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*OutlookTraveller
February 2002
Little brown Goan children played in the green at a fork in the
village road. Bigger Goans paused at their morning
tea at the village stall to give us lazy looks. Half an hour from busy Mapusa,
Siolim village was wreathed in a Sunday stupor. Leafy, quiet, pretty Siolim,
pastoral perfection for the aesthete.
This is the setting for Siolim House, a 300-year-old Portuguese manor, now run
as an exclusive heritage hotel. It's a handsome building, flat-roofed and
solid, restored in a feat of architectural imagination to perhaps more than its
past glory. Capt. [Blank] treats us to unconventional hospitality.
It doesn't help the social situation that we've interrupted him hosting a lunch
for some friends. We apologise profusely, he looks harassed, I begin backing
away towards the car, he shoos some friends out, he sweeps us in. "Three and a
half years it took us," he says, with practiced but clearly genuine pride, "to
restore this house." We are shown some 'before' pictures, and we begin to feel
humble. Not a hint of the present loveliness in that heap of ancient brick and
mortar; the vegetation had overruled all architectural statement, it took the
[Blank] family more than years to make this mansion the former residence of a
Governor of Macau their source of pride, joy and commercial success: an
understanding and respect of Goan history and culture, a degree of
resourcefulness, and a lot of very hard work.
Guests have a choice of only seven suites. Commodious, airy affairs, these
weren't simply 'restored'; rooms were knocked together to make a suite, walls
between others were broken down for to-see-is-to-believe-size bathrooms. As far
as sitting on the throne goes, here's the genuine thing. To perform at the
daily drama, one has to literally ascend the throne up a wide, short flight of
steps set against one wall of one loo we inspected (mouths open).
The rest was just as utterly charming. The miracle of the restored Siolim House
may lie in the details, but we didn't stay long enough to enjoy them-elegant
bodies at the luncheon were dabbing at the corners of their mouths with white
napkins. We took the hint, but our car was less elegant.
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