Goa - India 16

I rather enjoyed my late July vacation to Goa and Kerala. The itinerary was rather vague: Fly into Goa airport Tuesday and catch a return train on Monday, from 1000km south in Cochin, Kerala. This itinerary was acceptable, but would have benefited from a bit more intermediate organization.

The Goan airport, a two baggage train operation, would have been comfortable in rural Virginia. The minor exceptions were armed military standing on the side of the runway, the oversized military airplane hangers, and what appeared to be fighter jets and C-130s with their noses covered in cotton cloth. Might this be the Indian equivalent to car solar shades, keeping the cockpit shaded and cool?

A prepayed taxi, costing $11 for 15 miles brought me to the old city of Panjim. This tourist stop brought me in contact with non-researcher Westerners for the first time in days. I had gotten into the habit in Hyderabad of waving to Westerners, as I so rarely saw any. Now, every 20th person being a tourist made me rethink my modus operandi.

Fontainhas is tiny. About three or four city blocks cover the whole area. Here every 4th shop sells knickknacks. Presiding over the town at the top of a hill is a whitewashed church. All the trimming is in blue. The outdoor stairs approaching are nice and even included a single chillum/marijuana vender/beggar.

After wandering a bit about town, I found a tiffins (snacks) restaurant that had reasonable prices. While enjoying my freshly juiced pomegranates another traveler came in. I motioned for this Asian girl to join my table, and was surprised to find the Korean girl could barely speak English. In fact, her travelers English was about equivalent to my Spanish- able to ask for the toilet, a room, and a meal but explaining complex ideas was quite difficult.

After 30 minutes of talking over a jelly sandwich, we determined she came on a aid mission similar to Habitat for Humanity and was now taking 2 weeks to see a bit of India. I thought it rather bully of her to both help and travel in a nation where she could barely communicate. I was also thankful for her perspective, because my lack of Hindi didn't place me that far off from her.

---quick interlude---
Unfortunately, work continued to rear its ugly head with every time I checked my email. Nonetheless, when your boss is on vacation, you are on vacation, and a third person at another location is helping you organize a conference, work will rear its head. At this point we have about 10 people coming to join us in Hyderabad to talk about the local water situation. Everyone is from within our institute.
---end interlude---

Goa had two new options for getting around; in addition to the normal taxis, autos and buses were motorcycle taxis and scooter rental. Since I didn't know where I was going, I opted mainly for the buses, which were quite relaxing.

The buses are smaller than in Hyderabad or Delhi and have just 12 rows and usually one entrance/exit. As normal, the drivers of the bus were listening to local pop radio. Only in Goa, pop radio is a cross between dance club style house music, Goan style heavy trance techno, and then Bollywood style Indian (Konkani) lyrics.

I took a bus to the end of one beach area. As we passed through the 1km of town, I noticed that most of the stores were closed. I was hoping that my hotel, at the secluded end, would still be open. As I got off the bus and walked along a creek, looking for a bridge to this other area, I encountered an American and a German who were there for months. They shepherded me to a 4 room hotel that had better off season rates and was guarded by two large friendly dogs. Both of these oversized Cujo's escorted me to my room and wanted to come inside to play.

I took a short walk across a beautiful fisherman's rocky bluffs of ocean front to a secluded palm filled beach. After a relaxing stop I continued on to South Anjuna Beach.