"Go-wa" Part II

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Later in the week we headed South to Baga, an unattractive resort town replete with sun-broiled tourists, waterslides and, believe it or not, a Subway. Although a vision of Goa we'd intentionally been avoiding, Baga was the launch point for our scuba dive trip to Pigeon Island. Upon approach, Pigeon Island looked like a potential setting for Jurassic Park 4--completely covered in lush, impenetrable greenery and housing, well, god knows what...

The diving itself was pretty reasonable. We poked around some corral reefs in the shallows, descending deeper on the second dive to explore the wreck of an early twentieth century steamer. Visibility was low and Marci was having trouble maintaining neutral buoyance so I spent a lot of time furtively glancing between her and our largely inattentive dive master, preparing to swim ahead and grab his fin should she begin to float surfaceward.

Along with the dive masters, we were accompanied by a motley crew of Russians each more tragi-comic than the next. The prize of the bunch was Yevgeny, a maniacal looking slosh in short-shorts and a National Geographic safari hat. Each time he entered the water he exited bleeding from multiple reef wounds. He sipped from a flask of vodka between dives, openly groped his girlfriend's ample bosom and, best of all, spent the second dive scowering the shallows in full scuba gear carrying a harpoon gun that he'd ostensibly brought from home and looking for "beeg feesh."

Time passed.

We mocked hippies' fashion choices in Arambol. We avoided paying tribute to the dying vestiges of Goan trance culture in Vagator. We parked the scooter and dove into the picturesque waters off of a near-deserted beach in Mandrem. We ate. We drank. We made merry.

Our time in Goa stood in such stark contrast to the rest of our travels in India thus far and passed so quickly that now, as we fly North to Delhi and ultimately the frenetic pace, colour, and bustle of Rajastan, it's already fading into a haze of sun-dappled memory. As if it scarcely happened at all.

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Photos

Goawatch.
No prosthetic breasts here.

Scoot Racer
Marse and I aboard the scooter mere moments before mishap.

Comments

[Anthony]

Love the Stories!!!
Hey guys, sounds like you are having the time of your lives. Hope your health is good. Keep the stories coming Chris, your writing is great! Looking forward to the next blog, Ant XO