Day 110 (Wed 25 Oct) - Goa Majorda Beach

Up early and spoke to the hotelier saying that we were checking out to go to Majorda Beach.

He immediately thought it was because of the noise from the nightclub which was sort of true. Went for brekky and returned to our hotel to pack our gear.

Just as we had finished checking out we bumped into the hotelier who was talking frantically into a mobile phone. He beckoned to Sarb and asked him to please speak to the person on the other end of the line. Bemused Sarb took the call and was somewhat surprised to find himself speaking to a police inspector. Sarb told him that the reason we were checking out was because of the noise from the nightclub. The inspector assured Sarb that he would be looking into the matter and was quite apologetic. The hotelier was well pleased at this turn of events as the nightclub was illegal and he was itching for an excuse to get the rozzers round.

Got a taxi to our new home; the Sefra hotel just down the road from Ruth and Keith.
Unpacked our gear and headed off to their hotel where we found Ruth and Keith sitting in the gardens.

We all sat around until 1.30ish when we all felt a little thirsty and headed off to the Pentagon restaurant, situated between our hotel and theirs, for drinks.

Our hotel driver, Francisco, took us to nearby Chandor and to the Braganza House. Braganza House looks rather plain from the outside but there is no denying it's size; its massive.

The house is split into two wings. The East was being renovated and was unlived in while the West was still a family home to the Braganza's. We walked through the East Wing with our guide, Igor (Sarb's name for him), marveling at the beautiful furniture, fixtures and fittings and the elegant ball room. The chandelier's in this room were enormous.

As we left and thanked the guide he insisted that we should make a donation of 400 rupees (100 each). We were quite taken aback by this as no mention was made of any money changing hands. Anyway we payed up and thought that for our 400 we would also like to see the West Wing. Our guide led us to the West Wing, handed us over to an elderly Braganza descendant and no doubt trousering 400 rupees.

The West Wing was full of incredible furniture, books, Ming vases, silver, rare porcelain etc. etc. It is still a real house so as we pottered round we met a very old lady sitting doing crochet; the head of the family it turned out.

At the end of our tour we thanked the lady who politely but very firmly stated that we should make a donation of 400 rupees. We protested stating that we had been duly fleeced by Igor next door and if any further donations were to be made Igor was her man. She then came up with an ingenious explanation stating that the East and West Wings were owned by different members of the family and as such our 400 had gone East and we still had to pay up for the West. Well, we were all a little bamboozled by this but paid up just so we could get out.

Sarb was not happy with parting with such a princely sum especially since any family that has Ming vases and hoards of silver lying around is not likely to be too short of the green stuff. Francisco, on being told how much we had contributed to the Braganza's fortune, was quite surprised saying that that this was the first time he had heard that tourists were charged so much. Not half as bloody surprised as we were!

We made our back to the hotel with a thoroughly depleted kitty. Keith and Sarb played a couple of restorative frames of snooker whilst Ruth and Jo went off to phone Rae (Jo's sister).

We all met up again and had a fabulous dinner at the Pentagon aided with muchos vino and beerskis.