Goa – Arambol
Monday, December 31st, 2007I am now at day 9 of the trip – time sure does fly when you are bumming around and doing nothing. I am still in that little village I landed in last monday off the train. It is pure hippyville around here, you could spent and I am pretty sure that I have spent hours watching these crusty 50 year old men with hair down to their nether region swan about the place complaining about the quality of german made sitar strings. The other day I was sitting in a beach shack enjoying a coconut milkshake (the place is full of nuts of every variety) when I noticed this dude who last saw the sharp end of a remmingtons back in the 67 talking to this bunch of south african girls – I could just about make out what they were saying – ‘Yeah man, you should check it out, we start playing at 8.30 in the shack 40 yards down the beach’ which was met with much enthusiasm from the girls. Out of pure curiosity and plain idleness I made sure I was in the vicinity at that time, My God they were shite!! 4 crusty year old hippies with the rythym of a drunken uncle at a wedding randomly beating/abusing/violating their respective instruments.
Arambol is really lovely, very pictureesque and a massive seachange from mumbai. Alot of the people who work here come from north india or inland where snow falls and its out of season with regard to tourism. At first they always seem to have something to sell and they drive a hard bargain at first its intimidating but gets kinda fun after a while. I’ve found that showing them pictures of ireland on my camera gets them to forget about their sell and talk more about where they come from which I find is a great way to find out which places are worth visiting. One guy who works in the shack where the south african girls were spent a full hour talking to me about places I should visit where he comes from right in the very north of india. Manali is the town where he is from and it certainly sounds lovely but with the snow falling at the moment he reckons its pointless visiting there until next march. Its right up beside kashmir but far away that there is no trouble. The Dali Lama lives in the next town so if its okay for him then it’ll certainly do for me.
I have found the people who have travelled here to be very insular and into themselves, there is a massive proportion of russians and israelis – they far outnumber anything else. I have met some cool people aswell, there is this guy from nepal who is always on the beach at 4 every day kicking a football around, tis always good to keep those skills sharpened up. Have met a good few people just from kicking a ball up and down the beach. There was even a 2 groups of indian guys who wanted their picture taken with me. One which I will post up later when I get a better computer played state cricket for Bihar – I was embarrased not to know him but he didn’t seem to mind. Their love for cricket is amazing, If you want to get one of them to smile instantly all I have to do is mention the 600 runs they got against pakistan in a 20 20 match at the weekend.
That about sums up Goa, there are so many little episodes everyday that its impossible to put them all up, that I know it would just bore the arse out of people. I am going to leave for the state capital in the morning where I hope to get an 8 hour bus to a place called Hampi which is meant to be pretty cool – its one of those UNESCO sites. I did plan to spend the guts of a month in goa but I think I should get out on the road and earn my weeks in the sun on a beach doing sweet feck all. At this stage it looks like I will be spending Xmas in Kerala.
Adios,
Phil
p.s. one of the computers here melted my memory card reader the other day so photos are going to become less frequent but in bulk – probably…
Phil Gill