Goa - What day is it?

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I'm going to have a lot more difficulty with this blog considering that in the 11 da I was in Goa I really didn't do anything.

This was the appeal of the place even before we arived there. I remember being stuck in busses, in hot rooops and cold showers dreaming of this perfct beach on which I could do absolutely nothing. After over two months in India, I feel that I'ev seen enough tourist sights, taken enough photos and so forth. Right now it's all about relaxing with the sun and sand.

We bussed into Panaji from Mumbai- not a bad one as far as sleeper busses go. We actually had enough of us to close off two of the compartments and have a bit of a slumber pary atmosphere. Here we played trivia (it was tuesday) and shared hide and seek chocolate biscuits (possibly the worlds best mold biscuit, as it says on the packet). The sleep was crap as usual, my head was about two inches long fo the compartment and that doesn't really make for the best sleep.We woke up just in time to get off in Margao, the southern travel hub of the state of Goa, and jumped on a bus to Palolem- our beach of choice.

The bus was interesting, we saw the wreckage of a few old busses down the cliffs where we drove. It also had a slightly more haunting twist. Towars the end of the trip (which was only 90 minutes) we slowed right down and everyone started looking out the window As we were right in the back, we first saw a man sitting up in the cab on a truck, he had a nervous smile on his face that truly could have meant anything. My eyes followed those of the rest of the passengers on the bus towards the overturned scooter in front of the truck, when it bacame clear what had happened. The body was in a position of such contortion that it was clearly lifeless, it was of a middle aged man, his face was down, drowning in a pool of blood. The bus kept rolling, it never stopped.

After a twenty minute game of 'spotto first to see the ocean' which I maintain was actually a tie, we arrived in Palolem and walked to the beach. he layer of sweat between our backs and our packs made us want to drop uor packs and just sprint into the ocean. Unfortunately, there was a room to be found, and we split off and walked eitherway along the beach. Nick and I stayed and waited with the packs, watching the perfect beach tease us. We finally settled on a place called Rainbow Inn, which gave us little shacks, or coco huts as they're called, right on the beach for 20 rupees ($6). We didn;t at that point realise that it was also the one behind the palm tree that was in the picture of Palolem in Lonely planet. We get a kick out of such things.

t took about ten seconds for us to drop our packs in the rooms, get nito bathers and run into the ocean. The first thing that struck us was how warm the water was. Only swimming in Melbourne gives you this mpression of the water as invariably cold- not here. Several games of cricket, slips catches and clap game later, and we ended up kicking back on the beach and relaxing.

Well thats about it. If I were going to continue to list chronologically all the things we did in Palolem, it would probably be consistantly to the effect of; woke up, swam, ate, swam, cricket, ate, swam, sun bathed, ate, drank, slept. This pattern would occur for about ten days with minor variation.

One of the days wehad an adventure out to the island on the end of the beach. It took some serious mountaineering and stupidity to get as far as we did, then we jumped in the water and swam the rest of the way around the other side- a good mornings work out. That, and going for a run with Chris one morning, were probably the most productive things I did in nearly two weeks. We walked right back along the beach and of course, went for another swim.

Palolem is the current hotspot in Goa. The whole scene started in the early 70s when smoe american backpackers set up shop in the northern beaches in Anjuna. Today Anjuna is almost as crap as Surfers Paradice- an over developed and dirty place to be. The only reason Palolem is massive at the moment is that it is claimed to be the most idyllic' of goas beaches in that power wielding bible Lonely Planet. The place was practically deserted a couple of years ago, then the wave of travelers came and the place is now lined with coco huts and restaraunts. I really don;t mind this. In my opinion, Palolem is currently peaking. It's probably on the way to becoming the next Anjuna, but te amount of good eating and going out is exactly what we were all looking for.

We have a collection of our favourite restaraunts. Havannah, a cuban place serves the best tacos and the guy who runs it is a chief. He is more than wlling to gie a 'buy two get one free' deal on any dish that you can eat three of. I was very willing to take him up one lunchtime after finishing my second club sandwich. The place next to the cassedas is the best for fish and has great thai food. On our last night we found a place called Banyan tre right up the other end of the beach. It serves everything and seats you on the sand under a giant banyan tree with hanging lamps above the tables- the best place for a quiet feed. After diner everyone heads to a place called Cafe Del Ma, which is open all night, or up the other end to Rockit, which is also open late. We didn't have too many really big ones. It was better to have a few, meet some people and colclude the night with a skinny dip (truly one of the great joys of life).

Palolem has given me quite an image of other travellers, and quite a few good stories about them. I think I can certainly say the Russian travellers are definitely the funniest. We were sitting on the top floor of this pagoda style bar, it was late at night, when this fat guy walked up the stairs and sat with us, he was folowed by a much skinnier shirtless guy. The first was drinking a breezer strawbery from memory, and was a camera man in a filmcrew. He was from Moscow and was abslutely pissed. The other guy, was from Ukraine and was surely the more entertaining of the to. He was stoned out of his mind and had carried a stray dog from the beach all the way up to the top. Whenever we asked where he was from and where he was from or where he was going he reverted to telling some story about an island in Cambodia- he kept repeating the bit about the flying fox. We nodded our head and laughed for about twenty minutes before they took their dog and stumbled away.

There was a guy, staying in Rainbow with us, from France, who was much moe interestng and much less funny. He was well into his fifties and always wore short black shorts and a plain white tee shirt. He never left the shade of the restaraunt (literally never) and spent hs time drinking kingfishers and smoking. He would start at about nine in the morning and was still there when we got back from a night out. Whenever you looked at him he looked back with an expression that seemed to say that he was ready to defend his lifestyle if we sayed what he knew we were thinking. His hands shook and he passed the time by plainly staring out into the water and watching the happenings of the beach. I would like to know his story more.

For three nights in the middle the others- the five and three english girls headed out to see Hampi, the old centre of a Hindu civilisation. I procrastonated over whether I should go or not, It would have been great to see. The thing is, after two months in India, I really don;t have much of a desire to do the tourist thing and take lots of photos. This was the time that I raly just wanted to chill, and a few days alone seemed very appealing.

I don't regret that decision at all. Hampi (in photos) was beautiful and I wish I had seen it, but the time I spent alone was better. The firs night I ended up going out with an American and an Englishman that I had met that day. We watched Arsenal play and had a few drinks together. It turns out that the American, Steve, and I see eye to eye on a great deal of things politically- always good to see.

The next night I went out with the english guy to meet up with two swedish girls he had met in Rajasthan. It was cool, at somepoint in the conversation he told us that he was thirty seven. It didn't really surprise me, but it was cool that I was hanging out with a guy who was my age when I was three. That's traveling or you.

I spent most of my time alone reading -I finished my book- and writing on the internet. I had some calls to family and friends back home and it was really nie to be alone. It ws at four in the morning that Chris banged on the door alone, he was the only one to come back as they all wanted to stay another day in Hampi. We crashed and woke up at a more reasonable hour for breakfast. It was really good to have a day with just the two of us- we were of course the original India group, it was going to be just us for a while. We met some Ausralians and a few Irishmen at luch time and met up with them later. This was the exeption to the 'w didn't have many big nights' rule mentioned above. Chris was leaving in two days and it was fit for a good send off. All I can really remember is playing a very messy game of vollyball, sitting by the fire and partaking in a mass skinny dip- definitely the highlight. After this it gets a little hazy. With the aid of friends I made it home by 4ish and crashed. Tristan, who arrived back from Hampi that morning, had some great difficulty waking me, and the next day me and Chris were in as shady a mood as eachother. All in good fun.

The next night was chris' last. He had to head out to see his cousin in Anjuna really early in the morning. It was sad to see him go, I had been with him since Agra. He went and it was just the four of us- trix, nick, tash and I.

We were leaving the day after and booked our train tickets to Cochi in Kerala at a place which was reliable, or so we thought... (tune in next week kids)

Goa was just what we wanted, the perfect beach and the erfect atmosphere. I will alwas look back and conjour up the image of sitting in out restaraunt sipping a sweet lemon soda, watching the waves roll in and the sun come down- as close tp paradice as I have found.

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Photos

Too many couples!
I miss my girlfriend!

Our hotel
This is the walk from hotel to beach. Quite a long stroll