‘One Of The Cooks Came Out To Protect Us With A Meat Tenderiser In His Hand, Fresh From The Kitchen’

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By Rebecca Gardiner

I was in India with a friend and we decided to take a trip to Goa. We were on the beach during a Hindu festival.

We decided to leave before it got dark and hailed a tuk-tuk. A few minutes into the journey we realised that there was a gang of motorcyclists who were trying to drive our tuk-tuk off the road and down a precarious cliff, for no apparent reason.

However during our stay we had made friends with the doorman in our hotel – a rather grizzly but charming ex-army sergeant.

There was our army sergeant in a jeep with a rag-taggle collection of bell boys, cooks and waiters armed and ready to fight

He’d given us his contact details should we ever need help… and this seemed like a good time to call. He instructed us to drive to a nearby town on a safer route, where he would meet us, but the motorcyclists continued to follows getting ever more aggressive and daring.

So we arrived at this village and there was our army sergeant in a jeep with a rag-taggle collection of bell boys, cooks and waiters armed and ready to fight with whatever was at hand.

I distinctly remember one of the cooks in his uniform with a meat tenderiser in his hand fresh from the kitchen. As soon as the motorcyclists saw this hastily put-together band of helpers they fled.

I’ve never been more grateful in my life for the beautiful hospitality and goodness of those men.

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