A woman climbs the steps of the Church of Srª da Imaculada Conceição, one of the most impressive religious monuments in Panjim.
blessed shoes
Shoes of participants in a traditional Hindu wedding taking place in the late afternoon in the vicinity of Anjuna.
The head
Young girl is carrying a bucket loaded over the sunset and in one of the central streets of Panjim, the Goan capital.
divine rocks
Sculpture of Shiva accompanied by a turtle during low tide on Vagator beach, near Anjuna.
bathing games
Children create stylish positions on the sandy beach of Goa, having great fun.
another goa
Boat passes by an old jetty on an inlet on the outskirts of Panjim, Goa.
A Hindu Wedding
Couple during a marriage ceremony in the vicinity of Anjuna, and according to the sacred and colorful precepts of the Hindu religion.
Sellers and bathing cows
Goan cloth sellers skirt cows in sacred repose on a sandy beach north of Anjuna.
colonial grandeur
The church of Nossa Srª da Conceição, highlighted in immaculate white against the strong blue color over the capital of Goa.
"Little Business"
Girls try to sell bright rags to customers at a beach restaurant, balanced on a very irregular slab of rock.
in a ceremonial trance
A participant in a wedding taking place in Anjuna sings a Hindu chant absorbed in the spirituality of her religion.
Lodging Republic
The peculiar facade of the old República hotel, in the Goan capital Panjim.
under the covers
Scarf and cloth sellers take a break from their tour of the beaches and pose for photography.
A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
Text: Marco C. Pereira
Images: Marco C. Pereira-Sara Wong
Winter remains harsh in the tuga homeland and generates a sudden desire to escape to another cozier side of the world.
Seventeen hours after take-off from a frigid Portela, we landed in sultry Mumbai. Blessed by the city's fluid traffic at this late hour, we quickly proceeded to Central Station.
The Long Rail Stretch between Bombay and Goa
There are several hours before the departure of the mandovi express but there is not a single room or business open at the station. With no alternative, we installed ourselves against the wall of a bordering platform, as abstracted as possible from the rats' incursions into the gloomy, oily depression in which the rails rested.
The composition starts shortly after sunrise. We celebrate the fact that the seats bounce like a blessing from Shiva. Once the luggage is accommodated, we land diagonally.
We only woke up hundreds of kilometers later, on the threshold of the state of Maharashtra and with that of Goa announcing itself.
"Old Goa, Anjuna, Panjim?" other passengers asked us to leave at the right station. We leave the train at the Old Goa station and, with darkness creeping in, we transfer in a white Ambassador to an inn named Punan, located on the Anjuna seafront.
Tropical Seaside and Anjuna Backpacker
That night, we still had a look at a rehearsal of rave parties in the vicinity. There was a full moon but the event lacked trance and the incessant approaches of sellers of everything ended up convincing us to return to the new rooms.
The first awakening in Goa is rewarded with an invigorating breakfast on an elevated terrace. We enjoy the meal with pleasure and tranquility. Not as much as we wanted.
Girls try to sell bright rags to customers at a beach restaurant, balanced on a very irregular slab of rock.
It is with surprise that we hear female voices coming from below: “Little business, sir, madam!” just a little business.” Intrigued, we peeked over the balcony and discovered two young saleswomen on the porous black slab. They carry open cloths above their heads.
Teenagers intensify the appeal. "Very good cloth, madam. Please tell me a good price!”. By that time, we were giving absolute priority to the inaugural dive in the Arabian Sea. The wish would not take long to come true.
Sculpture of Shiva accompanied by a turtle during low tide on Vagator beach, near Anjuna.
The rough sands of Goa and the Arabian Sea
After a long bath and a conviviality lying on the Anjuna beach, our appetite comes back to us. We bought pineapple kebabs and sweetened the morning even more. It is, again, short-lasting sunshine.
Indian cows, sacred like all, superb beach queens smell the sweet aroma of the fruit in the air.
In a flash, we have them with their snouts close to their faces, making up what was left of the snack. Its persistence becomes such that it forces us to rise from the fray.
Instigated by the battle won, those bathing cattle chase us as we run around, skewers at our fingertips.
We got far enough away to discourage them and took advantage of the swing to walk along the coast to the north. Also to those sides, more saleswomen and more cows would star in reproductions of the previous scenes.
Goan cloth sellers skirt cows in sacred repose on a sandy beach north of Anjuna.
Revenge is not intentional but, with proper authorization, we join a Hindu wedding so that, without any real warning or invitation, it summons us.
In a photographic way, we disturb him as much as we can.
Couple during a marriage ceremony in the vicinity of Anjuna, and according to the sacred and colorful precepts of the Hindu religion.
Secret Files. Mulder & Scully at an Unexpected Cinema in Goa
We had to wait for the dark night and for the retreat from the terrace of Punan guest house to feel an undisputed peace. This time, for a change, we're the ones to stop it.
An intriguing glare flickers in the air. It doesn't seem to have the party pattern rave it's not even time for it. We decided to investigate. We found an almost full modular amphitheater. Even though we're not big fans, we find ourselves following an old episode of the X-Files series, projected on a giant white sheet.
In the heart of Anjuna, under a hyperstarry firmament, sweating from the heat of the Goan summer, among haughty coconut trees and other attributes of Indian tropicalism, we accompanied the duo Mulder & Scully in “Ice”, an esoteric adventure set in the grandiose arctic setting of Alaska.
But we were at fault with the Portugality of Goa. In the middle of the next morning, we rented a motor scooter and moved to Panjim.
In the capital, we wander through alleys with names as familiar as some of ours, go up to Altinho and to the church of Nª Srª da Imaculada Conceição.
Ao Deus Dará, through the streets of the Capital Pangim
In the neighborhoods of Fontainhas and São Tomé, we speak to several inhabitants with lighter complexions, olive green eyes and other shades, previously uncommon in those parts of India that only the Portuguese historical presence can justify.
Young girl is carrying a bucket loaded over the sunset and in one of the central streets of Panjim, the Goan capital.
One or two older natives dare to exemplify their rusty mastery of our language and even express some nostalgia for the already distant colonial past. “What I can tell you is that we all had a good life together, a Mr. Lourenço assures us”.
The Indian government disagrees, fulfills its role and continues to rescue the territory from the former landlords. It recently announced the enactment of a law confiscating Portuguese property in Goa. The decision still needs to be talked about.
The city's enterprising souls prefer to profit from the cultural legacy. We found it on one of the cruise ships on the Mandovi River. In addition to the crew, a battalion of Indian men and dozens of women from saris.
“Malhão, Malhão” and Other Portuguese Successes, Rio Mandovi Up
We had barely settled in when the hosts start a show that includes interpretations of Anglophone, Indian folk songs. And also Portuguese.
All passengers – us much more than the rest – are surprised by an imitation of a folklore ranch with an Indo-Minho look. Amazement turns to apprehension and, soon, to dread when they summon us to a distorted "Malhão, Malhão".
Indian men, on the other hand, rejoice when their turn comes. After the live performances are over, the animators loudly shout some Bollywoodesque success. As soon as he recognizes him, the mob hurls itself from the tables onto the dance floor.
As if they were all born Shahrukh Khans or other Mumbai idols, they squirm, waving their arms and hands back and forth, up and down wildly. And they emulate, in a delicious onboard ecstasy, the choreographies that they spent their lives admiring.
The women in the group, these, just watch.
On another afternoon, we passed through Old Goa and examined the majestic ecclesiastical heritage left there by our nation of adventurers, discoverers and missionaries, in particular the Basilica of Bom Jesus where lies the body of St. Francis de Xavier, the Apostle of the East.
Departure in Distress for Cochin
When we realized that the train we had to take south was passing the local station in three hours, we went into distress mode.
We ran off to deliver the scooter and got a taxi that was waiting for us at the inn while we hurriedly stuff everything into our backpacks. We pay for the stay and let the driver of this new Ambassador know that he has to follow through.
The man insists on proving to us the quality of those classics. It almost flies into the interior of Goa. Along the way, we still brag about the music on his museum car radio. We ended up buying the tape from you.
Upon arrival, we see Netravati Express already gaining momentum. We still got him. Fifteen hours later, we were admitted to Cochin.
The prominent city of Goa already justified the title of “rome of the east” when, in the middle of the XNUMXth century, epidemics of malaria and cholera led to its abandonment. The New Goa (Pangim) for which it was exchanged became the administrative seat of Portuguese India but was annexed by the Indian Union of post-independence. In both, time and neglect are ailments that now make the Portuguese colonial legacy wither.
It was fortified in 1791 by the Portuguese who expelled the Arabs from the Quirimbas and seized their trade routes. It became the 2nd Portuguese outpost on the east coast of Africa and later the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. With the end of the slave trade at the turn of the XNUMXth century and the passage from the capital to Porto Amélia, Ibo Island found itself in the fascinating backwater in which it is located.
Guwahati is the largest city in the state of Assam and in North East India. It is also one of the fastest growing in the world. For Hindus and devout believers in Tantra, it will be no coincidence that Kamakhya, the mother goddess of creation, is worshiped there.
We arrived at the northern threshold of West Bengal. The subcontinent gives way to a vast alluvial plain filled with tea plantations, jungle, rivers that the monsoon overflows over endless rice fields and villages bursting at the seams. On the verge of the greatest of the mountain ranges and the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan, for obvious British colonial influence, India treats this stunning region by Dooars.
Gangtok it is the capital of Sikkim, an ancient kingdom in the Himalayas section of the Silk Road, which became an Indian province in 1975. The city is balanced on a slope, facing Kanchenjunga, the third highest elevation in the world that many natives believe shelters a paradise valley of Immortality. Their steep and strenuous Buddhist existence aims, there, or elsewhere, to achieve it.
The unpredictability of rivers in the wettest region on Earth never deterred the Khasi and the Jaintia. Faced with the abundance of trees elastic fig tree in their valleys, these ethnic groups got used to molding their branches and strains. From their time-lost tradition, they have bequeathed hundreds of dazzling root bridges to future generations.
150 km of solitude north of the matriarch São Tomé, the island of Príncipe rises from the deep Atlantic against an abrupt and volcanic mountain-covered jungle setting. Long enclosed in its sweeping tropical nature and a contained but moving Luso-colonial past, this small African island still houses more stories to tell than visitors to listen to.
With the arrival of Vasco da Gama in the extreme south-east of Africa, the Portuguese took over an island that had previously been ruled by an Arab emir, who ended up misrepresenting the name. The emir lost his territory and office. Mozambique - the molded name - remains on the resplendent island where it all began and also baptized the nation that Portuguese colonization ended up forming.
The conflict with Pakistan and the threat of terrorism made filming in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh a drama. In Ooty, we see how this former British colonial station took the lead.
In 1565, the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar succumbed to enemy attacks. 45 years before, he had already been the victim of the Portugueseization of his name by two Portuguese adventurers who revealed him to the West.
A patch of the Kalahari Desert dries up or is irrigated depending on the region's tectonic whims. In Savuti, lions have become used to depending on themselves and prey on the largest animals in the savannah.
Unbeknownst to us, we are faced with an ascent that leads us to despair. We pulled our strength as far as possible and reached Ghyaru where we felt closer than ever to the Annapurnas. The rest of the way to Ngawal felt like a kind of extension of the reward.
As we wander around Machu Picchu, we find meaning in the most accepted explanations for its foundation and abandonment. But whenever the complex is closed, the ruins are left to their enigmas.
In 1955, pilot Harry Wigley created a system for taking off and landing on asphalt or snow. Since then, his company has unveiled, from the air, some of the greatest scenery in Oceania.
December arrives. With a largely Christian population, the state of Meghalaya synchronizes its Nativity with that of the West and clashes with the overcrowded Hindu and Muslim subcontinent. Shillong, the capital, shines with faith, happiness, jingle bells and bright lighting. To dazzle Indian holidaymakers from other parts and creeds.
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima succumbed to the explosion of the first atomic bomb used in war. 70 years later, the city fights for the memory of the tragedy and for nuclear weapons to be eradicated by 2020.
Few countries employ cereals like Uzbekistan. In this republic of Central Asia, bread plays a vital and social role. The Uzbeks produce it and consume it with devotion and in abundance.
Created by water from the Arctic Ocean and the melting of Europe's largest glacier, Jokülsárlón forms a frigid and imposing domain. Icelanders revere her and pay her surprising tributes.
In 1853, Busselton was equipped with one of the longest pontoons in the world. World. When the structure collapsed, the residents decided to turn the problem around. Since 1996 they have been doing it every year. Swimming.
A tour through the provinces of Salta and Jujuy takes us to discover a country with no sign of the pampas. Vanished in the Andean vastness, these ends of the Northwest of Argentina have also been lost in time.
Karanga natives of the KwaNemamwa village display traditional Bira dances to privileged visitors to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. the most iconic place in Zimbabwe, the one who, after the decree of colonial Rhodesia's independence, inspired the name of the new and problematic nation.
The theme of light in photography is inexhaustible. In this article, we give you some basic notions about your behavior, to start with, just and only in terms of geolocation, the time of day and the time of year.
Hundreds of kilometers north of Swakopmund, many more of Swakopmund's iconic dunes Sossuvlei, Damaraland is home to deserts interspersed with hills of reddish rock, the highest mountain and ancient rock art of the young nation. the settlers South Africans they named this region after the Damara, one of the Namibian ethnic groups. Only these and other inhabitants prove that it remains on Earth.
The Romans knew the Canaries as the lucky islands. Fuerteventura, preserves many of the attributes of that time. Its perfect beaches for the windsurf and the kite-surfing or just for bathing, they justify successive “invasions” by the sun-hungry northern peoples. In the volcanic and rugged interior, the bastion of the island's indigenous and colonial cultures remains. We started to unravel it along its long south.
Most visitors value Iceland's volcanic scenery for its beauty. Icelanders also draw from them heat and energy crucial to the life they lead to the Arctic gates.
At the top of Mount Roraima, there are extraterrestrial scenarios that have resisted millions of years of erosion. Conan Doyle created, in "The Lost World", a fiction inspired by the place but never got to step on it.
Madeira is located less than 1000km north of the Tropic of Cancer. And the luxuriant exuberance that earned it the nickname of the garden island of the Atlantic can be seen in every corner of its steep capital.
Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
In 1917, botanist Henri Pittier became fond of the jungle of Venezuela's sea mountains. Visitors to the national park that this Swiss created there are, today, more than they ever wanted
Disillusioned with the lack of wine and brandy, the Conquistadors of Mexico improved the millenary indigenous aptitude for producing alcohol. In the XNUMXth century, the Spaniards were satisfied with their pinga and began to export it. From Tequila, town, today, the center of a demarcated region. And the name for which it became famous.
Despite his notoriety in the antipodes, Ian Channell, the New Zealand sorcerer, failed to predict or prevent several earthquakes that struck Christchurch. At the age of 88, after 23 years of contract with the city, he made very controversial statements and ended up fired.
Boa Vista is not only the Cape Verdean island closest to the African coast and its vast desert. After a few hours of discovery, it convinces us that it is a piece of the Sahara adrift in the North Atlantic.
The Golden Pavilion has been spared destruction several times throughout history, including that of US-dropped bombs, but it did not withstand the mental disturbance of Hayashi Yoken. When we admired him, he looked like never before.
The last great American gold rush is long over. These days, hundreds of cruise ships each summer pour thousands of well-heeled visitors into the shop-lined streets of Skagway.
The law of supply and demand dictates their proliferation. Generic or specific, covered or open air, these spaces dedicated to buying, selling and exchanging are expressions of life and financial health.
The unmistakable flavor of Argentine beef is well known. But this wealth is more vulnerable than you think. The threat of foot-and-mouth disease, in particular, keeps authorities and growers afloat.
The first European to venture into these Masai haunts was stunned by what he found. And even today, large herds of elephants and other herbivores roam the pastures irrigated by the snow of Africa's biggest mountain.
A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.
