15thDecember 2004 – Bangalore to Goa 16 ½ hours

Vagator (North Goa)
Well I survived my first sleeper train journey in India. We have got much longer journeys to do in the north so lets see how pleasurable I find it then. We headed to Vagator in the north of Goa where we met Mark. It was great to see him and he was looking healthy considering he had been traveling India for nearly 3 months. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that his parents had been out to visit him before we met up. Mark sorted us out a great room and motorbike for when we arrived. Good Boy!
We had all decided that we were going to relax in Goa over the next couple of weeks; well it was Christmas holidays after all. Over the following 5 days in Vagator we got straight into the swing of the Goan lifestyle. This involved visiting beautiful beaches such as Morjim, Little Vagator and Ashram, eating lots, abusing the cheap Indian beer and basically soaking up the scenery. Vagator still attracts the hippie crowd and Trance is still the favored music, god knows why. Imagine your sitting on a chilled beach relaxing and Trance starts blaring. NO! It’s wrong especially because it has never developed and it all sounds the same in my book.
Whilst in north Goa we made a trip to Old Goa which was mobbed by crowds of people wanting to view the body of St Francis Xavier (Goan’s patron saint) who died in 1552. His body is brought out every 10 years in a glass coffin. His body is still intact apart from a few rotting areas, I can’t work that out. The queue was about 2-3 hours long, we weren’t that desperate to see it. The churches, which are amongst the largest in Asia, are the only main buildings in Old Goa. It was a main city until the plague hit so the buildings were knocked down and some literally relocated except for the churches. It was a shame it was so crowded at the time we visited.

Panolim (South Goa)
21st December 2004
It was time to a few hours down the road to Panolim in South Goa. Paul and myself had never been to Panolim on our previous trips to Goa. We moved into a stilted coco hut on the beach complete with sea views, heaven. The crowd in Panolim was a really good mixture of friendly travelers out to enjoy themselves. We actually bumped into a crowd from Brighton. The bars in Panolim were playing a good variety of music, goodbye trance. I also found a good yoga class to attend in the mornings to cleanse the mind before the hard day of lying on the beach began.
Christmas day was spent lying on the beach and being served with a feast of fresh fish followed by a lively beach party in a venue called the Laughing Buddha. This is set on the beach with a circular timber structure containing a sunken dance floor and chill out area above. This is surrounded by circular fire pits to sit around. You wouldn’t get away with that with health and safety at home. Very cool.
I feel we were in the right place at the right time as on the 26thDecember 2004 an earthquake hit off the shores of Sumatra, which caused the Tsunami to strike Southeast Asia. The earthquake was 8.9 on the rictor scale. The death toll was rising every hour; it was one of the worst natural disasters ever. As well as watching the news in one of the beach bars all day we were watching the sea as the tides went in and out to extreme levels. In the evening a freak high tide came in so far in a matter of seconds it took out some restaurant furniture. The local were going mad, there were blessed crosses stuck in the sand along the beach as some of the locals preyed.
As we were on the beach when the wave came in unknown to us the majority of the village decided to evacuate and spent the night further inland in the next village in schools and the police station. This was obviously a false alarm. We stayed but I can’t say I slept hearing the sound of the waves and thinking of all of the people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Once New Year was over it was time to move on.