Day 8: Giving in to our city roots

The day started great, because we slept well and we did not have diarrhea or food poisoning. 8 days into our trip, however, food options are getting tough.

The food here generally tends to be:
A) Spicy
B) Vegetarian
C) All of the above

For those of you who know me you would know how poorly I do with any of those choices. For those of you who don't, let's just say my dietary restrictions include "carnivorous" and "not at all spicy".

In fact I've eaten more spice in 8 days than I have in the rest of the 30 years of my life, some of it due to sheer hunger.

Also, there's a general lack of salt and sugar in their foods. My guess is that it's because spice is the seasoning of choice.

All that culminates in this...

I'm such a sellout

Concentrated sugar water and salty deep fried stuff. As it stands I've consumed more Sprite in the past 3 days than I have in my entire life, and I've been rapidly increasingly my Lay's consumption count. At this rate I will probably consume more Lay's by the end of the trip than I have had for my entire life too.

Potato chips and soft drinks, now that's a diet I never considered viable, even in my teenage, coke-guzzling years.

We then hit up a marketplace which was an explosion of colour, activity and the interesting observation of locals buying from locals. That somehow involves a lot more sounds and gesturing than I would have imagine.

Pointy Finger of Doom

The two bags of fruit were in all possible configurations. They started both with the seller (the kid), moved to the buyer (the old man), then the yellow bag returned to the kid (as shown), after this they exchanged bags, then the kid took both bags back, and finally the old man got them all.

In the same time frame, the two notes in the kid's hand did the exact same dance, except in the opposite configuration. There was even a double steal where all the money went back to old man and the kid snatched both bags back, even unpacking one of them.

This whole purchasing process took 5 minutes. I'm ashamed to say that the trader in me felt very fascinated because I stood and watched the whole thing unfold.

A constant feature of our west coast drive is the presence of really good beaches, and the next one did not disappoint.

Maravanthe Beach

That's the eastern edge of the Arabian Sea in all its glory. I would have liked to spend more time here but Goa and the promises of even greater beaches awaited us.

We blazed on for another bunch of hours before taking a detour to check out a waterfall by the seaside. I had really high hopes for it but unfortunately it turned out really... underwhelming. To make up for the time spent hiking to it I decided to continue my ritual of drinking from freshwater streams that I hike to.

Not sure if good life decision

The water actually looked clean. Only after I took a good swig did I notice a small little hut on top of the waterfall. I hope I win my war against the bowel gods tonight.

By nightfall we made it to Karwar, a large-ish city on the edge of the Karnataka-Goa border. Yingao's driving skills upgraded from night driving to night + rural driving to night + rural + mountainous driving. Props to his mad skills. I, meanwhile, supplied a healthy dose of "go straight". Clearly one of us is the more useful one here.

City roots again showed as we opted for the one of the top reviewed accommodations, but I thoroughly recommend it because it cost us $25 per pax per night. It was a service apartment with decent amenities and good front desk service. Also, the presence of a washing machine was really helpful and was easily the highlight of the stay. Ah, the simple pleasures in life.

Also great food that was neither spicy nor vegetarian! Recommended by the front desk. The man clearly knows what tourists need. Good room, Wi-Fi, good food. Lovely.

Alright time to wrap up and soak in the beaches of Goa. Whoo!

Cheerios, Jik
https://give.asia/movement/rickshaw_run_-_driving_for_charity