What a spectacular beach weekend! I cannot even begin to tell you what a liberating experience it was to wear a bathing suit. I have never particularly enjoyed the bathing suit concept, but after four months of being clothed from ankle to elbow, I was really pleased to be wearing far less clothes. Goa is sort of a crazy scene. It is the “cool” place for westerners to go in India, and it really is not India. Even the locals who live in Goa do not participate in the scene that Westerners see. Somehow, we once again are lucky enough to find ourselves straddling the Goan dichotomy:
So we arrived at the train station at about 6:30 in the morning, and The Captain (General Manager of one of our hotels in the North) had set us up with a hotel in Goa. We called the guy he told us to call, and all we got out of him were a few sleep-hindered words. So we decided to call The Captain. From him all we got was an inebriated slur followed by “Diwali!” which means that he was celebrating the holiday in fine form. Anyway, a man in a pink shirt showed up a few minutes later driving a tricked-out Mitsubishi Lancer, and somehow the six of us and our stuff piled into it and we ended up in a jungle, on the water, at a hotel. It just sort of happened.
Now you have to understand that when this group travels, we get really lucky. Somehow we always end up in a place that takes great care of us, that someone who knows someone who is related to someone has set us up with. We were not at all sure where we were supposed to be. Out our window were some very primitive looking fishing boats, and there did not appear to be anyone else in the hotel. We called The Captain once more to see what was actually going on, and we were indeed in the right place. So here is how we got there:
Anju, ACM’s resource person knows Raj. Raj owns the guest house in Banjar where we stayed. He is a great guy, went to school in Scotland, has a 2 month old baby named Sven, and was recently mistaken for a killer and nearly escaped a shoot-out with the police because of it. Anyway, he is friends with a man who owns a hotel in Manali—Mr. Sharma. Mr. Sharma hooked us up with some great rooms in Manali, and that is how we met the Captain. The Captain is the General Manager of the restaurant connected to the hotel in Manali. The reason we got to know him is because he invited us to his club and then to a birthday party. It was in true India fashion: “You do one thing. We go to my disque. 8:30 you be ready. After that there is Birthday party. We come here and go to birthday party.” We were all fairly skeptical, but the Captain did pull through. Well turns out the Birthday party was for the restaurant’s cook, Baba. Well, if you ask Baba, we are all fast friends. That is why we were sent to this particular hotel in Goa. The hotel is owned by a man named Amber who has working for him a wonderful man named Ankush, and Ankush just happens to be Baba’s twin brother. Fancy that.
Anyway, Ankush took to us just as quicky as Baba did, and Amber took to Addy. Ankush took it upon himself to be our personal tour guide, and as Becca wrote “hospitality is a responsibility.” The first day we went to a busy public beach in a little cove, and it was so heavenly to be that close to something so pure, and in a much different way than the Himalayas. It was weird though to be around so many white people. They were everywhere. For me at least it was different to go to Goa than to find particularly western pockets elsewhere in India. I went there with that as the expectation. I gave myself license to step out of the true Indian experience, and for four days, I got to see what people get to see of India without being really in it.
That night we went to a few clubs. The first was this crazy trance club that appeared to be a bunch of 45-year-old Europeans tripping on acid. There was an incredibly tall woman in a tiny spandex mini-dress who was speaking either Portuguese or Italian snorting coke off the bathroom sink too. The second club had Bollywood music, fewer drugs, and a lot of people who looked socially inept. This club was more fun.
The following day we decided to find a place to have breakfast, and while wandering through a fishing village, ran into Ankush (who for some odd reason was standing in the local liquor store at 8:30 in the morning. He told us that he already had a plan for us! We were going to his sister’s house for breakfast! Luckily it was Diwali season, so there was a shit-ton of food on hand. (Shit-ton is the only remotely accurate word to describe the plethora of etables available during Diwali.) I am pretty sure that taking six American girls into your house is, first off, not an easy task, but also not something that is done on a regular basis. Anyway, his sister, her children, and a lot of other unidentified family members sat down and watched us eat a wonderful South Indian breakfast. They all sat around in their house dresses, which was welcoming. It made me feel like I had not put them too out of their normal routine.
After that, Ankush said we were going to a virgin beach, and we obediently followed him to a fishing boat which we boarded and ended up in paradise. It was something out of a James Bond movie, or like the island they are on in “Lost.” There is no other way to describe it than PARADISE! For lunch we return to Ankush’s sister’s house, and it happens to be the brother-sister relationship day of Diwali, so we get to watch a little ceremony. We are stuffed to the brim, and then the sister brings out sweets. Our evening is spent in the hotel, but two of Haley’s friends from school who happen to be in Goa come and join us, and we make an evening of it. We ask the hotel for red wine, and instead get full glasses of port. If there is one thing Indians did not learn from British rule, it is how to do alcohol.
The following day, we spend courtesy of Surinder’s best friend, Shanu (which sound remarkably like Shamu or Shampoo) and we don’t see him but for five minutes. He sends a car for us, the driver takes us to the hotel that Shanu owns (it would have been nice to know about said hotel earlier Surinder!) and we get free lunch. Then the driver takes us to a few different beaches, we watch the sun set for the last time in Goa, and after that we wander down a back alley where we are offered Ecstasy, but end up at the most enchanting little fish restaurant overlooking the water. Perfect.
The following morning, Ankush takes us to his other sister’s house for breakfast. Then we trek down this mountain, nearly fall down a dry waterfall and slip off a bit of a cliff, but end up in an even better paradise. Every place we see is a little better than the last. I just cannot get over it! After we climb back up the mountain, Ankush takes us to the train station and says we have to wait for Amber. We have established Amber as a creeper by now, so we are not inclined to wait for him, but Ankush insists. Amber never comes to see us. He drops off a package for Addy with Ankush and disappears. The package is addressed to Addy-Taddy (which he has taken to calling her) and contains two stuffed rabbits—one of which makes a kissing noise and says “I love you” when you squeeze it and the other which plays techno music when you squeeze it—and a box of chocolates. This only further establishes Amber as a creeper.
On the train we meet two women who are just looking to take a picture of a waterfall. They get the shot. I am woken up in the middle of the night by a man who insists that Becca is in his berth, and we get in a bit of a squabble, mainly because he just keeps pointing and saying “Seventy One!” even though the berths have very obviously been renumbered. A few short hours later we are in Pune, and I arrive home at 4:30am. Sulu still likes me despite my disturbing her sleep.
