Walk to Chaudi

This morning, after breakfast, Bob and I walked to Chaudi, the small market town 1 mile from Eve’s in Patnem. It’s quite a nice walk, past old colonial era bungalows, fields lying fallow dotted with white egret, newer colourful homes….. It takes about 20 minutes I suppose.

One of our main missions was to get new glasses. We’d had our eyes tested at Specsavers just before Christmas and had come out armed with our prescriptions. We first went to a new optician we’d heard about in a small “mall” on the edge of town near the market. It was certainly pretty posh but they seemed very unsure when they looked at my prescription. I explained that I had 3 pairs of very good frames (thanks to my daughter who no longer needs them) and that I wanted 2 pairs of reacto-light distance prescription, and 1 pair of distance prescription sunglasses. They got as fsr as giving me a £65 quote for the sunglasses and I stopped them and we left. At that rate, Specsavers would be cheaper.

So, we went to Durga Optics, our usual optician and the one all the locals use. He was most pleased to see us back – handshakes all round. He is supplying me with exactly what I want. The two reactolight pairs with top range lenses, antiglare etc etc etc. All 3 pairs for £65 come back in a week!!!! Brilliant. Bob has a more complex prescription than me and he needed new frames too. Mr Durga fixed his current “best pair” that had got slightly wobbly hinges. Then Bob chose 1 pair of nice tortoiseshell style frames with the top quality all singing all dancing reactolight lenses and varifocal prescription. Plus he chose a pair of sunglasses in the varifocal precription. His 2 pairs came to about £100, again simply excellent and well worth the hot walk.

Coming out, we bumped into Joe who was running some shopping errands. We called at the chemist and got some stuff for me and for Gloria. Bob bought a torch on Stuart’s behalf…. we got a tuk tuk back to Eve’s about midday. I was boiling by then and it was bliss to get back into our lovely ac room, shower off and lie in the cool. An afternoon of reading there was just the ticket.

Tonight we had a drink with Gloria and Jean before Stuart, Fi, Joe and I headed out to Palolem to eat at Ciaran’s. It’s a place on the beach that we ate at several times a few years ago. It has survived covid and is still there. Changes there are…… the menu has far less European options, although they do serve steaks and pork chops with apple sauce. But no burgers which we remembered as being good. I had a Goan prawn curry with rice, Bob had a chicken caesar salad with chips, Stuart had the same as me, Fi had lasagne and Joe had palak paneer. The food was all ok, good even. It was all a bit overshadowed by the music entertainer who was the epitome of elevator music. He sort of played a backing tape on a keyboard and sang a selection of songs to which he did not know the words properly so there was a lot of “blurring”. I remarked to Bob that he was a man born to do a karaoke version of Fairytale of New York….. I have to give him credit for keeping it up for over 2 hours with little encouragement from the dining audience. I hope we hit a bad night and they still have the good folky singers and musicians they used to have.