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Published: March 31st 2006
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View from my beach hut
OK. So Goa does have its upsides... First things first. Any grumbles I have need to be viewed in the context of the fact that I wrote the notes for this entry sat in the shade made by my own bamboo hut, looking out over a beautiful and near-empty sand beach, with the sound of the waves and the palm trees blowing in the wind giving me the natural equivalent of a relaxation tape.
In other words, my two days on a beach in Goa might not have been perfect, but that's not to say that they didn't have their upsides...
Anyway, I decided on Mandrem beach. Had scouted out a couple of beaches the day before, and it seemed to fall nicely between the concrete and chips of Calungate and Baga, and the irritating hippies of Arambol and Anjuna. The adventure for that day had been the bus between Mapusa and Arambol beach, which would have made sardines feel claustrophobic. The sign saying that the bus had room for 11 people standing was comprehensively ignored. I think there were probably 11 people standing in the doorway, let alone the rest of the bus. The bus conductor would have been a shoo-in for organising one of those old fashioned "How many students can you fit into a mini" world record attempts. The evidence suggests that in his case, the answer would have been "All of Oxford and Cambridge, with half of Durham stashed in the boot."
Anyway, I probably made a decent choice. Although I'm sure the beach shacks served up the same bland, overpriced food (chips, not rice, is the default side dish), with the biggest difference probably being that the shirtless hippies were toned and tanned, while I guess the shirtless Calungate hordes would have been pink and flabby. (Hm. Maybe I would have fitted in better there, after all.) That's not being dismissive of the Calungate visitors, by the way. Not everyone can afford to take six months off to lie about on a beach, learn how to play the bongos, grow a beard and get a tan.
Anyway, while the hippies and me weren't really going to be best of friends (far, far too many impromptu bongo sessions, and I almost hung myself from the roof of the bamboo hut when the first evening at my place turned out to be mediocre trance night), the people hanging about the beach were actually really friendly. Beach shack staff were very chatty, and even more suprising was the big chat I had with one of the Indian blokes hawking assorted necklaces around the beach. Very cool indeed, and happy to chat on even after I made it clear I didn't want a necklace. Think it's mostly because it was the end of the season, and the beach hawkers were close to outnumbering the tourists - poor bloke probably didn't have a lot else to do. Anyway, I learned a bit more about Hindu gods (including why Ganesh has an elephant's head...) and a lot more about Israeli visitors to Goa. (He wasn't a big fan...)
The only downside to the conversation was when I was suddenly surrounded by a load of Indian blokes. My paranoia immediately kicked in and I suddenly thought I was being set up somehow. Beach bloke picked my reaction from a mile off, though, and explained that they were just tourists down from Mahrastra. Yep. Another one of those weird moments where the camera comes out, everyone gathers around me, and I realised that I'm going to be in another total stranger's photo album.
(And yes, in the end, I did buy a necklace off him... he earned each one of those 50rp.)
So it wasn't all bad on the beach, by any means. Even I'm not churlish enough to fail to appreciated that warm, clean seas, endless empty beaches, and beautiful weather are, on the whole, a Pretty Good Thing. But, basically, it was a mini beach holiday. And I'm not sure if I'm cut out for beach holidays. I kept on wanting to 'do' things. And unless you count buying a sarong or drinking a kingfisher as 'doing things', then you're pretty screwed. I ended up just going on big walks up and down the beach. And, blissfully, an hour or so sitting on the seat outside my hut and absolutely shattering all my Zookeeper records on the DS.
Either way, I was really glad to get back to Panaji, and celebrated by going on another pointless and extremely relaxing amble around the back streets. And having a damn good thali. With rice, and not chips. And costing 30rp, instead of 220rp for a piss-poor fish curry at my home on the beach.
Bah humbug. I blame the hippies.
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Jo
non-member comment
Bah humbug
Yeah must be a real bummer, beautiful empty beaches and sunshine... Jeez man, there's no sign of spring here and its the end of the tax year, think yourself lucky! Pics, we need pics please! Take care : )