Last beach stop

In Goa, we stayed in Panjim for two days, then Calangute Beach for six. This was our last stop before an epic six-hundred-kilometre, twenty-five hour train ride back to Mumbai where we’d fly out of India to Thailand.

Shri Mangeshi Temple, Goa

Calangute had been relatively tourist free. Our room near the ocean was surrounded by coconut and banana trees. I wanted my girls to enjoy this rest stop so ignored them when they pulled leaves off plants in our tiny yard. Neither of them had complained once during our three months in India even though my oldest, at just under four had walked everywhere. I discovered she had lost a kilogram in India. At only fifteen kilograms, that was a substantial amount. I’m not sure if it was from her couple of sick bouts or the constant walking she endured.

She never liked India as a child. I’m sure it was because of too much attention from strangers. Foreign children had been a novelty back then. But years later, both daughters would journey back to rediscover the country they had long forgotten and their father would spend his last days there, after contracting covid#19.