We have discovered Goan road Speed Bumps!

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oday we had a plan. To scooter down the coast to where there is a big river inlet at Betul. We were wondering if this is the part of Goa we stayed in 1997 as I have a distinct memory of stepping outside the hotel on the last day and realising there was a very new and smart “cottages” in the grounds sort of hotel next door and a river with signs about water sports. Which we had had no idea of while we were staying there.

As Betul is on one side of a river estuary it looked like a good place to look but we have since concluded it was most probably somewhere in North Goa where we stayed before as can find nothing we remember. Not helped by the fact I know our hotel changed its name at some point but no idea what from and to. Long term memory loss at play here !



The main things of importance in our Goan scooter adventure were the size and frequency and often unexpectedness of the speed bumps and the major puzzle over how on earth we put fuel in the scooter with not a garage in sight and our petrol tank, on a dip test, as fuel gauge was not working, looking pretty empty.



As we scootered along I was constantly on the lookout for the signs which preceded the speed bumps but when you are also looking for signs to petrol stations and dodging suddenly turning vehicles sometimes I yelled the warnings too late. I can tell you that travelling over a Goan speed bump on the back of a Goan scooter at my age is not a pleasant experience. I was unsure when we got back to the hotel later if all my vertebrae where in the same order they had started that day or if there were a few missing !



We came to know a place called Cavelossim quite well as we went through it several times. By the time we got to there, about 15 km from the hotel, Bob had decided that we really must get fuel. A check on Maps ME showed a fuel station but there was none there. We travelled down the other side of the river estuary from Betul and eventually came to an hotel with security guards outside and we asked them where there was a garage. 20 km up the road they said, the way we had come. Ooops, don’t think we will be able to get that far.

Security man asked one of the men who can always be found hanging around in places like that and he instructed us to go back towards Cavelossim and there was a café shack just by some hotel or other who would sell us a bottle of petrol.

Failed to find the hotel and therefore the café shack so I asked in a shop. Fortunately lots of people in Goa are pretty proficient in English and we were sent to a garage just past a named café. This time we found it. Not a fuel station but a car workshop. We agreed to buy 3 bottles full and once that was in, surprise surprise the fuel gauge started to work…. which means we had been driving on empty or with so little fuel it didn’t register.



Back to the river estuary we went and watched some fishing boats on the river but decided not to go to the end of the road we were on as it had changed from tarmac to sand and sand and scooter wheels are a bad combination.



We decided to get across the river to Betul but stopped first at a beach I had seen a sign to. Oh dear, such a wonderful beach. Cornflower blue sky, miles of soft talcum powder sand, sparkling sea and palm trees lining the back of the beach. Little stalls on the road up to the beach selling drinks and all sorts of Goan tourist things. But not a single person was lying on the sand nor adult in the water, just a couple of kids splashing. Everyone was all lined up instead, rather like sardines, on sunbeds, provided I think by the beach shack owners and slowly roasting on the spit. I just cannot imagine spending my holiday like that after travelling such a distance to get here.

I haven’t mentioned so far but a good percentage of the holiday makers along this stretch of coast are Russian and we have seen here and elsewhere that that is what they like to do. They drink a lot, sunbathe on the beds most of the day and spend very little (take their own spirits to the restaurants for dinner) and are generally pretty unpopular according to the Goans we spoke to who far prefer the British. They have certainly made their mark here. Though English is commonly used and spoken, after the Goan's own language/s, most cafes have equally large signs in Russian.



Anyway we did not really like that beach, not our thing at all so hopped back on the scooter in search of Betul.



The road to Betul was hard to find. Back through Cavelossim, out the other side and no road across to the right and the bridge over the river. Maps ME out again and yes there was a little road, unsigned, in the middle of Cavelossim so we took it and after a very short while it became a much bigger, newer road and it took us over the river and to Betul. This area, the other side of the river estuary, is way off the tourist trail.



We have seen abject poverty in several places on our Indian travels but there was an awful lot about in the Betul area. This I think is a fishing village, some ‘houses’ were sheets of corrugated iron standing up and stacked together. Pigs, chickens and goats wandering outside and not sure that they were not all living together. Watched one lady fill a big pot from a well, traditional style with a bucket on a rope and I checked the water afterwards. I really hope she wasn’t going to drink it.



From Betul we headed back to the hotel. My back had had quite enough of the scooter, which has no supporting back box as I am used to and the speed bumps had finished me off. Quite relieved to get off and into the lovely pool for a swim before dinner.

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