Goa: India's Unique Western Enclave
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Published: January 15th 2017
Palolem Beach
The best beach that I stayed at in Goa.Goa; a paradise that Westerners have been escaping to for years.
The first Westerners to come here were the Portuguese, who went on to rule the state for centuries. Their rule ensured a unique culture was established that marked out this small little enclave as being a bit different to the rest of India.
The Westerners that have been coming here in more contemporary times however, came here not to conquer - though they have sort of done that anyway - but to do yoga and get in touch with their spirituality, take drugs and party, chill and relax on the numerous beaches, or all of the above.
Ever since leaving
Corfu some four months previously, I have been itching to get back to the beach; therefore chilling and relaxing on the beach was my main goal to achieve in Goa. As for the rest, let's just wait and see...
To get from Mumbai down to North Goa, I took my first overnight train of the trip. It was nice having company for the ride in Sam, a Yorkshire lad I met at my hotel and that I'd been hanging out and watching cricket with in Mumbai. Getting tickets for this sold-out train
Party Crew
Just some of the crew I was partying with in Anjuna. was surprisingly easy - there is a quota of sleepers put aside specifically for foreigners and the whole process at the station the previous day took just thirty minutes, when I had braced myself for a wait of hours.
At the train's second stop, a shit-ton of people got on and it was utter chaos. Everyone was shouting and a whole family came into our block of six sleepers. As they set themselves up, I was literally standing there with nowhere to go. Eventually I managed to get up to my top bunk, above and away from all the chaos below where there were people literally sleeping everywhere; on the floor, in the aisles, on other people's beds - no-one checked our tickets so I reckon there must've been more than a few free riders.
Then about halfway through the night, a guy suddenly started screaming, freaking everyone the f*ck out. Was there a snake on the train? Was he being attacked? Turned out he was having a nightmare. Of all places to have one. Although to be fair, this is a pretty discomforting place to sleep! Sleep? I only got pockets of it - an hour here, two hours
Arambol
"Glastonbury St", the main street that goes through Arambol. there - as the "bed" was pretty hard and uncomfortable. My rucksack took up some space on it too, making it even more uncomfortable and it was surprisingly cold on board. Thank God I decided to hire a sheet and pillow for ₹25 then. When most of the people cleared out just before Goa, Sam and I enjoyed some chai and a pair of window seats - the last couple of hours were rather enjoyable.
Given all the Western tourists that come here, I was surprised to see how undeveloped and rural Goa was. No flashy five-star hotels by the beach like in
Mexico and no massive superclubs like you get in
Ibiza; just typical, dry, dusty, dirty India but with palm trees and red earth lining the roads. It reminded me a little of some of the landscape on
the east coast of Cuba.
I spent my first four days just chilling in Arambol, a traditional hippy enclave but is now a general Westerner's haven full of Brits, Russians and Israelis. In fact there are so many Russians and Israelis that half the signage is in Cyrillic and
shakshuka appears on almost every menu! The signage made me think about the
Chapel Of St Catherine, Old Goa
Classic Portuguese style church in Old Goa. last time I was at a beach - in
Odessa, Ukraine!
Arambol Beach itself is wide, long and vast - a little dirty but clean enough - and I walked down to Mandrem Beach to see Sam, who was staying down there. Mandrem was supposed to be the best beach in North Goa but for me it just seemed like an extension of Arambol Beach. Ashvem Beach, the next one down, was more picturesque backed by coconut trees and with whiter sand but with still far too many people and beach shacks about. In my opinion, the best beaches are the ones with no-one on them and therefore the best beach I went to in Northern Goa was Querim Beach. As is often the case, to get to such a tranquil oasis requires a bit of a trek and with the tide high, Querim was no exception. As well as walking along the sand, I had to clamber over sharp rocks, beat my way through bushes and climb my way over hills for about an hour to get there.
But what awaited me was pure bliss. Backed by an empty concrete promenade, coconut trees and with a wide but-not-too-wide soft sand
Querim Beach
My favourite beach in North Goa - because there was nobody else on it. beach, the spot I parked myself had a group of three people thirty-five metres to my right and no-one for hundreds of metres on my left. The perfect place to chill out and relax. I wish I could've stayed longer. With the tide out, getting back to Arambol was much easier.
I admire the ideals of a hippy - peace, love and all that palaver - but have never fully felt comfortable around real ones, as in my opinion, I find their view on the world a bit warped. I've never really been into spirituality either as I've never found a need for it. Thus I've always found the whole hippy movement a bit contrived and cult-ish. But what is hippiness anyway? Is it escaping the commercialised, money-obsessed, consumption-centric world and getting back to basics, living off the land? Is it finding peace with yourself on a spiritual level? Is it dropping loads of acid?
Whatever it is, you can probably find what you're looking for in Arambol. There are plenty of spiritual activities on offer here from yoga to meditation and admittedly, Arambol provides the perfect environment for it. And perhaps that is why there is so little
Twice By Nature, Arambol
Perhaps the most hippy bar/restaurant you might find. development here in Goa - flashy hotels would go against everything Goa currently stands for.
If you wanted to see a microcosm of hippiness however, you could have done worse than visiting Twice By Nature, a restaurant, bar and live music venue tucked away in the woods with cushions and coffee tables laid out underneath a bamboo marquee. Interestingly, there was an electronic DJ playing chilled tunes on stage the night we visited and a whole dance floor of Westerners in baggy trousers were swaying to the music without a care in the world. It was cool to see people being so carefree and I guess that is the general vibe about Goa. All that was needed was a campfire and with a ring of people around it singing Kumbaya and then it really would have been the most hippy place I have ever been.
My last night in Arambol was also the last night for almost all of my newly-made friends at the hostel; so it felt natural that we should all go out to celebrate the end of a fun chapter. It was
">reggae night at Rock Water, down the road in Morijim Beach and so after a
Beach Drum Party, Arambol
When random people start beating drums on the beach, locals and foreigners alike start boogying. few Kingfisher Strongs - which are silently and deceptively potent - almost the entire hostel piled into several taxis for a night out. Interestingly, have you ever noticed that Jimmy Cliff's Reggae Nights isn't actually reggae?
Anyway, it was actual reggae being played that night but a bit faster than your typical Bob Marley. It even came complete with white DJs speaking to the crowd in Jamaican accents. It was good fun and at one point I turned around to Nick, an Aussie, and said that if they suddenly put on some drum and bass, then I was going to lose my shit. So they did. And I lost my shit.
It was a good night and I even bumped into John there,
an Australian I had hung out with in Udaipur. I was supposed to leave the partying until I got to Anjuna, my next destination, but I guess I started a night early.
The next day, I along with Hungarian girl Eszter tried to get over our hangovers in one of Arambol's many bamboo-hut, mattress-laden cafes in the trees that are perfect for chilling out in. It was so Goa.
While Eszter had to catch a flight all the way home to Budapest, I had
Anjuna Beach
Not the cleanest, but one of the most popular - where all the parties are at. the rather shorter journey to Anjuna, a few kilometres down the road and where all the parties are at. I had to take two, hot, sweaty buses and although the whole journey was about an hour, journeys are still rough when they're in rattly buses, on bumpy roads and you're hungover. The old buses reminded me of the Central American chicken buses - right down to how they could seemingly fit an infinite amount on people on them.
There isn't too much to say about Anjuna, except that if you really wanna get f*cked up...then you can do it here in Anjuna. Any drug is available and lots of people are on them. Goa hard or Goa home, as they say.
As for the general vibe of Anjuna, the beach itself is smaller and narrower than Arambol and seemingly busier. The beach is dirtier and the water is murkier though unfortunately; there's nothing like a whiff of garbage to accompany your lie on the beach. Lots of big shacks line the beach that play annoying techno music (psy-trance is big here - there is even a sub-genre called Goan trance), while serving food and drinks to tourists on sun loungers
Vagator Beach
One of the more scenic beaches in Goa but full of people peddling stuff. out the front during the day; at night, these shacks turn into restaurants and then clubs, that stay open til morning. There is a slight air of pretentiousness about the place, that I didn't really like. Interestingly, the majority of the crowds here were locals - about 2:1 I'd say, although it was the weekend.
I did one trip out to Vagator Beach, which is more scenic but is similar in setup to Anjuna; but had the largest concentration of walk-up hawkers anywhere in Goa and you were constantly being pestered to buy jewellery, saris and massages.
I went out every night in Anjuna and on most nights, I had several shots of the local liquor;
feni. One type is made from cashew nuts and the other is made from coconut - the cashew one was the one we always had and quite frankly, it doesn't go down well. If I could liken it to anything, it would be
brennevin, the liquour made from caraway seeds in Iceland. The
feni is served in huge, double shot glasses too, meaning you to had to take big gulps, which really didn't help.
I found the party scene here to be similar to that of
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica where there was one
Party On The Beach
Revellers partying on Anjuna Beach. Some even went for a midnight swim! big party that everyone went to each night, hosted by one of the big wooden shacks.
I had three nights in Anjuna and including the night out I had in Arambol, I just couldn't do fifth one, so I left. Again, it was a bit sad leaving, as I had built up another crew at the hostel which included Kiwi Katie again, and Englishman Scott, who I had also both met back in Udaipur.
What has impressed me most about India is how diverse the place is; every place I have been to has felt different so far. And Goa has been no exception; it feels like another country. This feeling is exacerbated by the language spoken here - the official language of the state is Konkani, with many others also speaking Marathi.
No matter what language you speak however, body language and common gestures are universal, right? Wrong. Along with that annoying head-wobble habit that Indians have, even gestures such as a nod or a head shake can be misinterpreted (although in some cases, I believe this is done deliberately) which makes things difficult and frustrating. I don't think I have ever encountered local people either, whose normal
High Court Of Bombay, Panaji
Great example of Portuguese architecture in Panaji. forms of behaviour are so different to what I am used to - particularly male behaviour towards foreign women. Prolonged staring is a good example of this.
Anyway, one language that is spoken by some elder Goans is Portuguese - some locals even look a bit Portuguese, with some having very light eyes. After four days chilling out in Arambol and three days partying in Anjuna, it was time for a bit of a detox and a bit of culture; and being the capital and heart of this tiny Indian state - a mere 80km long and 8km wide - my next destination of Panaji, promised to have plenty of the latter.
Panaji is unique; with lots of colourful colonial buildings, it definitely looked like many of the colonial cities I saw in Latin America such as
Cartagena and
Granada; yet the heat and the Portuguese signs made it feel like I could have been in Brazil -
Paraty, perhaps. Beautiful Portuguese tiles and the surrounding hills evoked
Portugal itself; but then there are Indians everywhere - so in the end there is just no place like it. This is Goa. Yet another place that felt like somewhere entirely different
Rua 31 de Janerio, Panaji
One of the main thoroughfares going through the old quarter of Panaji. in this exotic, diverse country of contrasts.
I was turned away at Panaji's main sight, the Church Of The Immaculate Conception - I had shorts on and the 'guard' inside simply pointed at the door as soon as I came in - but it was far from the only church in Panaji; Portuguese crosses are dotted about everywhere, which only added to Panaji's unique feel. Walking around Panaji - the only real city I went to in Goa - was a pleasure.
Panaji wasn't always the capital of Goa however - and it wasn't even always called Panaji; its old name is Panjim.
When the Portuguese first rocked up,
Goa Velha - Old Goa - was the original capital.
I missioned it out there on my second full day in Panaji and was expecting to see something like
Panama Viejo but discovered that Old Goa isn't really a city of sorts anymore - just a collection of buildings scattered across an area the size of a small town. The buildings that are left however, are rather impressive - almost all of them are churches or old convents.
The Se Cathedral is the biggest church in Asia and the Basilica of
Basilica Of Bom Jesus, Old Goa
This impressively large basilica contains the remains of St Francis Xavier, the "Apostle of the Indies". Bom Jesus is similarly grandiose. The ruined Monastery of St Augustine allows your imagination to wonder just how magnificent the place once was.
Goan food is a spicy mix of Indian and Portuguese which by the sound of it, sounds delicious. I tried various curries during my time in Goa from the supposedly red-hot
prawns balchao, to the milder and creamier
chicken xacuti, to the greener and drier
chicken cafreal. And I have to say I was a little disappointed; all the curries I had had all the way from
Delhi to
Mumbai have been delicious - and though still decent, the Goan specialities have been blander and saltier. Like really, really salty. I've also been eating much more of what I had only eaten very occasionally in India to date - meat. As Goa is on the coast, fish and seafood is obviously on every menu but Goans are much more carnivorous than their northern cousins and I have gone back to my normal daily diet of having meat every day, with lots of chicken and pork available. And to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I've never thought about going vegetarian - an
Chapel Of St Anthony, Old Goa
The impressive interior of the Chapel Of St Anthony in Old Goa. impossibility for me until now - but conscious of the meat industry's effect on the environment, I've come to be OK with eating less meat and now that I have done so with delicious consequences, I now find eating meat rather heavy. We'll see how long this feeling lasts.
Though I enjoyed exploring Panaji and Old Goa during this Goan culture break, the evenings were a bit frustrating. Recovering from Anjuna, I wasn't feeling too social and thus sometimes, you just want to keep to yourself and trawl the Internet - which wasn't always possible at my hostel because the wifi was so irritatingly intermittent. But also, I was becoming belligerent towards the locals a bit here. Perhaps I had reached a subconscious limit of bad service, constant misunderstandings, frequent inconveniences, tiring rip-off avoiding, illogical processes and shifty behaviour, that I was now starting to lash out a bit. Something similar happened in
Cuba with similar gripes about the country, but I think that then it was more about processes and the way things were set up and done in Cuba, where here in India the balance of my annoyance is more towards its people. But then Cuba was
Fontainhas, Panaji
Panaji's old quarter is full of pretty little alleys such as this. one my favourite countries and already India is going to be up there too; so perhaps there is a price to be paid for having the most fascinating experiences; would both countries have been the same without its flaws?
After Panaji, I was off back to the coast, this time to the south. It was a proper hot and sweaty bus ride to Palolem too, but at least I had company in Matt, an English guy I had met at the hostel in Panaji.
On arrival, I immediately fell in love with the place. The beach was the perfect size, not vast like Arambol; the sand was soft and golden; and coconut trees lined the back of ithe beach, as did many a laid-back, beach-shack, bar/restaurant. The busyness and annoying thumping music of Anjuna was missing; and the vastness of Arambol was lacking. The vibe here was just super-chilled. But most importantly, the place was so clean - no litter in sight.
For dinner that evening, I also met up with another Englishman in Tom, who I had met in Arambol. It was here that I decided to have a fresh shark steak. It was nice but it was
Cola Beach
The most picturesque beach in Goa. for all intents and purposes, just like fish. It was certainly different to the last time I had shark!
The next day, Matt and I went paddle boarding! So much fun. The water was a little choppy however, which forced a couple of ship abandonments! Therefore I reckon I enjoyed it more the first time I did it in
Belize but it was still worth paying the extra to do it over kayaking. While out on the water we went searching for the famous dolphins that hang out in Palolem but unfortunately didn't find them - other peeps from our hostel who were kayaking at the same time annoyingly did.
I had another reunion that night with Christian and Carolina, a Swedish couple who I had also met in the hostel in Arambol. For dinner, I had shark for the second night in a row, except that this time, it was cooked in a bright red curry that was as hot as it looked. The dish is a Goan speciality called
shark amok-tik and it was the hottest curry I've had in India so far. If you could look beyond the spiciness however, it was actually rather nice
View Over Cola Beach
Cola Beach is probably the most spectacularly set beach in South Goa. with its a sour, tangy flavour.
On the third day, Matt and I hired a scooter to explore some of the other beaches nearby.
Agonda is a longer, wider, less-crowded and even more chilled out version of Palolem; Cola Beach was just stunning. Small, clean, wild, uncrowded and backed by coconut trees and cliffs, this was the most picturesque beach in Goa.
By the beach, in the hot weather and eating curry every day, you almost forgot that it was Christmas. The Indians don't make a big deal of it here and for once I was free from the advertisements, promotions, parties and Christmas carols on the radio that would normally bombard you in the run-up to Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, I joined the hostel-organised beachside dinner where Santa gave us all a couple of beers and a shitload of feni for being such good kids throughout the year. We were celebrating Northern European style, with our big feast on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. The feni we had this time was the coconut variety, which is so much better than the cashew one.
Nice and toasted for dinner, it was now time to party and to
Silent Disco, Palolem
The famous silent disco of Palolem - the best night out I had in Goa. Three DJs on the stage (green, red and blue) and everyone has headphones on tuned into one of the three channels. participate in the one activity that I had been looking forward to the most since arriving in Palolem - silent disco!
Silent discos are always super-fun and the one I went to here was no exception. There used to be loads of them here in Palolem and they came into fashion here as a way to get around the strict noise laws. At this silent disco, there were three channels: green was mainly Bollywood tunes which sometimes laid down a banger; blue was mainly trance/psytrance; red was a mix of rock, hip-hop and house. Therefore red was by the far the best channel - you could tell who all the oldies were because like me, they were all on the red channel. The feni then kicked in and I had a great time. I swear that feni picks you up a little bit and gives you some energy as well as getting you drunk. Mo - the Motswana from Botswana from the hostel - kept us all fresh by continually bringing us water on the dancefloor and thank God he did, as I was constantly thirsty and I felt so much better on Christmas morning.
Despite being at the
Church Of Our Lady Of The Immaculate Conception, Panaji
Panaji's landmark sight that resides in the centre of the city. beach, I didn't have the most fun Christmas Day I've ever had - that might possibly be
the one that I had in Lapland - as I had to move hostels. Well, I didn't
have to move but for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, the hostel I was staying at was charging an extortionate ₹2,000 a night. That is £25 a night for a dorm. Tom had told me about a hostel that had only been open a few days down the road that was a much more reasonable (but still expensive) ₹800 rupees a night, so I went down there to check availability and luckily they had space. So by moving I had saved myself ₹2,400 - which goes a bloody long way in India.
The place was brand new so everything was spotless; but there were more than a few things still missing. Hooks, hot water, toilet paper, mirrors, conveniently located power sockets - and most annoyingly, wifi. It was a bar/cafe/restaurant first with the hostel a definite afterthought; it wasn't cleaned at all while I was there and beds weren't made after people had checked out. The place was owned by a hippie dude so perhaps it wasn't surprising that it was so
Se Cathedral, Old Goa
The Se Cathedral is the biggest church in Asia. disorganised and that he had missed a few details - suddenly I was wondering if paying £25 a night for my first place might actually have been worth it and I was surprised that he even remembered my booking from a couple of days back. The place was also really quiet - more than half the people who hung out there weren't actually staying there, leading to a dearth of atmosphere. It was annoying to have to change hostel as I had once again, already built up a little bit of a crew back at the first hostel. This place was full of long stayers and old English folk escaping life back home (not necessarily a bad thing but not really my vibe).
In the evening however, I met up with Christian and Carolina again and we shared a Christmas dinner on the rocks while watching the sunset. In the absence of any sort of Christmas build up I really wasn't in the Christmas spirit at all; that changed when the three of us enjoyed a beer on the beach with Christmas carols, Michael Buble and Christmas carols by Michael Buble, being played aloud. Things finally felt a bit Christmassy.
Talpona Beach
Another endless beach south of Palolem. I spent the rest of my time in Palolem exploring the nearby beaches that were reachable by foot (ish).
Patnem was a smaller, more chilled version of Palolem; Rajbag was even more so, but much longer and with almost no development; and from Rajbag, I hit a snag trying to get further south.
I had come to a river mouth and getting over to the other side was so excruciatingly close - a mere 50 metres. You'd have to swim though and I wasn't about to do that with all my stuff. I looked to see if there was any way over and sure enough, there are boaties willing to take you across, on motorised dinghies for ₹50.
It was worth the trip - the beaches of Talpona and Galgibag were just like Querim in North Goa; long, narrow, soft and empty.
On my penultimate night in Goa, I had Goan
fish curry rice for dinner, which is exactly what it says on the tin and is probably the best Goan dish I've had. The fish is fried in a coconut and tamarind sauce, which becomes like a crunchy batter, that is just delicious. No-one was around at
Rajbag Beach
Beach south of Palolem that seems to stretch into eternity. the hostel that night, so by chance, I found myself watching Manchester United over my fish curry rice (a comfortable 3-1 win over Sunderland and oh my days what a goal from Mkhitaryan!).
On my final night in Goa, I then had yet another reunion; this one perhaps being the most unlikely.
I first met New Yorker Maura in
Bulgaria of all places, three months ago where we then went on to hang out together in
Bucharest, Romania. She then hit me up when she discovered I was in India and our paths happened to cross in Palolem!
It was a nice night and I made the most of the lowest beer prices in India just one last time (75p to 90p on average for a bottle). The local Goan Kings beer isn't a bad drop either.
But after 17 days, I had had my fill of Goa and it was time to move on.
But before I do, just a couple more observations;
- Not every Westerner here is a hippy, but almost all of them are whizzing around on scooters
- There are stray dogs everywhere. And intimidatingly, in packs. The one shot I didn't have was the one for rabies -
Sunest Over Cola Beach
Goa's location on India's west coast ensures that there are amazing sunsets over the water every night. will I regret it? And I thought there were loads in Latin America!
- I saw the first supermarket I've seen in India in Anjuna. There were no prices on most of the items however.
With the Portuguese influence, the hippies, the partygoers and the holidaymakers, Goa is certainly a unique Western enclave in India - and a nice break from the hustle and bustle of normal India. Therefore I'm just going to delay heading back to normal India for just a little longer by heading for yet more beach time in Gokarna, to see in the new year!
Bare melya aani kennai,
Derek
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Ryan
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Things to do in Goa
Goa is such beautiful place to visit in vacations. I just loved this places and natural beauty. Everyone should visit this place at least once!