Carnival in Panjim

Panjim, aka Panjini City, is located in Goa state. It was an overnight trip. Luckily it was on an air-conditioned bus. The only problem to that was that they froze us out! I found out that the type of bus that we took is called a semi-sleeper. At first I was very pleasantly surprised at how plush the seats were...so much more comfortable than anything I had had in Morocco. Little did I know that semi-sleepers are really hard on the bum! During the night I had to switch from cheek to cheek to tailbone on a rotational basis in order to alleviate the pain. Not fun!

The carnival in Panjim, which took place on February 26 (Saturday), pretty much consisted of a parade. If any of you have attended a carnival elsewhere in the world like Brazil or New Orleans, it's not anything like that. It was very mellow and family-oriented. The floats ranged from very rough, hand-made affairs to fancier, more polished ones. There were a handful of commercially-sponsored floats. Most, however, of floats by charities and groups promoting conscious awareness: HIV prevention, decreasing/eliminating slash and burn of Goa's hills, prevention of child sexual molestation, vaccination of chickens and prevention of Avian flu, etc. It was very cool.

After the parade, the "party" broke up with families and friends going off to dinner or catching some snacks before heading home. Very mellow.