Market Day in Margao

Margao is a 15 mins drive from our hotel in South Goa. Like all Goan towns, it has its fair share of Portuguese influenced architecture & buildings. Some more run down than the rest. We headed there to get some necessities but mostly because it was market day.

I love going to markets & whenever I travel, I always try to go to one of the local markets - be they food markets, flower markets or flea markets. As gritty & chaotic as they may be, they are always an experience.

I believe it was a end of harvest 8 day market fair in Margao. The people who went were mostly locals & as far as I could see, we were the only foreigners. My only grouse when going to the markets is that people seem to think it's alright to touch your children. I know there is nothing malicious behind the act but think what it is like getting your cheeks pinched or face touched by complete strangers 20 times a day. This is not just in India, it happens everywhere in Asia - Vietnam or Thailand especially in crowded places like markets. Other mums - do you have the same problem ? How can you avoid it ?

Anyway back to our market in Margao. It was quite well organised. Most of the stalls were grouped by type - all the sweets were in one row & the toys were in another. Of course there were the street carts which sold anything from spices to snacks to sugar cane juice.

This is a manual merry go round
See the guy in white, he gets it going by cranking a large wheel

You know this country is cricket mad
when even a small town sells cricket bats with star pictures on them

We bought a doll from there but within 2 days, one eye was dislodged & the head fell out

A one man toy stand

This lady selling spices had the most beautiful eyes

Taken from the menu of Mum's Kitchen
Andoli - a unique pedestal mounted inverted kitchen knife cum grater for fish, vegetables or minces. Enables squatting upon, while cutting away for long stretches of time. In comfort.

It really was a bazaar.
Anything that you can think of they were selling it there

Very fascinated with the Indian sweets
but resisted trying any street food

We did buy some kachang from the kachang puteh man tho
And guess what - we got to see how nuts are roasted Indian-style

All the kachang stalls have a clay oven behind.
They feed it with wood to heat up the sand



They then take the sand & mix that with the nuts
Using the heat from the sand to roast them

Sieve the sand out & then repeat the process 3-4 times

Until the nuts are roasted
I never knew you could use sand to roast nuts
Well you learn something new everyday

This little un was oblivious to everything that was going on