Wednesday 22 January 2014

Change, chainsaws and chaos!



We shall miss our cool airy apartment, especially in the morning, having coffee on the balcony , watching the stork billed Kingfishers, with just the swishing of the palms, calls of the sea eagles and the bells of Varca church.  This morning was very relaxing especially as we rocked up to the Reggae night at Pedro’s in Benaulim last night.  Graham the trumpet player & singer, and Alan the guitarist played a couple of sets of Bob Marley and various reggae numbers that had the whole place dancing including me and himself. 

We popped to the ATM machine this morning, dodging “Pinky & Perky” at pig corner and Richard came out with a wad of notes! Rupees are not as filthy as they used to be.  We notice that there is a definite shortage of change.  The lowest denomination is 10r , so the shop owner has to either discount down, unlikely,  or give you something else in exchange.  From the supermarket it is usually toffees or on a really good day tiny bars of dairy milk! Mmmmm, cant see that ever happening in Tesco.  I think I told you I had bought half of Boots with me, well I’ve just bought the other half from the village pharmacy .  We bought himself some Naproxen, he strained his back lifting his wallet on the first day and has whinged steadily ever since.  Also on the shopping list was paracetamol 7p  ibroprufen 7p, Imodium  – you never know your lousy luck and at just 40p for 20 you cant really say no. We also bought our Malaria tabs those cost £7, just a little different to  the £90 each last time, same brand.  Of course there was no change at the Pharmacy so we had it in throat lozenges.

We’d just had Tandoori Chicken and a couple of beers and sat on the beach when the bar owners started shouting “everyone off the beach”.  It was dead calm out to sea, people started to panic, I thought there was a tsunami coming, they shouted with such urgency,  Waiters  pulled up umbrellas and started ushering people away I ran to find out what was going on, only to be told that the Police were on the way up the beach and they were confiscating sunbeds over the limited number allowed for each bar, and cutting them up with a chainsaw!  Yikes!  Then a couple of international incidents broke out when the first people they tipped off their chairs were the Russians.  These were followed swiftly by the Germans and when they tried to shift three Chinese things started to get out of hand. They flatly refused to be moved and commenced to make a makeshift fruit salad with pineapples and oranges and threw the peelings at the waiter.  Hells bells I could write a book about this lot.  The British were of course calm and collected and offered to bribe the police if necessary, but the bar owner raised his eyebrows and said I don’t think so.

I bought myself a new sunhat, my hair is not like its usual golden silk J but like straw.  My original hat I put in the washer, it said handwash, but I’ve always thought handwashing was for wimps.  I now have a hat suitable for an 8 year old.  I also bought some tat off the beach hawkers a nice little bracelet, bound to make the arm go green and a genuine pair or Ray Bans


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