{"id":5494,"date":"2024-01-25T09:34:59","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T09:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/?p=5494"},"modified":"2024-01-25T09:49:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T09:49:00","slug":"week-2-dining-and-discovering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/?p=5494","title":{"rendered":"Week 2 – Dining and Discovering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few long days out exploring and being a tourist have been balanced against chilled and relaxing days around the pool and down at the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One morning we drove into our nearest town Margao to visit the Market, we’ve had a rodent visitor and was hoping to find a mouse trap, no such luck. Instead we found a truly authentic cafe for lunch, 4 samosas, 4 potato patties and a few dips, 2 banana cakes, several drinks and bottles of water later = a whopping bill of \u00a32.60!!!!  Graham was sooo pleased, it was his turn to pay!!! \ud83d\ude01\ud83d\ude01<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explanation = 10 rupees = 10p, 100 rupees is about a \u00a3, so 150R = \u00a31.50 etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We’ve eaten in a few restaurants around us, mostly intercontinental foods on offer (Indian, goan, Chinese, Italian and steak dishes) and we are still amazed at the prices, 2 or 3 course dinner for 4 is usually about \u00a320, unless the boys order a kilo of giant prawns (costing approx \u00a330), or a massive seabass (\u00a320) \ud83d\ude01.  We’ve also stayed in and cooked, enjoying 650ml bottles of Kingfisher beer for \u00a31 and gin or vodka at \u00a33 a bottle! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On Sunday we took advantage of a Sunday brunch offer at the local Novotel, 3 hours of all you can eat food and drinks plus lazing about by their pool, all for \u00a315. Graham enjoyed more giant bbq’d prawns! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whilst at the Novotel, a very loud but colourful Indian wedding was taking place, we sneaked a peek…..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fresh bread is delivered by men on bicycles, fruit and veg are bought off fruit and veg stalls and taste how “real food” should and are so cheap.\u00a0 Rather than give you small change, you are given another piece of fruit, or some lemons, or in a supermarket, you are given a boiled sweet as change. No one bothers, no one argues, we just enjoy the way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Crossroads are a sight to see, the rule is whoever gets there first has right of way and it doesn’t matter if people pull in front of you or drive the wrong way up a road or even just lay down on the road, in the shade, for a snooze, you just drive round them!!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Out in the villages or at tourist spots, we (the white european) are often asked for selfies!!!  Indian people want photos taken with us, so we must be amazingly good looking \ud83d\ude09\ud83d\ude01.  We’ve also had so many genuine invites to the homes of Indian people we’ve met, offers made after we’ve danced with them or simply chatted. The inclusive culture here is simply heart warming and very old fashioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A few long days out exploring and being a tourist have been balanced against chilled and relaxing days around the pool and down at the beach. One morning we drove into our nearest town Margao to visit the Market, we’ve had a rodent visitor and was hoping to find a mouse trap, no such luck. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,86],"tags":[148,14,81,179],"class_list":["post-5494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-general","category-india","tag-beach","tag-food","tag-life","tag-sunset","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/20240122_185036-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5494"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5562,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5494\/revisions\/5562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}