Goa, going, gone

Last stop on our "South India Unplugged" was the tiny province of Goa. There is no actual town of Goa which is confusing since everyone talks about it as if it were a city. Goa was the base for Portuguese India and so has a legacy of churches and colonial style buildings and christian sounding names. Our hotel was the Hotel Santiago. In a place called Baga Beach which we were shocked to discover was completely unlike any other part of India we had been. This was package holiday land, and so was populated by groups of overweight, burnt or leatherskinned, western sun-worshippers, hanging out on lounge chairs by the pool in the intense and dangerous heat and rays. The majority of tourists were English or Russian and all the shops and restaurants catered to this with menus in those two languages and reflecting those "cuisines". One place offered Sunday lunch of 'roast beef, and potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and boiled vegetables, Colemans mustard, horseradish and Oxo gravy'!!


The beach was a lovely long stretch of warm Arabian sea water with big strong waves and a serious undertow. Great for bodysurfing but scary when you get caught unawares and wrung out and flushed. The whole length of the beach were restaurants and bars, and deckchairs with umbrellas to rent so it was like being on the Mediterranean, or the coast of Mexico. We felt a strange sense of displacement being in a place we would not normally choose to be, and I have to admit a bit critical and "superior" which are ugly attitudes. The whole place felt false though and i for one was sorry that we ended here for our finale. I know other parts of Goa would not have felt like this and wish we had been elsewhere, somewhere more Indian.

Gradually over the next day our group split us as we headed home or onward as the case may be. It is strange and hard to say goodbye to people you have been living with through ups and downs and laughs and coughs and bellyaches and miraculous sunsets and sleeper trains and crazy drivers and stunning temples and magnificent palaces and markets full of bananas as far as the eye can see. It was a lot to share and special because for most of us each experience was new and unique. We made good friends and promises to keep in touch which in our hearts we know will only happen with a few.

Our journey home was long....40 hours. The first flight was great. A domestic flight on a new airline with new planes from a new airport, then along wait in Mumbai. Mumbai airport is amazing. Like Gaudi's Sagrada Familia it is supported on huge columns like the stems of a lotus and is efficient, clean and comfortable. Maybe the nicest airport we have been in. Luckily because we were there for 8 hours in the middle of the night when we found our entire itinerary had been changed while we were away. Why couldn't they have told us??

Home now, tired and happy and cold. Snow on the ground and chunks of sea-ice on the beach, the bees are still happily clustering despite the worst winter ever. we chose a good time to be away!

So until our next big trip......
Mary and Bernie