A once-popular English song begins: "Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside". I was never in entire agreement with this sentiment. In my experience trips to the seaside involve driving considerable distances in company with too many other people, hauling a lot of heavy gear -- chairs, umbrellas, coolers -- onto the beach, and then lying down to sleep or read, both activities which I can pursue in greater comfort at home, and which preclude actually looking at the sea, which was presumably the object of the whole exercise. Goa, a major package holiday destination for Europeans, and a longtime hippie hangout, was not, therefore, high on my list of places to visit. I arranged to stay in Panaji, the state capital, instead of at the beach, and planned to take in the St. Francis Xavier day festival at Old Goa, and a waterfall situated well inland.
Further reflection suggested that perhaps people go to the beach to do nothing in particular. I can usually manage to do nothing in particular quite well without going to the beach. However, after two months in India, reading little but guidebooks, I was ready for a break. Looking at my itinerary, I decided to delete Hampi in favor of beach time. Hampi required three trains and a day and night in Bangalore, involved, according to Lonely Planet, at least seven kilometers of walking, had no alluring accommodation, and had given the Swiss traveler I met in Bhopal giardiasis. Rick Steves ("Europe Through the Back Door") once wrote that after three months in Europe he might not cross the road to visit a cathedral. I hadn't reached that stage, but I was beginning to see what he meant.
I stayed one night in Mumbai on the way to Goa, so that I could ride the Konkan railway in daylight. It turned out that the interesting section was south of Goa, and I made up for a poor night in Mumbai by spending the afternoon asleep. I arrived at Old Goa's Karnali station to discover that the train did not stop next to the platform. Disembarking passengers had to climb down onto the tracks, cross them, and climb up onto the head-high platform -- with their luggage. No-one ever said that traveling in India was easy, but this seemed a bit excessive.
The Panjim Inn in Panaji was one of the few hotels I had booked in advance. Partly because I thought the hotels might be full for the festival, and partly because it sounded like a particularly nice place to stay -- one of only two heritage hotels in South India. It turned out to be not very full of foreign travelers, but it was a nice place. No TV or telephone in my room, which had been the owner's mother's, but a 95 year-old four-poster bed, deeply carved with leaves and flowers, and with mosaic tiles decorating the bathroom. The breezy upstairs dining verandah was a good place to meet fellow guests, and I spent my last two days in Goa traveling with a voluble Welshman named Wayne.
Wherever they stayed, there were a lot of Indians in Old Goa for the festival -- 15,000 for the main mass at 10:30 a.m. A big marquee had been set up next to the Bom de Jesus church, and masses ran all morning and late afternoon. The lines for mass snaked up and down the road, as did the line to kiss the relics -- most of the body -- of St. Francis Xavier. After mass people were free to head for the other attraction -- a major shopping opportunity. Candy and cottons, sandals and saucepans, the lines of stalls stretched into the distance. There were several food areas, with alcohol as well as food, and some gambling -- the local Lion's Club was running a primitive roulette wheel.
The Portuguese occupation of Goa still shows, and not only in the Christian festival. In the rest of India I saw women in saris, and women in salwar suits -- varied fabrics but the same styles. In Goa, western dress was as common as Indian for women, and virtually universal for men. Watching the crowd packing the space between the stalls, I saw pink suits and purple saris, long black skirts and blue velvet dresses, nuns in white habits, nuns in grey habits, and nuns in white habits with black wimples. Many of the men wore white shirts with black suits despite the heat (of course, it was actually winter), with the wide trouser legs reminiscent of gangster movies. One black-suited man in particular seemed to have stepped off a movie set -- wide black hat, grey beard, collarless dress shirt, and a gold stud in one ear.
Festival over, I headed for the beach, via the weekly flea market at Anjuna. It's been running for decades, and people come by the boatload from the other beaches. Great for people watching, and although not the best place for a bargain I replaced my high-tech American sandals, which I had finally decided were responsible for my bad leg, with cheap black flip-flops.
I had bought a new guide book, Footprints, in Mumbai, to supplement Lonely Planet, and it recommended a place with AC cottages at Vagator Beach. The AC turned out to be erratic, but the location was perfect. From my patio I could see the sea, and a triangle of beach. Coconut palms shaded the cottage, and a ruined fort crowned the hill to the north. Lonely Planet listed Vagator as a party beach, but the Friday night party was round the headland to the south, and I heard nothing until I walked onto the beach at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. Then the heavy bass was clearly audible at the water's edge, but muted at the shack under the palms where I ate breakfast and watched the beach traffic.
Almost all foreign travelers look scruffy beside the Indians, and frequently display too much skin for local mores. This contrast was starkly apparent on the beach. Indian women do indeed bathe in their saris, only foreigners wear swimsuits. The ultimate, though, was a somewhat portly man carrying what looked like an attache case. He was wearing a panama hat, and nothing else except a G-string. I watched him disappear round the rocks at the north end of the beach, thinking that the costume would likely have got him arrested in some parts of the U.S.
Some of the hippies who discovered Goa in the sixties stayed. Latter-day types come for the winter. There are appropriate services. I ate twice at a quite good French restaurant -- prawn and avocado cocktail, cheese plate, poulet a l'orange, crepes, and the local port. Sarongs, skirts, tops are all available at dirt-cheap prices, even if you're a poor bargainer. Best of all -- books. The library was about to open for the season, and I found a used book shop with a good selection. David Sedaris might be pleased to know that his latest, "Me Talk Pretty Some Day", was in a special display at 220/- -- most books cost 100/-. I read it first, since half the purchase price was refunded if the book was returned. The parts I hadn't already heard on the radio were equally amusing, but I still don't understand how anyone can live in Paris and spend their time at the movies.
I really enjoyed my time at Vagator -- mornings spent in the beach shack, writing or watching the passing parade, afternoons reading or indulging in another oil massage, then drinking cold beer while watching the sun slide into the Arabian sea, and walking the beach. Maybe I relaxed too much, as I returned to Panaji with a cold. Although I had a ticket on the Goa Tourism Development Corporation's coach trip to the Dudhsagar Falls, I decided I just didn't have the energy, and settled in with a book. Wayne and I took a car up my last day in Goa instead. We found that the car went only so far -- we had to switch to a jeep for an expensive and uncomfortable hour's ride. The track, it's little more, fords three rivers, and alternates between ruts and stones.
We hiked the last stretch over big boulders, and then found our reward. The falls drop 600 meters in two sections. At the foot of the shorter, upper, falls is a railway bridge. The lower falls drop smoothly into a pool, edged by comfortable rocks for good viewing. Unfortunately, despite the distance, the falls are popular, and the place was crowded. The time to come is obviously early morning or late afternoon, staying in basic accommodation near by. Still, a waterfall is a waterfall, one of my favorite things, and I was pleased to learn that my train would cross the railway bridge the next morning as I left Goa for Mysore.
Sent from Kochi, Kerala, Dec. 19 about Goa, Dec. 1 - 12
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