i can now happily add the arabian sea to the ever-growing list of bodies of water into which i've dipped my toes (india has already graciously given me the bay of bengal; add to that the atlantic and pacific oceans, the gulf of mexico, and the carribean, mediterranean, and tasman seas...thanks to my lucky stars, or something).
anyway, here's a word or two about GOA.
there were seven of us girls who weekended in THE place to be when it comes to beaches and parties in india, or so they say. the beaches at least live up to their reputation, but i've already gotten ahead of myself- to begin from the beginning i must begin with the bus. we took the cheapest transportation we could find- a government non a/c bus (buses here seem to be categorized as either a/c or non a/c; a/c basically means a cushy coach bus run by a private company, like the one we took to chennai). it cost us each about 7 bucks, less than the collective cost of the taxis from our guesthouse to the bus station. the ride began in reasonable comfort- open windows made up for the lack of a/c in the increasing heat (i've heard in oberlin it's 9 degrees, here it must be 90) and i drifted in and out of sleep, my sporadic glimpses of rural india giving the day a dreamy feel. however, the dream at nightfall fell into a nightmarish state. whereas my face had previously felt only slightly sandblasted by the wind during the day, at night the air coming in was cool and damp and full of dirt that clung to me, layer upon layer upon layer (if only you could have seen the color of the water when i finally showered!). i've been kind of sick recently- just a typical winter headcold and cough-and this certainly didn't help. i'm pretty sure the bus stopped in every village between hyderabad and goa, and took every possible sideroad/offroad possible; each time i woke up it was still dark, i was still coughing uncontrollably along with half the other passengers, the five babies were still crying, and we were seemingly no closer to the beach. when dawn finally came we found ourselves in the mountains and in yet another dreamland-there was nothing but thick, white fog and only the black limbs of dead trees were dark and close enough to be seen through it. a little later we descended from the mountains and finally, after 20 hours, entered Panjim, the capital of Goa, full of architecture reminiscent of its previous Portugese colonizers. from there we bussed it another 45 minutes to Calangute, or Baga beach- the two seem to run into each other with no clear boundary- were we unpacked our backpacks at Stay Longer guesthouse. like most of india, it was prone to frequent power outages- here's part of the room by candlelight. we felt kind of like we were in the kids' book madeleine where "in an old house in paris that was covered in vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines..." except that we were seven girls and our lines of three and four were a bit uneven- you can kind of see how the beds were pushed together in this picture, fun for slumber parties- and our house was obviously not in paris, and it was more covered in mosquitoes than vines, and we had no Ms Clavel to curb our mischeviousness...but i digress.
what you want to hear about is the beaches, i assume. basically, to be on any beach in february is incredible, and to be on baga beach is unreal. it's in north goa and the guidebooks say it's the most happening of goa's beaches- with it's beach bars and restaurants, it's bicycle peddling ice cream vendors, it's constant stream of parasail and banana boat traffic, it's endless leathery and ageing hippies, and santoosh the dancing cow- that's him over there- i'd have to agree. though the water isn't breathtakingly blue, it's clean and so clear, warm and so gentle- water you can spend hours in. it goes without saying that our days were spent on the beach.
in between the day and the nights, baga provides endless shopping-the main drag is essentially a longer and shadier version of mamallapuram vendor shacks, only there are more things to buy, more burnouts, and more european tourists. i'll admit that i spent quite some time in a tibetan market haggling over silver bracelets, and almost as long negotiating the price of a skirt...there is an abundance of enticing shops, and just as many die-hard vendors who will follow you down the street telling you "looking is free, i have anything you want!"
and then there are the goan nights, whose wild reputation has sort of outlived their reality. goa was overrun by hippies in the sixties and since has been synonymous with crazy hedonistic beach parties, later turning into raves and the famous goa trance scene. i think i missed goa's heyday, though, because five or ten years ago there was a huge crackdown on drugs and with it came a crackdown on the festivities in general. "there are more old people every year," said one goan we met- not offensively, he just meant that it is becoming a more family or average tourist destination than the psychadelic hotspot it once was.
we did, however, have dinner with a rock star- well, the self-proclaimed rising star and hot new thing in world music- was at #1 on the world music charts for 6 weeks last year. we met him when he performed at the fashion show in hyderabad and learned he lived in goa. like all the chart-topping rockstars i know (oh, there are too many to count!), he's a little full of himself. he likes crowds only when he's onstage, other than that it's small groups- he's really just a sensitive normal guy who has a sapphire embedded in a left canine and enjoys long walks on the beach... ok, but really folks, all character judgements aside (and all said, he's a pretty nice and funny dude, good for a good time), he was kind enough to drive us up to anjuna beach and show us the saturday night bazaar- full of crafts and food and live music under strings of lights. from there we tried to go to a club that was closed either because of a) a power outage or b) a murder or c) something in between, depending on who you talked to. to continue our star-studded night we caught a taxi with a bollywood choreographer from london to yet another club- this one supposedly the biggest in all goa, a cave-like trance temple decked out in blacklights and backing up onto the beach. it seemed like with about 200 more people it could be something to write home about, but since it was lacking, i will stop writing.
though goa is charming through and through, though its food is good and its drinks are cheap, though its beaches feel like home and its water tucks you into bed- the most incredible thing to me is just that i am able to hop on a bus and have a weekend there. a weekend here and a weekend there, even if i were to have a lifetime of weekends i don't think i could cover all of this subcontinent.
on sunday afternoon i caught an a/c bus home with ellen, leaving the others for another day (i have these things called classes that i have to be at...). more awake this time, i watched out the window as we passed fields lined with and divided by palms, full of grazing cows and water buffalo, billboards, and pickup cricket games. the driver stopped randomly in villages and had bags (of food?) handed to him through the window, and we ourselves were given a food break late in the evening at a quick little place- i had aloo palak and chai. we were up in the mountains again when we crossed into maharashtra- we passed a circus and an outdoor shiva temple during worship. i fell asleep somewhere in karnataka and woke up this morning back in gachibowli to find out that there have been riots in the old city over the danish cartoon ordeal and milos has been replace by a rat- how he found his way up to the third floor i have no idea.