around \u00a36, which would obviously come down a lot with bartering, but this seems way to expensive. It then dawns on me that I know nothing about Jewelery, silver, (which all the jewelery seems to be made from) or really what Becky wants. I decide, even after coming all of this way, that I shouldn’t risk wasting her money. I am sure there will be similar things for sale in Southeast Asia and my girlfriend can buy them for Becky with sisterly love (and advanced jewelery knowledge).<\/p>\n
Absolutely parched I down a bottle of water, and a couple of samosas. I’m tired after the 2 hours scooter ride, and decide not to do anything else today, which is quite unlike me. I jump on the scooter and make the almost painful 2 hour ride back to the Patnem, where upon arrival, my very friendly landlord Ranmath serves me a wonderful banana lassi, and I go for a swim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 7am start, probably my earliest ever for a boxing day. After breakfast I rented a scooter and headed north towards Anjuna, where on a Wednesday the flea market is held. The roads are furious and hectic, but quite fun. The roadsigns are reasonably good, and enough to get me near to Mapusa, from where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"destinationtags":[43],"mytrips":[73],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"destinationtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destinationtags?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"mytrips","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mytrips?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}