Shirley Mancino is an accomplished professional artist represented by Tay River Gallery in Perth. As an experienced budget traveller, life in Asia is often the inspiration for her work. Mancino travels to paint and paints to travel. Entertaining excerpts from her latest travel notes in India this month follow:
Greetings from Mandrem, Goa!
Finally arrived after a 23 hour train ride.Train was not too clean when we boarded and toilet smelled already even though this was its starting point. We both had bottom bunks so great views out the windows but the foam padding had broken down so we had a very hard bed for the night.We had the compartment to ourselves for the day so were able to stretch out and rest. Our compartment filled up with 7 men in Bangalore at 9:30 at night so subsequently, we also had a cacophony of snorers It was quite cold in the night and I wore my jacket and toque and covered myself with a sarong and my hammock....
Pillow talk
However, the train bed was not as hard as the bed in our next guesthouse which was a lovely looking king size bed with what Michael described as white sheets painted on a wooden board. We know that Indians and other Asians regularly sleep on the floor so a raised hard platform is no problem for them. This place normally charges $40 a night and has a swimming pool. We paid $10 USD. We has two frogs in our hot water bathroom.I was a bit startled!
Shocking News
Next morning I grabbed the electrical plug in (power bar) to make some tea and got a 220 volt shock when I discovered that it had no bottom so my hand landed on live wires.I had trouble throwing the damn thing down as it seemed to stick to me. My hand was all red and puffy and now is burned rather deeply in 2 places.
Home Sweet Home
Now we have rented a 2 bedroom house until Jan 05/09, with living room, dining room, kitchen, hot water, about 1500 square feet, much too big for us ($10 USD). There are very few foreign tourists as folks must be scared off by the Mumbai happenings. So if any of you have a hankering to get away and can get here during the Xmas rush, we have the space.
The beach is lovely and deserted. We are eating overlooking the water, mostly international food. We are also making our own breakfasts and some lunches in our kitchen. So it is hard to believe we are actually in India. I have painted another 2 pieces, one on the train and one since arriving here.
Electrical Issues
Michael and I are enjoying playing house in our very spacious place but all is not totally rosy. Our new hot water geyser tripped the electrical system every time we turned it ( we had to use our torch often to get around and then we were without hot water for a few days.The good news: my hand has healed very quickly.
Mandrem is just below Arambol in the far north of Goa for those of you looking to google where we are. It is very quiet and the place is filled with mainly Russian tourists. They apparently come here because it is so quiet and because they feel free to take off their clothes on the beach. We are enjoying the beach, our walks, both restaurant food and the stuff we make in our simple kitchen.Boy do we miss the microwave and other kitchen gizmos.
I am painting almost every day but don't know how to send any images. Email is scarce and expensive and so far there is nowhere to print pics. Don't know where we are headed next.It is still too far away to contemplate.
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