We got up and packed and had breakfast, ready to get in the taxi for 10.30am. Our first stop is Old Goa, apparently there was a festival which started yesterday in Old Goa, its a week long festival and you could see the remnants of it while there. There are a lot of churches and vehicles are not allowed into the centre. It was a strange place because once you walk in through the shops as usual, it was quite quiet. There was no one allowed to sell anything and beggars weren't supposed to be allowed but there were a few children wandering. We looked around and had a good walk, they had a small history museum which we looked in, we saw most of the churches (one of which had a service going on up front and tourists were ushered past taking photos, bizarre) and the gardens were lovely. There were even people picking up rubbish which we haven't seen anywhere else but here. On the way back to the taxi we walked through the markets, obviously ALL of the rubbish was out here. It was so thick, the market was huge too. There were a few shops selling bags some of which were tesco and asda hessian bags. No idea where they got those from but it was funny seeing them.
We got back in the car and went to the spice plantation. We walked through and got greeted with a traditional welcome of the flower necklace and the bindi then we sat and waited for enough people to go round in a guided tour, while we waited we were given some cheese snacks and hot lemongrass tea, it was very nice. We were taken round and spices pointed out to us and given information on how they are harvested and what they are good for. We were even given a demonstration of a tree climber, he was pretty impressive! The tour was around 30 minutes and we then were taken for lunch. It was a buffet lunch with rice, curry, cabbage, bread etc and we were given a shot of feni each. Feni is the liquor of Goa, you can get either cashew feni or coconut feni. But the most well known is the cashew which was what we had, we wanted to try it but had heard the alcohol content was high and advice was do not smell it before drinking it. So obviously we were a little cautious. We both gave it a go, it was very much like tequila! But without the suck on a lemon to help take the taste away. It made your hairs stand on end! We were given a souvenir pack of spices each and we then went back to the taxi.
The next bit was quite a long drive to Palolem, during which the taxi driver told us when we had got onto their national highway which runs from Mumbai all the way down the country. Half way on this national highway we had to stop because a massive herd of cows were crossing the road!? All James and I could do was laugh and take photographs.
We arrived in Palolem and got out of the taxi we had to walk the rest of the way to where we are staying because it is a beach hut. They are not right on the beach but about a 5 minute walk so they are not as noisy. We didn't do much that evening apart from have a walk down the beach and come back for some tea at the restaurant on site.