Daman

We arrived in Daman to a sunny afternoon. Daman is a seaside town (although I wouldn't rush there if I was looking for a nice beach and clear blue sea) which caters to Indian tourists. After two weeks in alcohol free Pushkar - with the exception of our bad karma bottle of whiskey - and a few days travelling through the State of Gujarat, where the whole state is alcohol free, we were looking forward to a wee dram in Daman. Daman was ruled by the Portuguese for four and a half centuries until India took it back under rule in the 60's. Hence, not only is alcohol available, but like Goa it's tax free and the cheapest in India. Party time.



 We had to find a room first so we headed to The Marina Hotel . We had read about it and it sounded wonderful. It is a restored and converted 150 year old Portuguese-style house and looked beautiful inside. Unfortunately we wouldn't be staying there as it way exceeded our budget, but it looked like a good central place to park the bike and go in search of some budget accommodation. Luckily we found somewhere right across the street. It might not have been as nice but we had a balcony that looked over onto it, and we could dream.

Although Daman feels and looks more like an India town than a Portuguese town you can still find old houses reminiscent of the Portuguese.

 

 

 

 

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We stayed in Daman for two nights because it really was an interesting and bizarre wee place. The photos of these Portuguese aren't representative of Daman as a whole. These houses were situated down the quiet side streets whereas the main streets looked and felt like an India town. Turned out we weren't the only ones there to party. We hadn't considered the fact that that Daman is an alcohol oasis bordering on an alcohol desert. So as well as happy fun-loving Indian tourists, they're were the ones that crossed the state border just to go on the binge. The main street was like the OK Corral. Men were being thrown out of bars onto the street and the street had plenty of 'dead people'  lying there that would hope that they really were dead when they woke up. Luckily we had followed the Hotel Marina's philosophy of being on a quiet street off the main road but near to the beach. We knew then that it had been a good hunch to park up at Hotel Marina and then find a room off the main drag