Grand Voyages, Great Lies

Goa is a haven in India, mainly for the reason that as women we can kinda get away with wearing tank tops and shorts in lots of places, even the Indian women here wear jeans, tight t-shirts and carry western handbags.

Each place i see here gets more and more beautiful. Palolem was very much like a holiday village but with a nice relaxed atmosphere, nice places to stay, eat and smoke sheesa. from Palolem we caught about 4 buses, the journey was fairly easy compared to previous ones even though this time each ride was only between 30min and an hours. strangely when we alighted at Panji- the capital of Goa we were searching for the bus to Mapsua which is further north. after only several seconds walking to the crowd an urgent bus conductor from about20ft away tells us we want to get on his bus…..where is it going we inquire…Mapsua….how did he know? possibly he predicted as young white tourists we were headed for Anjuna….or he just wanted to get us on his bus….you see here most bus drivers and conductors must be on speed. they yell the destination of their vehicle repeatedly in a rolling rythmn till it no longer makes any sense, the gesture with their hands and bang on the side of the bus to tell the driver to wait whilethey usher you on before you even have chance to work out wether this bus is going in the right direction….with them yelling Mapsua Mapsua Maspa Mapeu Mallsu lsuudam’. You must be as fast and alert as them to co-ordinate your journey. the benefit of all this rushed aggressive encouragement to board a vehicle means that transfers and there for the journey time is reduced….providing you get on the right bus.

My advice for catching buses in india? dose us on coffee before a journey with many transfers, forget all British queuing customs, indians dont queue, dont take any information given to you as word, even from conductors, help desks or your lonely planet, somewhere there will always be another piece of information to contradict it and in most cases their will always be a second option of transport, route or fair.

So here we are in little Vagator a 5mintue moped ride from anjuna- both are eqaully small villages but complete with beach, shops, resturants bars and one or two clubs. a moped is essential though you will bearly use any petrol unless like us you venture to the hill top portgueguse fort in Chapora for wonderous views, or you drive back innto mad mapsua to catch a bus to river side old Goa with its towering baslica and churches.

Old Goa isn’t that pretty unless you count its cleanliess on the main boulevards. it has the importance and the cut of a colonial town with the large european buildings, but in my eyes the beauty was in large rusty boats on the river, seen from the bus ride annd the jetty. they added yet more colour to the patch work of trees and water dotted with portuguese style house riddled with cracks and vines and intricate iron gates. this style of house and buildings dominate much of goa and differentiate the state i have seen so farr from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu ( see a state map of India)

Here in Goa like in Gokarna you will find tourists and indians alike drinking kingfisher beer for breakfast and lighting a joint on the beach. it is lush with vegetation yet bright and sparkling from the sun reflected from the large stretches of river leading to the ocean. it does rain here in mad torrential storms preceded by gusts of ominous wind and power cuts.

The people we have met; Indian,Swedish, British , American, Dutch and German all wished me happy birthday at the stroke of midnight on the 16th, we celebrated Moris’s birthday ( a guy from Amsterdam) till 12am then the wreath off flowers was passed to my neck briefly between shots of tequila and dancing in the rain…then i handed them back to Morris as long as he promised to detached a large orange flower and put it in my hair so i could ‘more elegantly’ in the rain while Kate was spun round to hideously wonderful pop songs. birthday wished were sung in 3 languages and the tequila bill rose as photographic evidence of our crowd at the beach top bar was collected. I’m usually such a birthday scrooge, but it seemed like id been celebrating having a birthday in India for the past two weeks.

And their armed with insanity. We arrived in Goa on Saturday to find Palolem Beach in good spirits. Full of holiday makers and backpackers passing through this little beach side village is full of restaurants serving everything from taccos to masala to organic vegtables…..and the little general stores are stocked with tinned tuna, baked beans, coco pops but most importantly MARTMITE… i was going to request having some sent over from england.

Many many a British person are staying here…such a contrast from spying a westerner on the streets of Mysore and becoming excited. Here you can pass by without a second glace, though with bars galore a good conversatiojn about Yorkshire, Devon or Surrey is easy to come by. As is cheap alcohol. decent wine and resonably priced sheesha.

The shops here sell clothes unlike any Ive seen in India so far, a large variety for varying prices…and some displaying various chain shop names of back home. Gorge, Monsoon and H+M to name a few. Despite this there are plenty pieces of floaty silk and novelty t-shirts to be bought, aswell as many a gorgeous bed spread and handcrafted ornaments.

In what may be a heaven for holiday makers and sunworshipers the weather as been moody. Lovely grey skys and humid air..occasional long angry bouts of rain. Weve spent the time here relaxing and getting our selves sorted. We have a big adventure to ahead to Rajastan via Bophal so we’ve spent exciting times over coffee discussing places we are going to head for in the next months and the best routes to take. Such afternoons were spent by eating out in the evening then heading to a bar for cheap portwine or cocktails and chats. Card games and snooker were involved….the card games mainly consisting of sticking cards on our foreheads with water. The sprints to the beachside bars….surprisingly some of which are 24hrs…and a late late night dip in the ocean.

Were gona move up further north to Anjuna soon…..a couple of days or similar fair I’m predicting, but with more to see around the area od Old Goa on our way to the train station. We can hire bicycles and motor bikes again and visit some hectic night markets.

If this blog has sounded at all dishearted don’t be fooled, im having a fabulous time. but illness stuck again last night, leaving me writhing in pain from an earache and a fever….mixed with dehydration (my tongue has returned to white) despite my efforts of drinking 4-6litres a day…and the lack of sweating due to the absence of sun. tuh….

To leave you with the thoughts of moody skys filled with palm trees we can view from our overly pink balcony….we can gaze down towards the beach but due to the foliage we can only catch a glimpse of what we found out to be a very salty sea. We are sharing a large room with friends we made at Sadhana though one left this morning for Rajastan and one returns home in 2weeks. We hope to meet up with Merav after we too have visited Rajastan and venture to Varanasi. This is going to be a very werid experiecne so Ive been warned, with bodies carried through the streets hundreds of times daily to be burnt. From Varanasi it has been decided that I shall go straight to Nepal and stay in Kathmandu for Christmas and New Year!!!! This was never part of the plan but Im sooo excited to visit the Himalayas and see Everest….I love the freedom.