Off to Goa to see what everyone wows about
14th April 2006

Tricia and JP are fully booked to join us in Goa. Cool!
We leave our strawberry scented heaven to brave the swelter of the coast
Cricket ticket bank picket
Beach lethargy

The Croxtonians are coming

It seems that Tricia and JP are determined to maintain our sanity by giving us an annual dose of their company. We’re beginning to wonder whether we should just keep on travelling for ever to ensure that their holidays never become hum-drum. So far we’ve met up in Paris (JP’s stag night when we flew back from S Africa), Cuba and the western states of the US. Now they’re coming out to India, more specifically Goa. There is a certain amount of mutualism to this arrangement; we get bits brought out for Berthette and JP gets to see a one-day cricket match for his birthday as we are cunningly placed to buy the tickets.

Now that we know that our responsibility lies in the ticket buying department, there is something of a push to get to Goa before the tickets are sold out. The manager of the hotel in Aurangabad assured me that tickets would be around 300 Rupees and were unlikely to sell out too quickly but we really didn’t want to risk disappointment and so after a bit of analysis of the highlights between Aurangabad and Goa we decided on a two stop strategy. First off was Mahabaleshwar, pronounced Mubleshwar. I don’t know who is responsible for rendering phonetic translations of words into latin font but they don’t half seem to complicate things.

We were accosted in the centre of town by a hotelier who insisted that we give his place a look. Although we made it clear that we would check out other options he followed us down the road whistling at us to attract our attention. Did he realise that his zealousness meant that he had permanently put us off staying at his establishment. Is it a cultural difference or an ardent belief that pressure secures customers rather than scares them away. I pondered whether his Indian clientele were impressed by his attention or like us were just irritated.

In the end we stayed at a quiet little place out of town. A weird thing about cleaning, the tiled floor was spotless, the paintwork marked and scruffy. Really, if they simply paid annual attention to the walls and ceilings, these rooms would be spotless and command much better rates. The little pieces of garden to the front was charming until you got to the shrubbery line at the edge where you discovered where all the litter had ended up. It is a parallel situation to lighting in Africa where if one bulb out of 10 is still working then everything is OK (only when the last one fails can one positively say that the bulbs need replacing); here it is the same with regard to cleanliness - if there is one part clean then the rest being dirty is of little consequence. When the power came on in the evening the sheets revealed their true colours, off white. Now there are shades of white that are pleasant to the eye and inspire confidence in the laundry service and there are body-silhouettes of grey grime that betray the incapacity of the previous occupant to take a shower now and again. Once we stirred up the staff they were rapidly deployed in large numbers to rustle up clean bedding. It was really quite bizarre, they were clearly surprised that someone had asked for clean sheets but perfectly willing to fetch them when needed but without the least apology. Do they really not think that guest would automatically want fresh bedding? Maybe we are a bit odd. I mean there was a television set, what more could we want?

In the whole of Asia the cleanliness of the floor is paramount, in hotel, and the rest is very hit and miss. I am sure that Asians are disgusted by the state of European floors. I confess my own back in England would go a couple of weeks without seeing a hoover.

M’war was a delightful hill station that has been Blackpoolified to cater for the modern weekender. Although the inquisitive visitor can make out the stylish old bungalows of the heat-avoiding Raj, no-one (other than Hippy and I, of course) seems to bother. After buying the obligatory strawberries from a con-artist on the main road, we took our sightseeing tour of the community. Brits must have combed outlying parts of the empire to find places to cultivate their favourite temperate soft fruits. The French seem not to have been quite so berry-obsessed and so conquered large tracts of desert in N Africa. I vote with the fruit growers. Personally I think the Spanish chose the best, picking countries with wine production in mind. Anyway, the standard portion of strawberries on offer was a tidy pile of plump, juicy, ripe berries arrayed in a 5 inch diameter bowl. The complete hoax, though, was the bowl, which had been stuffed to the brim with newspaper so that all you were really buying was a pile that could have been balanced on a 5 inch diameter plate. Very cunning but the fruit was wonderful all the same.

The centre of town really is quite unpleasant compared with the meandering lanes surrounding it that provide access to weekend retreats both old and new. Sad English folk missing their roots had named them Glenogle and the like. Though the nice old bungalows are in varying states of repair, I would hazard a guess that trying to acquire one would take an enormous amount of time, energy and cash. Apparently there is a gated community being built close by in the hills that is promoted on television by Boris Becker who reliably informs us that there is nowhere else on earth that he would rather live. The gated community sports guards, cameras, panic buttons and all the other devices that guarantee a relaxing home life; if you happen to be a prison officer it must feel like home. Can’t see why you need all this security in a well adjusted caste-defined social system. Surely the poor know their place and wouldn’t dare to steal from their superiors?

Just as in the Cameron Highlands, there is evidence of supply racing ahead of demand approximately 15 years ago and there’s an almost identical 150 room hotel development made it only as far as getting the frame up before grinding to a halt. From it’s position and seemingly well put together structure, it seemed amazing that no-one has taken on the project to finish it off.

Back in town we politely dismissed the horse touts who were offering to take us ..... where? ...... we’d just walked every highway and byway so the only benefit could be seeing the world from 5 feet higher up. It is a nice thing here that there is a ‘pollution tax’ on all vehicles entering the area. The cost is so paltry that to anyone who can afford a car it is a complete irrelevance. Given the number of horses here, I’m sure it wouldn’t be inconceivable to completely ban vehicles. Now that really would be nice.

We completed our visit with a session at Bombay Point where, we were reliably informed, “sunset views are stunning”. A couple of hundred Indian tourists had been encouraged by the same hollow promise and together we lined up on a set of steps to watch the sky turn from blue, through orange, to red as it so often does. I’d had the crazy impression that you could see all the way from this escarpment out to the Arabian Sea. It was not the best day for a view as visibility was down to about a half mile. Next time.

Back to the lowlands

Our hotelier/resort manager informed us that it was 450 km to Panaji in Goa and we thought perhaps he was exaggerating. Totalling the distances on each of the maps that we have gave us similar figures of around 360 km. This seemed achievable in a day and so we set off in glad heart. Result, Hotelier 1: Maps 0. We’ve been pretty unappreciative at times when we’ve been asking for directions or distances and have been told tosh. I think it is fair to say that every time we have asked for directions in India and have managed meaningful two-way converstion, the information ellicited has been spot on. We’ve been inclined to be suspicious as some of their instructions seem unlikely (pointing to the unsurface one of two possible roads, for instance) but have yet to be misdirected. Have we finally acquired the art of spotting a reliable type?

We would like to think so, but we also have the head waggling conversations, where we are left unconvinced that we made any meaningful interaction. The quirky Indian mannerism of head waggling is quite endearing, with the waggle in rhythm with their speech, it’s a cross between a head shake and a rocking motion. Still in some confusion about whether it adds emphasis or meaning to the sentence or just stops them getting neck ache. I have worked on the assumption that level of head waggle corresponds to level of uncertainty in what they are saying. A kind of ‘maybe, maybe not’ sort of communication. On occasions we try to simulate the same motion, but we do it far too British-ly, we cannot shake off our nurtured stiffness and precision, lacking the random wobble factor, that makes it so appealing.

The descent from Mahabeleshwar was very beautiful but you’ll have to take our word for it as it was rather too hazy for effective photography. It was a little clearer than the previous evening, though, and you don’t need a huge imagination to believe that when the air is clear, the effect of gazing down on a diminshing carpet of hills lit by the dying light of the sun must indeed be pleasing to the eye. My belief that the coast may be visible from M’war remains to be confirmed or denied. Certainly the distance that we seemed to travel west of the mountains before even meeting the main road, never mind getting to the coast, would suggest it as unlikely.

I must mention in passing the strange buzz I’d got from standing on top of one of the orginal survey points of ‘The Great Triangulation of India’ on the top of the hill from Mahabeleshwar. Probably only of any interest to Big Al, died in the wool land surveyors and I but the mapping of India represents perhaps the pinnacle of logistical and technical achievement in Empire Britain. Poor Hippy will get a full dose of geodesy gobbledygook when (if) we visit the museum of the Survey of India in Dehra Dun. I’m sure she awaits instruction on how to read the vernier of a Hilger and Watts microptic theodolite with baited breath. I’ll make the right noises and not understand a word. If there is a four-screw dumpy level in the house, expect a photo dedicated to my dad.

The day proved stuffy and rather tiring. We knew that there was little chance of getting the cricket tickets until Monday (today was Saturday) and so instead of heading straight to Panaji, I steered us off towards the coast and the village of Malvan. It seems I had misjudged and the few kilometres from the main road turned into 40 before we got to the beach at Tarkarli. We’d hoped to camp at the Maharashtra Tourist Development resort only to be rather sniffly turned away at reception. To be fair to them, they did say that we could rough camp a couple of hundred feet away along the beach and use their toilets and shower (seemingly for free) but we always need a ‘proper’ campsite for security if we’re going to stay somewhere for a couple of days and hope to leave the camping gear set up. They failed to point out that going half a mile in the opposite direction brings you to a pukka campsite where the owner welcomes you with open arms and you can pretty much name your own price. In fact, I think he was implying that camping would be free, but I couldn’t be sure.

We ended up in a rather lovely room which had only been completed for a month and so had yet to become dirty. As is often the case with family constructed and run establishments, they couldn’t be more helpful. “What do you want for dinner and when do you want it.” We seemed to be the only people around and so it was reassuring that we were being asked what we wanted - probably they had very little in and so anything we wanted would be bought fresh and so we opted for his fish thali. I always approve of fish when next to the coast and am suspicious of oysters when further than 5 minutes from the sea shore. His meal was pretty good and so when we got onto breakfast ordering, we figured this might be the chance to experience an Indian breakfast as prepared for and eaten by actual Indians. We settled for puri bhaji which we’ve had before but hadn’t been sure how authentic it was.

I liked the way they ran this place. They had only just set up the place and had decided to buy good quality accessories, the cutlery felt good to handle, it lacked the burrs of the cheap pressed cutlery we had come to expected. The tea came in an elegant china pot.

At breakfast, the puri bhaji was not on offer, in fact nothing was on offer except bread. Normally, I am not a fussy person, but I really do not enjoy Indian bread - it is sweet and nasty and there is a reason why a billion Indians stick to their chapatis, rotis and parathas. I was not only disappointmented, but annoyed. Why had he promised us puri bhaji the previous day, we had let him chose what to serve, there seemed no reason to promise to make something and then simply not bother. Typical, just say what they think you want to hear, with no intention of following through. We had a bit of a falling out, I was as disappointed as Hippy but prepared to make do with what was on offer.

We took our custom to a restaurant down the road at the resort. Things did not improve. Whilst the waiters fawned over the wealthy Indians on the tables around us our attempts to even so much as gain their attention to get a menu were stalwartly ignored. After an hour of frustration we were finally ordering food. Little of the vast menu seemed to be available for consumption, so ordered requesting the same that a neighbouring table had just had delivered on the basis that we knew they had it.

When it arrived it was a completely different dish to what we had ordered. Now they were taking the piss. We got the feeling that this was not out of incompetence but a deliberate policy of treating foreigners with contempt. We sent it back and requested what we had ordered. We waited............we waited............they fawned on the other customers.........we waited. I think they were hoping that if they ignored us long enough we would go away, and just as we were about to take them up on their hopes, the order arrived. We ate, we paid, we left no tip and wondered if it was national disappoint Brits day. We muttered churlishly back to our room.

During our waiting I took the opportunity to people watch and eavesdrop. Conversation rumbled on in Hindi, or possibly a different Indian language beyond my comprehension, but at random a full sentence would come out in perfect English. One such utterance was ‘No, it’s not family I am talking about!’ and then the conversation faded in incomprehensible language again. I had noticed the same strange selective use of language when there was a Bollywood film on. The film was trundling along in my subconconscious and then my attention was sparked by ‘What the bladdi hell is happening?’ then Hindi resumed. Eh?..... On this poor sample of two instances it seems that English is used to make a point or in argument with others. Somehow, I feel uncomfortable that English is seen in such a negative way. Is it indicative of how the Indians see the English, as confrontational and argumentative? It is true that Indians seem more accepting and patient, or is it simply that confrontation using English tend to be more effective, as our once using the German language with Tunsians was more effective than English despite the fact that they understood the languages equally well.

As we caught up on a little webbing, we watched a solemn funeral procession pass by. At first sight of a column of blokes walking down the road chatting amongst themselves, I’d waved cheerily and greeted them with a fine good morning. They had been a little muted with their responses which seemed odd until the cloth shrouded, person sized bulge passed by at shoulder height. Doh! An hour or two later, the owner of the hotel came over with apologies that the breakfast was non-functioning and explained that the funeral had been his aunties and he had been at family functions all day. I felt terrible, I had assumed the worst of this man, had assumed he was incompetent, worse that he had lied to us, and all the time he was dealing with a family tragedy. We vowed to ourselves, if promises are not fulfilled in future, to remember this moment. My humble apologies.

Information dearth on the cricket front

We polled the local folk about the impending one day match. Contrary to reputation we have not found Indians to be the fund of cricket knowledge that their reputation suggests. We would say that the Guyanese are for more obsessed. In Guyana, anyone from the policeman to the street sweeper would know about the cricket and most, if a match was going on at the time, would know the score. Cafés would be tuned into the commentary, staff canteens would have intent huddles of people round fuzzy B&W portables. One of our collegues at Abram Zuil Secondary school would even abandon science teaching for the duration of a test match and to the students delight bring a transistor radio to follow the days cricket. Cheers could be heard across the school when the WI took a wicket or made a 6. Any child old enough to stand held a stick as an improvised cricket bat and hit pieces of cocunut husk into the bush. This was true devotion to game. In India finding someone who knew for definite where the next day match was, or what day it was on was proving difficult. And as for getting an assured price of tickets that was all very vague. There was nothing for it we would have to get to Goa, and source someone with some information.

Our arrival in Panjim/Panaji was frustrating. It all looked so easy on the map. Bewildered as to how to get off the one way throughroute that runs along the river, we pulled up by a traffic directing member of the constabulary and asked for directions to the tourist information office. He was clearly busy and directed us towards a couple of motorbike cops at the side of the road. We toddled over, made pleasantries and again asked for the tourist office. Their response was to ask for my driving license. We’ve been warned of tiresome police in India either just plain time wasting or, more worryingly, creating spurious charges to rip you off. I was hot and not in the mood and so I just turned away from them, engaged gear and left them looking at each other. They made no move to come after us and none of their colleagues attempted to stop us so we assume that the advice we’ve had to simply ignore the police is entirely correct and accepted. It felt pretty weird doing it though.

Tourist information was easily received and it was a damn good thing that we called in. We had discovered by now that the match was to be played in Margao/Madgaon. Hips asked for directions to the ground so we could go to the ticket office. Hence we discovered that there is no ticket office at the cricket ground and that tickets were for sale at a local bank ...... but only after 5 o’ clock. We were in India, though, and so there was a simple way around the problem; ask for the bank manager and tell him you are leaving town before 5 and he’ll sell tickets there and then. We went to the bank.

“I’d like to see the bank manager, please”
“Just a moment, sir”..........
........“Yes sir, how can I help you?”
“Yes, I need to buy some tickets for the cricket but I’m leaving town before 5”
“Shhh! People are watching and listening”
(loud voice) “I’d like to open a bank account, please”
(similarly loud) “Would sir like to step into my office”
Thus did we find a convenient spot to do business. I’m not sure whether I was supposed to tip him for his effort but as tickets weighed in at a hefty (by Indian standards) 30 quid each I felt I was swelling enough coffers. I did try to do some banking business at his premises also but the ATM thwarted me in my efforts to withdraw a reasonable wedge of cash. The information clerk informed me that the maximum withdrawl was 5000 Rupees but that I could draw three lots on any one day. She seemed confused when I explained that this would be very costly as I would receive three transaction charges. At the bank opposite I acquired 20,000 in one hit. Point of interest - the Indian numbering system is a little peculiar when it comes to naming the larger place values. 1000 is still a thousand, but a million does not exist instead 100,000 (1 lakh) is used as a stepping stone to 10,000,000 (1 crore). Can’t remember having come across anything other than standard 1000 multipliers anywhere else. Perhaps there are not one billion people in India after all.

Goa is a pretty tiny little state in Indian terms. I don’t know if it could have been easier for the Portuguese to manage a series of little outposts around the world or for the Brits with our huge chunks. I suppose Gibraltar is not so big, nor Hong Kong and many others. Think before you speak, Pat. That’s what comes of writing mostly by stream of consciousness. Anyway, there is an obvious comparative wealth as you cross the line form Maharashtra. More cars, less cows and carts, wall to wall booze shops. More importantly from my point of view was yet another improvement in road quality. Clearly the tourist income is trickling down just as it should. The tourist presence was marked on the main thoroughfare by the white elbows poking out of every other vehicle. The main highway is set in from the coast and so we didn’t get to see anything remotely like a resort until just short of the next state line when we turned in to Palolem.

As for me, I could finally relax a little, with all the road signs being in English font. I had been struggling to navigate up until now with 95% of the directional signs being in Hindi script. No reason why they shouldn’t be in India, but I was able to give Pat directions with a little more confidence than ‘I don’t know it might be that way’.

Chilling in Agonda

JP and Tricia had booked into perhaps the best gaff in Palolem and I was keen to see what the town was like and whether we’d be able to find somewhere more in our price bracket. Poor Hippy was boiling on the back but it seemed mad (to me) to not make the 1 mile detour on the way to Agonda to check it out. Having seen Blackpool street, discovered that their choice was really rather nice but out of our range and found rather simpler places next door at bargain basement prices, I was satisfied that we could all be neighbours but have the holiday experiences that each of us expected.

More importantly that would be a suitable resting place for Berthette. The posh gaff was all very well but there was no way to get the bike down there, and we would have had to leave the Berthette unattended in a parking area 200m away. Our alternative simple hut, next door, may not have had the manicured lawns but we could park the bike spitting distance from our hut.

So we set off for Agonda beach to check out our information that this is the preferred hangout for overlanders in Goa, having driven from Europe. We cruised up and down the beach with no success. Plenty of touring Royal Enfields that folk had bought/hired in India but seemingly no-one that we could touch base or exchange maps with. There was none of the overdevelopment that marks Palolem as a town with problems around the corner. Between the road and the beach are a string of bamboo huts and bars. We soon found our little happy camp where we were welcomed with open arms by Raymoa (or so one imagines it spelt given that it was spoken with a distinct Portuguese accent). It was obviously approaching the end of the season as, along the 2 mile beach, approximately 6 people could be made out. One of them was a rather exuberant, topless lass who couldn’t even manage to be culturally sensitive for the two minutes when the kids passed on their way to school.

At the end of the season all of the huts are taken down and stored which I think is rather nice - kind of a fallow period. We’ve had two plausible reasons suggested; the bamboo huts do not survive the monsoon season or it is not allowed to establish permanent resorts. I prefer the first, there are one or two permanent resorts so why not all of them. There are those readers who will roll their eyes at the downmarket beach huts that we’re staying in but there are huge advantages to these types of gaff. Their permeability allows the evening breezes to cool them down with the annoyance of fans or noisy air-con, the openness makes it easy to sweep out the beach sand and, of course, you are in fact on the beach. Forget those adverts of ‘sea views’, ‘easy beach access’ and what have you, just go to Agonda Beach, Goa.

Our simple hut had the sophistication of a wee veranda complete with a couple of chairs and a little shelf to plant your beer while you catch the breeze (or in Pat’s case survey the beach for female interest Moi?). From there we could watch the apricot of the sunset, reflecting on a silvery aquamarine sea, and the dolphins frolicking in the morning. Could there be anything more idyllic? Our room had an improvised clothes rail by way of bamboo hang by wires. OK there was no ensuite bathroom, or fluffy towels awaiting us, but for £2.50 the location could not be beaten.

There isn’t anything to do in Agonda so we didn’t.

I suppose the only unlikely beach activity that we got involved in was trying to fix the boss’s Enfield which turned out to have a wiring problem following previous butchery. The wires were now too short and so when the handlebars turned to the right a wire pulls out of a junction block. I offered to fix it but with a permanent by pass of the block. As I write this two weeks on, the bike still cuts out on right hand corners and I’m hoping that I get called in to effect a fix before someone cops it.

There was obviously bit of a ‘do’ on as we suffered a day of palpitations when endless firecrackers were exploding around us. Ramon informed us that it was a Hindu event but couldn’t really explain the history, reasons for or likely happenings associated with it. The beach huts closed down for the afternoon so that the staff could attend whatever it was that was going down. When the sun dropped we could make out the rhythm of a drum heading along the beach. I responded to the pied drummer while Hippy was content to turn in. What did I find? A five foot effigy of a tree being shaken to the beat of the drum by a group of blokes who seemed a bit worse for wear. They cavorted their way down to a small shrine and maintained their cavortion while a congregation of some sort completely ignored them from an open-sided hall alongside. All very odd and we never did get to the bottom of it.

Four days later Tricia and JP arrived from Blighty and we moved down to similar hutty accom in Palolem. Actually, we had a plywood hut this time which even had its own bathroom - rather spiffy in beach hut terms. The bathroom had been ingeniously lined with thick stickyback plastic in an attempt to waterproof the plywood structure. To ensure a modicum of drainage the bathroom sloped back to the drainage point. Add a little soapy water to the sloping plasticated floor and you have perfectly simulated the surface formed by black ice on polish concrete. Showering needless to say, became an interesting experience! Torville and Dean eat your heart out.