MICA always seems much rosier whenever I get back from trips. Clean bedsheets, toilet paper in the toilet roll holders, privacy of my room, convenience of wireless internet...the list goes on.
..UNTIL we sit at the mess quietly eating our butter toast when Dalzeen pops up and reminds us about the &%$#!%! Indian Cinema assignment we have to pass up. frick. And that reminds us of Services marketing exam and essay and the rest of the CCC modules we need to get credits for.
Damn it I wanna go home. I've just had enough of this place. This is the low point the counsellor was talking about when she addressed all of us going on exchange. Some people move on to pick themselves up and complete the exchange on a happy note. Some people get into this depressive state and never get out.
This morning Erwin and I survived a gruelling 25-hour bus ride from Goa to Ahmedabad to save S$170. What made two motion-sickness-prone people undertake such a task still makes me want to slap myself. Cramped seats, freezing aircon, a crying baby, a coughing idiot and the uncertainty of where exactly we were at any point because the conductor only spoke Hindi..is all fine for 25 hours. But why I would never again be cheap and go through this ever again is cos the memory of pee/faeces-flooded toilet stops will haunt me for life. Imagine being in a tight space having to wear footwear reeking in someone else's urine/shit for hours on end. Even after scrubbing my havis I still can't bear to wear them after knowing the trauma they have endured. It amazes me how women in saris manage to hobble into these peeholes with their complicated layers of cloth and do their business. Argh, ok enough about the standard of public toilets here. One of our lecturers attributed dirty public toilets as the reason why the class was able to go on without a break for 3 hours non-stop. Ok ok, enough about toilets.
Goa..hmm..one word: suffocating. I guess if you're the sort who likes beaches crowded with half-naked sunburnt ang mohs, drugged out trying-too-hard hippies in strange clothing, flimsy beach shacks and chaotic dirt roads then the place is fine. Well well well.......SOME people like that ok.
I took only 31 photos there...so not worth the weight of my D40. We went to Palolem, Colva and lastly Baga. By Colva I gave up trying to capture moments and I didn't want my camera to melt on the beach chairs so I left it in the hotel room. This is the photo of the trip:
Ahhh...just kidding. (Not really actually). Most of our days were spent in this order:
1. heading down to the beach
2. building a rapport with one of the restaurants facing the sea that looks decent enough (or tries hardest in greeting us as we walk past)
3. eating breakfast or lunch, depending on how early we wake up
4. plonking our bags on one of those beach chairs in the photo below that the restaurant will provide
5. running to the sea to catch waves
6. drying off on the beach chairs
7. returning to our rooms to wash up
8. having dinner and sampling calamari
Erwin came up with the theory that we get big waves at our end when fat people jump into the sea at the opposite coast. So thanks to fat, wrinkly, sagging, middle-aged people doing the YMCA dance somewhere out there, we get huge waves to dive into. heehee.
Palolem Beach is filled with flimsy shacks lining the beach. The one we stayed at, Chattai, is a midrange budget accommodation but still, we didn't get a proper solid structure. The lock on the door was spoilt so I couldn't sleep properly for three nights cos I was paranoid about people breaking in. Didn't help that news from home about rapes and drug dealers in Goa zhun zhun started coming in on the day we arrived.
This is our favourite Rendezvous Restaurant at Palolem, or as they say..Ron-deh-vuus.
We took a one hour boat ride out to see dolphins at Palolem, which left me with motion sickness and a lost of appetite for breakfast. But despite all that I still thought it was pretty cool getting to see dolphin fins just 10m in front of us.
Our last stop was Baga Beach..THE beach for tourists. It's swarming with commercialisation and rude Caucasians.
Anjuna Wednesday Flea Market, where you can find treasures if you look hard enough. There was a row of stalls run by hippie ang mohs with dreadlocks who looked like they haven't bathed in months. Btw, my bargaining skills have improved significantly since coming here. The trick is not to want something too badly.
We rented scooters in Baga and had a a rather hair-raising experience maneuvering through Indian traffic. And not to forget, Erwin can now lay claim to having BRIBED A POLICE OFFICER. hahhahahhahah...
The best souvenir I got from the trip has got to be the realisation that sketching with a black ballpoint pen is super therapeutic. I had really bad homesick pangs during the trip and sketching helped to distract me from thinking about it.
As you can see, I went a bit mad somewhere in the middle..when my drawings featured severed skulls and lots of cynism.
And now it's back to reality. ARGH. Starting to dread CCC modules now with the rather fluffy content and group work..ARGHHH GROUP WORK. Group work with these people sucks. Like, cereally.
..UNTIL we sit at the mess quietly eating our butter toast when Dalzeen pops up and reminds us about the &%$#!%! Indian Cinema assignment we have to pass up. frick. And that reminds us of Services marketing exam and essay and the rest of the CCC modules we need to get credits for.
Damn it I wanna go home. I've just had enough of this place. This is the low point the counsellor was talking about when she addressed all of us going on exchange. Some people move on to pick themselves up and complete the exchange on a happy note. Some people get into this depressive state and never get out.
This morning Erwin and I survived a gruelling 25-hour bus ride from Goa to Ahmedabad to save S$170. What made two motion-sickness-prone people undertake such a task still makes me want to slap myself. Cramped seats, freezing aircon, a crying baby, a coughing idiot and the uncertainty of where exactly we were at any point because the conductor only spoke Hindi..is all fine for 25 hours. But why I would never again be cheap and go through this ever again is cos the memory of pee/faeces-flooded toilet stops will haunt me for life. Imagine being in a tight space having to wear footwear reeking in someone else's urine/shit for hours on end. Even after scrubbing my havis I still can't bear to wear them after knowing the trauma they have endured. It amazes me how women in saris manage to hobble into these peeholes with their complicated layers of cloth and do their business. Argh, ok enough about the standard of public toilets here. One of our lecturers attributed dirty public toilets as the reason why the class was able to go on without a break for 3 hours non-stop. Ok ok, enough about toilets.
Goa..hmm..one word: suffocating. I guess if you're the sort who likes beaches crowded with half-naked sunburnt ang mohs, drugged out trying-too-hard hippies in strange clothing, flimsy beach shacks and chaotic dirt roads then the place is fine. Well well well.......SOME people like that ok.
I took only 31 photos there...so not worth the weight of my D40. We went to Palolem, Colva and lastly Baga. By Colva I gave up trying to capture moments and I didn't want my camera to melt on the beach chairs so I left it in the hotel room. This is the photo of the trip:
Ahhh...just kidding. (Not really actually). Most of our days were spent in this order:
1. heading down to the beach
2. building a rapport with one of the restaurants facing the sea that looks decent enough (or tries hardest in greeting us as we walk past)
3. eating breakfast or lunch, depending on how early we wake up
4. plonking our bags on one of those beach chairs in the photo below that the restaurant will provide
5. running to the sea to catch waves
6. drying off on the beach chairs
7. returning to our rooms to wash up
8. having dinner and sampling calamari
Erwin came up with the theory that we get big waves at our end when fat people jump into the sea at the opposite coast. So thanks to fat, wrinkly, sagging, middle-aged people doing the YMCA dance somewhere out there, we get huge waves to dive into. heehee.
Palolem Beach is filled with flimsy shacks lining the beach. The one we stayed at, Chattai, is a midrange budget accommodation but still, we didn't get a proper solid structure. The lock on the door was spoilt so I couldn't sleep properly for three nights cos I was paranoid about people breaking in. Didn't help that news from home about rapes and drug dealers in Goa zhun zhun started coming in on the day we arrived.
This is our favourite Rendezvous Restaurant at Palolem, or as they say..Ron-deh-vuus.
We took a one hour boat ride out to see dolphins at Palolem, which left me with motion sickness and a lost of appetite for breakfast. But despite all that I still thought it was pretty cool getting to see dolphin fins just 10m in front of us.
Our last stop was Baga Beach..THE beach for tourists. It's swarming with commercialisation and rude Caucasians.
Anjuna Wednesday Flea Market, where you can find treasures if you look hard enough. There was a row of stalls run by hippie ang mohs with dreadlocks who looked like they haven't bathed in months. Btw, my bargaining skills have improved significantly since coming here. The trick is not to want something too badly.
We rented scooters in Baga and had a a rather hair-raising experience maneuvering through Indian traffic. And not to forget, Erwin can now lay claim to having BRIBED A POLICE OFFICER. hahhahahhahah...
The best souvenir I got from the trip has got to be the realisation that sketching with a black ballpoint pen is super therapeutic. I had really bad homesick pangs during the trip and sketching helped to distract me from thinking about it.
As you can see, I went a bit mad somewhere in the middle..when my drawings featured severed skulls and lots of cynism.
And now it's back to reality. ARGH. Starting to dread CCC modules now with the rather fluffy content and group work..ARGHHH GROUP WORK. Group work with these people sucks. Like, cereally.
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