Goa-Aranbol. November 27, 2008

I just heard the news on the attacks in Bombay. I'm fine and quite far from Bombay.
Actually while in Bombay I was 5 minutes from the Taj-Mahal hotel which is the most luxurious in the city.
Today I had a good day. My stomach got better and I'm feeling good. I kept renting the scooter and went again to Panjin (Goa's capital) and also to Old Goa. Old Goa is amazing. It has 3 churches from the Portuguese times. It is amazing how much Portuguese influence there is in this area. All the churches are all named in portuguese names, etc. Panjim feels a bit like Lisbon. A pity that many of the colonial buildings are not so well maintained. I was reading that hundreds of years ago, Goa was as developed as Lisbon as the Portuguese had lots of business in the orient.
Today I decided to leave my room and move to another one nearby. I felt that staying close to the Mexican was giving me bad energy. She became a bad neighbor. So moving will give me opportunities to meet good ones, or neutral ones. Therefore I moved to a room, not far. The room is even a bit cheaper (I'm saving 1$) but I did not notice that it does not have a sink. I'll have to brush my teeth in the bucket :-)

Humorous and Curious Corner: In western modern countries there are traffic laws, the roads are well signed, the roads are decent, the cars are modern and people play by the rules. Therefore traffic flows decently. What you do in a country where: 1) roads are terrible, 2) There are very few signs 3) Most vehicles are motorcycles 4) there are no clear rules 5) there are cows in the streets 6) most vehicles don't have mirrors or working lights.
Eureka, my scientific mind got to a brilliant realization. In western countries the system is passive. Meaning things work without communication between the drivers. The signs, the mirrors, the lights, etc provide the signaling between cars and people. In India the system is active. Horning is the communication system between drivers. Drivers will indicate to each other their intentions by horning. After 4 days driving here, I find this brilliant. I don't need to pay attention to signs, lights, etc. The driver behind or any other driver is responsible to tell me his intentions by horning me. Therefore you see on the cars "Please Horn". Therefore this is the only system which can work in this chaos of no rules. "Horn me and tell me what you are planning to do". And amazingly it works (clearly in the Indian conditions).
Another curiosity. Today I used a Helmet as by law you have to use a helmet in the main roads. The thing is that most helmets are probably not safer than with a helmet, and many drivers carry their wifes, children without a helmet. So it is not clear what good does this law do.