into Arambol

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Leaving Bombay turned out to be a bit like trying to enter the Pentagon with a turban on... We headed to the beautiful VT Terminal, 2nd flr, Booth #54, where we were assured to be able to book the "tourist quota" tickets that the Indian Govt. leaves open for impressional foreigners like ourselves - but after waiting in line for over 45 minutes we came to the window to be informed that the trains were full (of tourists like us) for the next week - But gloriously, they reassured us, 16 hour sleeper buses were available. Arranging one of these turned out to be more of a nightmare than the train (hard to believe), but through a miracle and a tug we got out at last.
2 hours of sleep and 14 hours of rhoccus roller coaster later, we arrived. Goa. On a whim, we took the advice of a young auzzie who told us to check out the North Goan, Arambol beach. We bit and ended up in a hut on the roof of Piya's guest house for the first week. Though a bit spread-out we quickly adapted to the slow, rustic pace of this last Hippie stronghold in the diminutive state. Though we were both sickly and ready to continue South, something about the place just kept us on; and on; mainly I think it the beaches. We spent copious days basking in sun and surf, and nights sampling the scrumptious local sealife. . . We took a little daytrip up past Pardise Beach, around the dramatic rock towers at the Northern tip of Arambol, and up past Sweetwater Lake through a dense jungle to a gigantic and rather mystical Banyon tree - spreading tendrils all about. Beneath sat a gaggle of random hippies and travellers in a very peaceful and quiet area. We rested here a while, and on our way back, stopped by a spring to purify our corporeal sins in cleansing, sensuous mud~
A few days later, Tyler ran into an old aquaintance from Bangkok, who invited us to an extravagant and authentic Portuguese feast with Portuguese wine...
The very next day was Carnivale~ We arrived around 3pm to the beach to find a mass of hippies and vagrants of every shape and color, young and old, beginning the days festivities... Costumes and body paint were de rigur, so Lex and I headed back into town to a small art gallery where we used paints to decorate eachother thoroughly~ Lex became a great Tigress, and Tyler a decorated hippie-child.
We joined in and met some very interesting people; including a vagabond computer hacker from Houston who was a devout Muslim/Christian, dressed like the Unibomber, with no discernable characteristics...
The theme of the festival was 'doors' or 'passages' and a number of wonderful structures were erected for the day, including a pirate ship and the eiffel tower, all out of bamboo! The evening was awash with fire spinners, flamers and fags... Live music (and of course, Trance) was on hand as we danced through the night at a fevered pitch barefoot in the hot sand... It was a beautiful and amazing day~

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