Goa & a short stop in Mumbai

---

We have been in Goa for almost three weeks now and life has slowed right down to a snails pace. The days here are so hot you can’t possibly expel any energy between nine and five. The best we can do is walk to the beach to sunbathe and then of course enjoy a little swim to cool down occasionally. The heat makes us so tired. It has been a challenge just to muster up enough energy to finally start this blog.

The nights are bliss. Once the sun finally buggers off and the cool night air rolls in, you can stay nice and dry, without the sweat rolling down your back. Since we have been here the sun has been a formidable force, each day it has been relentlessly shining bright and damn hot. It seems to get hotter with every day. Only twice we’ve had some rain, both times at night, but the days roll in with blue sky every time.

As you can imagine the scale of contrast from Northern India to the South is enormous. The people here are some of the wealthiest in the country as they benefit hugely from mass tourism. The people are friendly and far more used to westerners which is a welcome for us. Religion here is still important but as Christians, their beliefs are somewhat different to the rest of India and westernised living is far more prevalent.

Sometimes when you are at the beach you can’t even identify with where you are. You could be at any beach resort in the world… Thailand, Brasil, Fiji. That is until a cow casually walks up beside you and blocks your sun…only in India.

Goa is where most people visit when they come to India, especially when time is short. You can even get a package holiday out here from the UK now. Goa was made famous back in the 60s when the psycadelic rave parties were born. The worlds hippy population would converge here at this spiritual place and party their dreadlocks off. They’d smoke drugs, take LSD, exchange ideas, exchange sexual partners and sunbathe almost naked on the beach. Even a whole genre of music was discovered here - Goa Trance. As you can imagine, their behaviour was quite inappropriate to the local devout Christian’s and this soon led to a generalised view about western people. You can still see that this idea resonates with some Goans today, to the detriment of the tourists that come here.

Goa meets with typical expectations of an idyllic beach resort. There are several different beaches that offer something different and cater for budget backpackers like us, but also mid range and high end tourists as well. Since we arrived we’ve seen almost every beach worth seeing from North to South. Goa is only a small state so getting around on a moped is cheap and easy, so we’ve done a fair amount of exploring. Once we arrived here, after 50 hours of buses, rickshaws and trains, we bravely took public transport again, three separate buses, to Anjuna in the north.

Anjuna was a quiet place, we stayed in a cheap guest house a few hundred metres from the beach. There were a few restaurants scattered around the place and a few tourists milling about, but not many. The beach here was ok, not quite up to our high expectations of Goan beaches, so initially we were a little disappointed. The water here was stirred, not at all an inviting and transparent turquoise. It is just after monsoon season and beaches are still suffering from river run off. We didn’t even make it into the water here. We hired a moped and did some exploring further up the coast to find our perfect beach. We made it up as far as Arambol which is the most northern of the developed beaches. The scene here was more lively than that at Anjuna and the beach was much nicer also, still not crystal clear but you could almost see your toes as you stood waist deep.

We stayed in Anjuna for 3 nights, we would have made it only two but we’d paid in advance for our room scoring a 25 rupee discount per night, and we aren’t in the habit of wasting money. Quite the opposite actually, we are maintaining a strict budget, worthy of any penny pinching scrooge.

The day we visited Arambol we searched the beach for a decent, clean and cheap room, which we’d found. It was quite an upgrade after the guesthouse in Anjuna where we were sharing a bathroom and a bedroom with mosquito’s, centipedes, frogs and furry mould growing on the wall. We now had a massive spotless room with our own bathroom and balcony, 400 rupees, bargain. Getting a good deal for us is important, we are on a low budget but that is just half of it, we hated getting stung for higher tourist prices, it always made us feel cheated.

The beach at Arambol stretched for about 5 kms. At low tide the beach widened enormously, you could have three-point-turned a road train. At this time the sand hardened and made a nice surface to run on, we managed to drag ourselves up at about dusk to run the length of the beach. The sea breeze making it pleasant enough. But we’d always feel an exaggerated sense of being worked due to the amount we were sweating, about a litre of water each time I reckon.

At the near end of the beach a small rocky headland stretched around for about 2 kms. It was lined with little beach huts overlooking the water, a few restaurants and tourist shops. Beyond this was a nice small beach. We swam here mostly as we were away from the smelly fishing boats on the other side and there was a little more privacy from some local leering eyes.

The beach was busy here. From early in the morning until late at night, sometimes under lights, the big heavy fishing boats were rolling in to unload their catch. People were walking about, swimming and sunbathing. There’d be a group of locals playing cricket, others throwing a Frisbee or playing paddle tennis. There was a young local guy patrolling the beach asking the tourists, mainly the girls in bikinis, whether they’d like a massage… he was so enterprising he even carried a small bottle of oil and drew it out every time he made his pitch.

We hired a moped and went further up north for some more exploring. We found some nice beaches, almost deserted. There was a Portuguese castle that we also visited, it was actually in the next state up, we had to cross a river on a small ferry to get there. The castle had been restored and now offered high spec rooms inside, looking out over the cliffs to the ocean. We didn’t even stay for a drink after looking at the prices on the menu.

Arambol was a good place to eat at night. A few restaurants on the beach arranged their seating outside on the sand under the stars and lit candles at the tables. It was very relaxing to eat dinner to the sound of crashing waves and a sea breeze to keep you cool. We worked our way around the restaurants soon establishing our favourites, whoever did the best coffee usually won our patronage for breakfast. We found that most of the good places to eat were usually off the beach in the back alleys.

After four nights at Arambol we became a bit disinterested and decided to move on. We’d seen most of the northern beaches by moped and found no others worth an extended visit so we headed for Panaji, which is the capital. Panaji is also on the way to the southern beaches. We caught a public bus and a rickshaw to the Portuguese quarter of the city. The cobbled streets, old buildings and European influence in general was a welcomed change. Although the prices here were stretching the budget so we stayed for just two nights. This was enough to enjoy a few different restaurants and explore the area. One day we took a moped out of the city, inland for about 40kms or so, and visited a spice farm which was interesting. The 300 rupee tickets included an informative tour and a buffet lunch, it was a good day and now we know exactly where some of those unusual herbs and spices actually come from.

On the move again we headed south to Palolem. We’d heard good things about the beach here so we were excited to see it for ourselves. We caught another public bus and then gave in to the comforts and ease of a taxi for the second leg. When we pulled up close to the beach we could already see that we weren’t going to be disappointed. As we got out to unload, two English girls approached to tell us about the room they’d just left, it was five minutes away just off the beach and only 200 rupees. We were expecting to have to pay high prices here, most other people were paying 500+ for their rooms so we were in luck. It was a nice big room, the small guest house was run by a lovely family who lived there as well. We were thankful to the girls who saved us a few hours of hustling.

We put down our bags and went straight to the beach. It was perfect. From the densely lined and overhanging palm trees, to the golden sand that ran in a nice gentle slope down to the water that, you guessed it, was a nice clear turquoise. The water didn’t suffer from the river run off here, not at the moment anyway. The beach was about 1km long and two headlands poked out on either side, giving the beach some shelter, perhaps also from the murky river water.

There was a far busier tourist trade going on here so they had a good variety of restaurants, shops and guest houses to cater for it. You could smell a bit more about and there were even some foreign investors getting in on the restaurant action. There was an English couple running a typical English pub ’goan style’ where we visited regularly. The food was not short of perfect for our taste buds that were longing for some home style cooking. There was an Italian restaurant run by an actual Italian family so the pizza and pasta here was very good. There were loads of seafood restaurants as well that flaunted their fresh fish at the front of their joint to lure you inside. All a bit more expensive here but only spoiled ourselves once a day.

We found a nice little German bakery and café that suited us perfectly for breakfast. They had good coffee, brown bread, did good scrambled eggs and fresh fruit and curd for Sarah. They were nice and cheap too. Run by a Napalese family. This ‘German Bakery’ idea seemed to catch on pretty well as there were loads in North India as well. I wasn’t aware that the Germans were known for their baking?!? Anyway, neither were they probably. A successful idea catches on pretty quick here and soon enough everyone does the same thing.

Most days we spent between the beach and our guest house. The most stressful part of the day was deciding upon where we were going to go for dinner. We always had a nice big breakfast so we were pretty much fixed for most of the day. There were guys on the beach selling fruit so we’d usually get some pineapple to tide us over. We’d always buy from the same two older men who had a certain charm about them. They’d recognise us and always come over, then they’d cut it up with a machete and place it in a bag for us. It is the perfect refreshment after being in the dry salty water and under the hot sun.

Any obsessive tanning enthusiast would be impressed with our brown bits. Probably mine more so as I am sloppy with the sunscreen application. Sarah on the other hand seems to be putting on cream as if her life depends on it, which it probably does I suppose. I just need to tackle the white bit between my waist and thighs, going naked here on the beach is way out of the question. Already the western girls in bikinis are a domestic tourist attraction in a big way. Groups of men stroll the beach and stop around the girls and just stare without any conscience or shame. Sometimes I do wonder what their female counterparts think of them.

We took to the road again exploring the coastline north of where we were staying. There were plenty of beaches to visit, an old Portuguese Fort and small towns and villages. One day we lashed out and hired an Avenger bike. It was an Indian made cruising bike that looked pretty good aesthetically, I’d seen a few of them about. Although once we started riding it, there was no faulting where it came from, it was a clunky, cheaply made thing that was perfect for the market here I suppose. Making a precision bike here is just a waste of time, you need to make something that people can afford. One day we were on a moped, we’d just been to the beach and were heading back to Palolem when I saw something thin and green on the road, it was moving. I had no time to divert and it wasn’t until I was running over it that I realised it was a snake. Erk! We turned back to see if it was okay. It was actually doing fine, still moving reasonably well even with a partly squashed section and a tyre print on its back.

We discovered that there was an Intercontinental Resort just a few km’s south of Palolem, and they also had a golf course. I couldn’t resist the urge to have a game. It cost us three days worth of our budget but we had a lot of fun. We hit some balls on the range first up to get in the ‘swing’. The range was actually the first hole but that didn’t matter, the golf course hardly seemed used by other people. We had three little Indians running around collecting the balls as we hit them, we found the whole thing quite amusing. We took off in a little buggy and played out the course which was quite difficult with narrow fairways, water traps and fairway bunkers. But we did ok. Sarah made a new record for number of strokes before connecting with the ball off the tee, five.

We really were wrapped with where we were staying. Soki and his family looked after us very well and were extremely friendly, always wanting to chat. We had some good banter about the cricket and he even invited me inside for some WWF wrestling which they seem to love here. He was a bit let down when I said it wasn’t my thing. I tried to explain that I didn’t like it much because it was all acting on their part. I don’t think he actually knew and still seemed to ignore the comment. He probably just thought I was stupid, of course it is real.

We ended up staying in Palolem for two weeks. We got very comfortable there and found our rhythm. But at the same time we were anxious for the time to pass as we were so excited about getting back to London. By the time we return it will have been 11 months since we left. That’s a long time away. We have really missed our life, mainly the routine of it, which sounds pathetic actually but it’s true. And of course we’ve missed our friends and everything that we love about London.

The next stop was Mumbai. Our flight was scheduled for the 24th of October so this gave us two nights there. From all accounts of what we’d heard about Mumbai it actually put is off spending anymore time there. We took an overnight sleeper train from Goa and arrived at Mumbai CTS station at 5.45am in the morning. We t hen had to go searching for a hotel. We overpaid for taxi that took us down to Calaba.. nothing was open except for a Macdonalds. We had some coffee and relaxed for a while until the city was awake. Still it was early when we started the hunt.. a drunk guy followed us down the street offering a hotel. We just ignored him. 15 minutes later this guy was still behind us screetching the name of this hotel to us. He looked like a genuine bum. His clothes were disheveled and dirty, he had about 5 days growth and we could smell the alcohol radiating from him about 10 metres away. I told him to stop bothering us. We checked a couple of hotels that we either full or too expensive. He was waiting for us again out the front. He was pretty persistent I'll give hime that, the desire to get some more alcohol must have been pretty strong. This time I had to tell him to bugger off. He didn't take too kindly to my tone and initially came for me.. but his rush of anger fading pretty quickly and he did leave us alone after that. We found a place that was clean enough and fit the budget. It took about 5 minutes to wake the staff who were sleeping in the reception but we finally managed to get them up.

Our first day in Mumbai was nice enough. We left the hotel and just went exploring. We actually enjoyed looking around and found the city to be similar to any other big city. It was cleaner than we expected.. and certainly a lot cleaner than other places we've been in India. You only had to look around at a lot of the buildings to see the British influence from their time of rule. It was by far a much more impressive city that the capital, Delhi, that was for sure. We did loads of walking and by the time we got back to the hotel we were pretty warn out so we had an early night.

The next day we continued exploring. We did a suggested walking tour from our lonely planet guide. It took us past a lot of iconic buildings and thru some very busy areas. The streets were teeming with people and the road was full of trafic barely moving. Most of the cars on the road seem to be black and yellow taxis, they were everywhere. We came across a massive park that had five or six games of crickets going at once. We sat down and watched for a bit. The level being played was club standard so it was worth watching. Whilst we were sitting down we got aproached by this guy came down and sat with us and started chatting, all the usual lines that we were used to. He seemed nice enough, his english was good and he was quite intelligent. The catch soon came as he claimed to work for a tourist board and wanted us to visit his office... the usual deal. As we managed to get ourselves away we caught a woof of the alcohol on his breath.. we seem to keep running in to these guys. We continued on to Chowpatty beach and walking by the water and the city. The day was belting out some intense heat so we got out of the sun whereever we could. We found the Gandhi museum which was really interesting and spent a little while there. The museum was free and was well worth the visit. We then attempted to catch a train to the famous Dhobi Ghats which is a massive outdoor laundry where most of the cities washing is done. We got to the first hurdle in the process to catch a train and I caved and managed to convince Sarah to jump in a taxi. We jumped out of the taxi at the Dhobi Ghats and got our photo. We turned down offers for a tour. It was just a laundry, we have one at home. We next visted the Haji Ali Mosque which at high tide is an island.. at low tide you can walk out to it. We passed a few slum areas nearby and got a feel for how poverty stricken people are in Mumbai. More than 55% of the cities population live in these illegal slum areas. These people were a lot worse off than the slums we visited in Rio which weren't all that bad in contrast!

After another long day we ended it by catching a taxi back to Calaba. We spent a bit of time checking out the street stalls near our hotel and then went to dinner at a swanky restaurant. This was our last evening meal we were going to have on our long adventure. So of course we lashed out and blew our daily budget. It was a great meal and a good time for us to reflect on our adventures over the last 11 months. We were kind of sad that it had all come to an end.... but at the same time we were excited about arriving back to London.

The next morning we woke early enough to pack and wonder down the road for a hearty breakfast. The mornings here were still quite hot but soon enough we'd be back in London heading directly for a sub arctic winter! We caught a cab to the airport with the sadness of leaving but with great excitement of what was waiting for us back in the UK!

We had a rather smooth flight back and was welcomed with a nice skyline view of London as we approached Heathrow.. you can easily make out the London eye, Parliament House, Canary Wharf and Big Ben as you approach. After landing we made good time going thru customs and immigration until we found ourselves in the arrival hall with Hannah, Dave & Cassy waiting for us with a warm welcome!

The End.. for a little while anyway.

---

Photos

Anjuna
Health and safety... what?

Arambol
fisherman... and their wives unloading the days catch and hiding out from the blazing heat

Anjuna
this is exactly what the locals say to us everywhere... it's great that they see the humour in it as well!

Anjuna
a bar just off the side of the road.. we were passing by on the moped so we decided to drop in for some refreshments!

Arambol
another day another cup of chai

Panaji
like a little town in Portugal

Panaji
enjoying the sunset

Panaji
the aforementioned sunset

Palolem
another beaut sunset

Arambol
bridges are just too expensive to have everywhere. So they have ferries like this..

Palolem
the newly opened Cafe Del Mar, we felt like we were in Ibiza... except that there were palm trees here.

Palolem
what is your beef mate?

Palolem
hiding out from the heat of the day

Panaji
the old Portuguese quarter..

Palolem
a lovely little beach we found up yonder

Panaji
we interupted this guys bath so that Sarah could have a little pat

Panaji
tour of a spice farm in Ponda

Palolem
what a lovely contrast, don't ya think?

Palolem
"gee it's hot around here.. ha ha"
chillies drying in the sun

Palolem
couldn't resist it

Palolem
four!!! no seriously.