Wanderlust Heaven!

My room has a nice big mosquito net around the whole bed. We don’t have that at home!! Of course, we don’t have 6-inch skeeters at home either. At night when I lie down on the bed and open up the net, I feel like I’m in some palace, the bed is so large, with four posters, and the gauzy net is all around me like fine silk.

I traded in my big motorcycle for a cool little Honda Activa scooter. Now I don’t have to worry about my foot reaching the gearshift. Last week I skinned my knee when I spun out on some loose gravel. But the nurse was really nice and gave me some candy while she bandaged my knee. And she didn’t even yell at me for being a stupid little kid!!

I’m not wearing a watch anymore. Yeah, of course I like the watch you bought me. But time really doesn’t matter that much here. All you need to know is that when the sun’s up, it’s beach time. And when the sun starts to go down, it’s still beach time, preferably accompanied by grown-up drinks. But get this – there are cool bars everywhere and they serve everybody, even me! It sure wasn’t like this at home.

A few days ago Benji and I rode down to Candolim Beach. I remember going there a long time ago with Jan and Craig. But this time there’s a huge barge stuck in the bay! Wait till all my friends at school hear about this! Some dumb drunk captain screwed up and beached his huge ship right next to the beach – and it’s been stuck there for six years! We thought that Boston Harbor was bad.

Me and Benji talked about trying to board the ship. But there might be bad guys there. Or it might smell like pooh. So in the end we just went swimming near it. And then we were hungry. So we went to a beach shack called ‘Calamari…Bathe and Binge.’ Benji had fries (he calls them ‘chips’ – how weird) and I had some sloppy chicken dish. And a cold beer. Because everybody can drink here in Goa. So there.

While we were sitting at Calamari we read the back of the menu. It said that Calamari was rated the fifth-best beach shack in the world by some overseas newspaper. The other ones were in Sicily, Morocco and England. Maybe we can take a family vacation to those places when I get back?

Soon after that it was Diwali, the biggest Indian festival, and there were cool celebrations everywhere. And lots of Chinese firecrackers. Our counselors wouldn’t let us buy any, so we just hung around and watched Indian kids light them. I read in the newspaper that every Diwali tons of people get hurt by firecrackers. I remember back at home during one Fourth of July, Billy threw a firecracker at me after lighting it. But I ducked and it missed me. So there.

Another day Benji and I rode our bikes all the way to the northern border, right near the state of Maharashtra (the state with Mumbai in it). That was fun…the roads got pretty narrow and we had a few close calls. There were cows wandering all over the place and I started daydreaming about juicy hamburgers at Wendy’s. When I get home I really want to eat a few double burgers with everything. And chili. And frosty’s too. That would be really cool.

When we got back from the northern border – where we swam and talked for a while – we went to an all-day party at a beach shack called Curly’s. All the big kids were there. Lots of funny little cigarettes. People were acting kind of funny. Loud trance music was playing. One big kid was nearly naked and he was throwing his body around like crazy. He had a big funny strange grin on his face the whole time – he looked really happy. I wonder why.

We stayed there for a few hours. Some of the kids from our bunk were there – some people from England or one of those places where they speak English too. One kid was too tired to dance or even stand – he had a droopy smile on his face. But he was really nice and we sat there with them for a while.

That night my tummy was killing me. I think I ate some icky veggies up north or at Curly’s. And I had to keep going to the bathroom. Boy, I really hate getting sick. And Dr. Brodie’s thousands of miles away – I guess I’ll have to figure something out myself.

The next day we rode to the state capital, Panaji. There’s an awesome enormous white church high on a hill in the city. We went inside to look. There was a funny sign there. It said something like ‘Communion is not a prasad.’ Prasad is the Hindi word for ‘snack’ or something like that. I guess Indian non-Christian people were going to mass and standing in line for free wafers. And the Christian people didn’t like that. I don’t understand what the big deal is. At synagogue we’ll feed anyone who walks in, won’t we?

We ate a huge lunch at Hotel Venite. The place looks really crappy from outside, but inside it’s really old and cool and has that old smell that’s sometimes good. We were starving and the food was excellent.

We rode around the town some more after lunch. We saw a graveyard with lots of graves. I held my breath for a while but then I couldn’t any more. And there were some new gravesites there, some from 2006. That was really sad. The graveyard was next to a big church, and everyone buried there had Portuguese/Christian-sounding names. I think there are still many people like that in Goa.

After riding around the town some more we crashed the pool at the Goa Marriott Resort. You’re supposed to be a hotel guest to use the pool, but I think they let any white people right in. I wonder what happens if black people try to go in. What do you think they do?

The pool was fun. Then we had a coffee at the Panjim Inn, back in Panaji (Panjim is the old Portuguese name for Panaji). Then we rode home to Vagator.

The next day we went to the closest beaches, Vagator and Little Vagator. The former one is full of touts and vendors and Indian package tourists. It was way too crowded. And there were some funny smells. Benji and I swam there for a little while, then we drove down to Little Vagator beach. That was cooler. And we ran into some big kids from Bean Me Up. They were acting a bit slow…one of them said they went to a pharmacy before and found some really neat stuff there. But Benji and I just went swimming. There were some big rocks and then the good swimming place was right between them. Some girls with big bazongas were swimming there too and Benji and I stayed there for a long time. The skin on my fingers got all pruny and stuff. But we still stayed there.

When we came out of the ocean we hung out for a little while with our bunkmates. The girl had taken off her bikini top and she was really letting it all hang out. I think that’s illegal in Goa…but Benji and I didn’t say anything, we just had a look. I didn’t like them, personally. The magazines at 7-11 have much nicer ones.

Then we went to the Shore Bar, where we had gone before. The sun was going down and we wanted to have some ‘sundowners.’ Which is a grown-up word that means ‘drinks when the sun goes down.’ So we did that. And we ate some chips (French fries). I remembered that some dumb US Congressman changed the name of French fries at the House of Representatives mess hall to ‘freedom fries.’ How dumb can you get? What do fries have to do with freedom, anyway?

We did some other cool stuff later in the week. We went to an amazing 200-year-old house/restaurant called Casa Portuguese for dinner. I drank a cashew feni and it was really tasty. We also went to the weekly Anjuna Flea Market and I bought some neat stuff for you – I’ll keep it here till I go home. I hope you like it. It’s a surprise so I won’t tell you what it is. But it’s not alive, don’t worry. And it doesn’t smell bad either. This is what the market looks like:

Benji signed up for an introductory dive course. I already did that stuff so I just hung around the bunk reading. And I went swimming some more. That was really fun. But I miss you. Please write more often. And send comic books too. Do they still make The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers?

Love,

Mike