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Published: August 6th 2007
Beach cows
Sunbathing in PalolemSo we last left off on the train from Trivandrum to Madgoan in Goa. It was very plush and we really enjoyed relief from the heat, it was even chilly at one point! We weren't expecting the whole crew to come round demanding tips though and we foolishly gave all our change to the first guy who also happened to be the guy in charge. It was quite embarrassing telling the subsequent guy we had no money left so no tip for you. Ahhhh! In retrospect we should have already copped that everybody looks for a tip in India but never mind, we'll know for next time. We shared a taxi to Palolem Beach with an English couple to save a few bob and we discussed the likelihood of encountering leeches across South East Asia during monsoon. Apparently we're odds on :-/
Palolem is at the south end of Goa and is notoriously the most idyllic beach Goa has to offer. It is long, crescent shaped with plenty of white sand, restaurants and beach huts set back under the palm trees. It also doesn't suffer from huge crashing waves and a strong current so we were actually able to swim
Palolem by night
Let sleeping dogs lie! and play water-frisbee for the first time since arriving. We found a sturdy wooden beach hut with a hammock on the porch and an attached restaurant pretty quickly and settled in. The beach huts are in a square all looking into the middle where there are palm trees and at the entrance side is the restaurant that faces the sea. We were only about 30m from the sea ourselves and could hear the shore lapping as we drifted off to sleep each night. All the restaurants and bars are far more spread out then in Varkala and Kovalam and shops are up on the road rather than on the beach front creating a more relaxed atmosphere. Goa state has a lower tax on alcohol and it's more readily available and so for the first time we saw it on the menu at every restaurant.
We tried out a few restaurants along the beach front and up on the road and the food was pretty good everywhere. As we were walking along the beach the first day Ash happened upon a 500 rupee note. There was no one around and no way of tracing who owned it so it was
swiftly pocketed and we had our first bottle of wine in 6 weeks that night! At night walking back to our room it looked like a dog epidemic had struck; there were loads laid out all across the beach and they didn't stir no matter how close we tread. Bob Marley consistently featured in Palolem with every bar playing him at least once a night (Dan, you'd have been in heaven!). On our way to the train station to book onward tickets we noticed a convoy of police arriving on the beach. We asked a local shop keeper what was going on and he said it was now (strangely!) illegal for restaurants and lodgings to have beach beds and umbrellas on the beach as it somehow obstructed the view and strollers paths. Sure enough when we got back the 6 beach beds and umbrellas from our place were hidden in the square behind our restaurant.
We managed to watch the first half of the Wigan v West Ham match but there was a power cut just before the second half came on which lasted for an hour. We spent a very hot, tension-frought 50 mins in the dark, losing
approx 1/2 our body weight in sweat, before giving up and checking out the final score at the internet cafe. Turns out it was possibly for the best as we missed Wigan's 3 - 0 defeat.
Early morning taxi ride to train station to get to Hampi. Discovered an injured bat in our sink before we left. Quite unpleasant and not what you'd expect to find at 5.30 am. Train was delayed as usual but we got some sleep on it and met a cool family who had just packed up their clothes stall for end of season and were commuting to Gadag for 3 months to chill out. Absolutely everything goes out the window in this country, it takes some getting used to. Saw the second highest waterfall in India, Dudsugar Falls for a fleeting glimpse on way out but caught it in it's full glory on the way back.
Hampi is out in the plains of Karnataka surrounded by huge boulders from back in the day when it was all under the sea and there were volcanoes in the area. Some of them are seemingly very precariously perched over roads and at the top of hills
but it makes for spectacular viewing and wandering around through. It was a huge kingdom back in the 15th and 16th but fell to the Muslims soon after that. Muslims looted and destoyed the temples, cracking all the main statues which in Hindu tradition renders them no longer fit for worshipping. We took a sunset tour around some monuments on our 2nd day and the following morning we arose at 5.30am for the sunrise tour. Unfortunately it was cloudy for both so we didn't see it in all it's glory but we weren't too disappointed as the views were brilliant anyway. We climbed up to the temple on top of the hill where the view was immense over the whole area. There are loads of ruined temples and bazaars and it stretches for miles. Our guide advised us to rent a coracle which is a circular water vessel steered by a guy with one short paddle. To be honest the river does most of the work but it was an enjoyable way to view the canyon around the river and we hopped out for rock temples and stone carvings en route to the main temple complex. The charge was also
a bit steep for 25 mins but all part of the experience.
Hampi village suffers from constant power cuts, which is fairly unfortunate as it's roasting day and night. Temp was 42 degrees celsius during our visit. We witnessed a huge electrical storm from our local roof top restaurant while we were refugees from our sweat-box room. Something strange we saw but have yet to find an explanation for was a woman with two buckets of cow splatterings poured on to the cement ground around the front and side of her house which she brushed out evenly. If anyone has any ideas on this we're all ears!
Train was delayed yet again returning to Panjim so Ade had to endure frequent trips out to the front of the train station to smoke. During one such trip a beggar woman sitting down on the ground and dragging herself along by her arms started sliding towards him. Conjuring scenes from Night of the Living Dead he stomped out his cigarette and legged it back inside. It didn't help he was reading The Island at the time which chronicles life on a leper colony. On the train journey a few kids
begging did the rounds and took a shining to him, tapping his arm for 5 mins at a time. He eventually stood to ask the train conductor to move the kid along but the kid got wise and scooted away before the wrath of the train conductor could be bestowed.
Litter is a huge problem in India. Some appear to be aware of the problem, as we've read articles in national newspapers commenting that if cleanliness to godliness then India is in real trouble. We'd have to wholeheartedly agree with this. According to the newspapers and signs in train stations it is an offense to drop litter. We have seen hundreds of people chucking everything you can imagine into the street and out of train windows and never once been fined, reprimanded by peers or even given dirty looks. It's a part of every day life and is accepted. It is part of the national psyche, as one person wrote to the editor, it's the same attitude the nation has towards democracy; their vote can't make a difference and neither does the litter they throw away. Hopefully this attitude is one of the many things in India that is
slowly changing.
So we got to Madgoan but too late for an onward public transport. Tired and fearing recent infection with leprosy we got a pre-paid taxi to take us all the way (45 mins) to Panjim, the capital city of Goa. We found a nice European style ground floor apartment close to the water but much to our dismay also discovered we'd arrived on the eve of a 4 day dry period due to local elections taking place. We were too tired to drink the night we arrived and so squandered our last opportunity. Now, as you know we're hardly alcoholics (cough, cough), but Hampi is also a dry town and this recent information meant we were forced to go a week without even one beer in the sweltering heat. Panjim is very European looking and walking around it's easy to imagine being a short 2 hour flight from home. There's a river that leads to the sea filled with dinner and disco cruises and the one we were looking forward to since hearing of it - the Casino Cruise. Now as one would imagine this casino works in much the same way as most casinos, pay to
play and drink for free all night. The difference with this is you pay to get on and the boat goes on a mini cruise and then anchors in the middle of the river ferrying people on and off by a little speed boat. Food and drink is included in the admission fee. Now as the aforementioned dry period had struck we had to rethink our startegy; we had planned to drink at least our money's worth while on board. We decided to hit the beach in Vagator for a few days, then return to Panjim for some budgeted gambling and then overnight train it to Mumbai.
Not much happened in Panjim, we saw a pretty church and ate some delicious meals and generally lazed about. We visited Old Goa, used to be the capital befoe Panjim took over in the late 18th century. It has several large churches, one is the largest in Asia and another houses to tomb of St. Francis. Another day we took a trip to the post office on what we thought was a fairly straight forward mission; buy two envelopes, some stamps and post them home. Turns out this was not as easy
as you may have imagined. First the guy at the counter closed after some waiting so we transferred to another queue. Then we were told the post office didn't sell envelopes and electronic stuff (cd's) had to be sent by 'ordinary post'. Yes, we were confused. Were we at a special post office? No, perhaps a special queue then....? We found a general store that sold envelopes and a lady at a desk in the foyer of the post office sold stamps, we then posted the letters outside in the post boxes. Seems nothing is straight forward in India!
Vagator Beach was fabulous. There were little sandy coves between rocks and palm trees and not too many people around to spoil it. It's a big party spot during high season but in May it's perfect, nice weather and not too many tourists. The guest houses and restaurants were all quite spread apart up in the village and it was easy to find a big cheap room. Our local restarant showed two movies every night and served great food. We rented bikes to visit the infamous Anjuna Wednesday flea market, Ade on a motorbike and Ash on a scooter. It
took a few minutes to get used to them but soon we were flying along and by the end of the day we didn't want to give them back. There was a little incident involving Ash and a row of parked scooters but the less said about that the better (dominoes springs to mind)! At the top of a hill overlooking Vagator Beach is a huge old Portugese Fort which we visited with bikes. The walk up at the end was quite slippery but views on all sides of sea and beaches were brilliant. Inside it was quite rocky and huge taking a few minutes to walk from one side to another. While hanging around at the petrol station we were asked to be extras on a film shoot in Goa but we already had train tickets booked so had to turn them down :-(
Back to Panjim for the casino cruise on board India's only live casino, Casino Goa. At first there weren't too many people around but that was probably because we arrived 5 minutes after they opened! We took our plush speed boat over to the anchored luxury liner and went on the full tour. A
churchband performed on the top deck for two hours and the boat cruised for one. There was one room open for the casino with slot machines, blackjack tables, roulette tables and poker tables. The restaurant had a dinner buffet from 9-2 and a snack buffet from 2.30-4.30. We stuck to the lowest blackjack table (100 rupees a pop) which seemed to be doing the trick for the first half of the evening as we were 3,000 rupees up at 1am. When the night ended at 5.30 am we were 2,700 rupees down but had definitely succeeded in our mission of drinking and eating our admission fee. It did fill up after about two hours, clientele was mostly Indian business men with only one other group of westerners. A good night had by all!
Mumbai next stop........
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andie
non-member comment
domino's
hello lovely- looks like your still having a blast despite the fear of leprosy and litter. those dogs that yousaw are all over thai beaches too and are real nasty if you go anywhere near them but it was quite funny to see the moo cows lapping up a bit of sun. we've just been brushing up on hinduism in bali and man we saw the most beautiful old tempes here that are also indianna jones style too with cascading waterfalls that you are allowed to climb- i will put some photos up soon- ill be going home in a month- the compuers here would drive me insane! we have come back from the gillie islands in lombok whichif you are going to indonesia you must stop at- the only transportation being horse and cart and the island culture is so friendly- maybe because they have the best mushrooms in indonesia so they are always giggling! i do love the hindu temples though-all open plan- the only diference in bali is that they do not put statues of the trinity inside the temples as they dont like that but do have the evil spirits outside to sacre us all away! went to a monkey santuary in UBUD, Bali yesterday which was cool despite bad reports- evil spirit statues everywhere covered in the pesky fiends- a monkey stole my fruit salad for brekkie this morning but i wasnt going to fight him for it! i really love going on those sunrise tours- the pictures that you have are surely amazing. anyhoo when are you of to thailand? i want to give you all my knowledge before you depart! love andie