G – Goa’s Festival of Gulaal, Shigmo

I am participating in the A to Z writing challenge run by Blogchatter, the online blogging platform, a challenge where we write a post a day for each letter of the alphabet from A right up to Z all through the month of April. I have opted for Goa as my theme for the writing challenge because I wanted to present a different Goa to you rather than the much publicised beach, booze and babes concept of the place.

Come join me as I present to you the Goa I love, a Goa with a heart and a soul beneath its jazzy veneer!

Today it’s G for Goa’s gulaal or spring festival.

F – The fiery Feni from Goa

I am participating in the A to Z writing challenge run by Blogchatter, the online blogging platform, a challenge where we write a post a day for each letter of the alphabet from A right up to Z all through the month of April. I have opted for Goa as my theme for the writing challenge because I wanted to present a different Goa to you rather than the much publicised beach, booze and babes concept of the place.

Come join me as I present to you little interesting facts of the Goa I know, a Goa with a heart and a soul beneath its jazzy veneer!

Today its F for Feni.

E – Excitement of Easter and Carnival in Goa

Hot cross buns, Hot cross buns, One a penny, two a penny. Hot cross buns!

The best part of living in Goa? We had equally good friends among the Hindus and the Christians and thus got to participate and experience festivals on both sides – be it Ganesh Chathurthi and Diwali or Christmas and Easter.

Easter was an eagerly awaited occasion when we were young, quite simply for the colourful Easter eggs that made their way into our homes in beautifully decorated baskets. Sometimes there would be cute little toys cleverly hidden among the chocolate eggs too.

D – Goa’s dazzling Porta da Gaspar Dias.

PC- Anirudh Rao

Porta de Gaspar Dias was my most favourite place in the whole of Panjim city. It is a hotspot for tourists and locals too with its quintessentially picturesque look that Goa is so famous for – dazzling sands, swaying coconut palms and the blue expanse of the sea ahead. If you haven’t already guessed it, Porta da Gaspar Dias is a beach in the city of Panjim. Known more popularly as the Miramar Beach. it is just 4 kms from the main city of Panaji. Located at the estuary of the river Mandovi and opening onto the Arabian Sea, the beach extends all the way round, up to Caranzalem.

C – Caldoverde from the cauldrons of Goa

Home-made Caldoverde!

Caldoverde. Yet another exotic word to impress my readers, but simply put it means green broth or soup. (caldo – broth, verde – green.) Or as our Indian chefs would have it – cream of spinach soup.

A popular soup from the Portuguese-Brazilian cuisine and extensively prepared in Goa, we first tasted it in the restaurant in Hotel Mandovi, which is located bang in the centre of the capital city of Panjim with the river Mandovi flowing right across the road.