Go-Go Goa

First, as promised, a few pictures of the sleeping cars on the trains to and from Goa. I have ridden on many trains in my travels, and I can safely say that the trains in India are the trippiest. The "trip" factor is somewhat intensified after months of riding the hyper-clean, super-efficient-to-the-second, trains of Japan. These Indian trains feel as if they are about fifty years old, have chipped paint, and fairly primitive toilets. The cars have doors, but the doors are usually left open the whole ride, so you can stand in the doorway and watch the landscape speed by and feel the intense, but pleasurable fear that accompanies near death.

One interesting note: there was a poster with a list of rules and warnings for train passengers. This was written in Hindi and English and had simple drawings accompanying it. The rules were things like, don't indulge beggars, watch your belongings, etc. One of the warnings was not to accept food from anyone but the train food vendors as someone may try to drug and rob you. All of the pictures on the poster depicted rather anonymous looking Indians, but in the picture of the traveler offering suspect food to the other traveler the two figures were orthodox Jews. I still don't know what kind of message they were trying to send - that Jewish people are more likely to drug each other than other people? Who knows? It felt like anti-semitism, but a sort of unsuccessful attempt at anti-semitism. Had the recipient of the suspect food been represented by some other people group, I would have been horrified, but because they were both obviously Jewish, all I could muster was a somewhat confused smile. I tried to take a picture, but the train was too unsteady.

Here are a couple of pictures taken from the upper berth of the second-class reserved sleeper car I took:


These are just some random shots to show you just what the trains are like.


This is a pic I took of myself shortly after I found my seat - I'll admit I was a bit apprehensive at this point. But after a few hours on the train, you get used to it, and you realize that you are really having an adventure.

When I got to my hotel in Calangute and booked my return ticket, I immediately went to the sea to look at the waves. Here are the pictures. The waves on this day, were huge and hypnotic.




This is the view from the balcony of my hotel room.




This was about all you could do at the beach at this time of year - just wade and play in the waves along the shore - the undertow was too strong. It was interesting watching people on the beach because they all (myself included) behaved like small children. Because no one could surf or swim or display some sort of athletic prowess, they just did what kids do at the seashore - walked as close to the water's edge as they could and then screamed and laughed when a big wave came up and soaked them.

At one point a group of people were playing along the shore. One of their group noticed me sitting on the beach watching the waves and grabbed his pals and they all rushed over and took a bunch of photos with me. So we all made faces and smiled like we were great friends for three minutes and then one of them ran back to the sea and the others followed. It was pretty surreal, but much more fun than having hawkers and vendors approach me every five minutes.

Here are some pictures of Calangute between rainfalls.



These last pictures are from my second day, when the sun stayed out most of the day and everything was breezy and relaxing.








So that's pretty much it for my pictures of India. I hope you enjoyed them. If you ever get the chance to go, do it - it's a pretty amazing country. I will definitely go back, I only scratched the surface on this first trip.

India: Part the Fourth (GOA)

Now I think I left off with my night train arriving in Goa around 1pm. I had some chai in the morning and read a book and talked a little more with Narayan sitting opposite me. When we reached Tivim, there weren't too many people left in our compartment. We got off and I went to the pre-paid taxi stand so I wouldn't get overcharged for a trip to my hotel.

My taxi driver was a nice guy who talked non-stop about growing up and living in Goa. As we drove past small resort towns, I began to relax and feel quite comfortable. The sun was coming out, there were palm trees and Portuguese-style Catholic churches lining the roads. I was dropped off right in front of Mira Resort in Calangute (which, during the tourist season, is party central) not five minute's walk from the beach. The woman behind the desk (the wife and co-owner of the resort, I assumed) received me with few words. I came in and started to explain and was quickly interrupted with a "Yes, yes. You are Matt" Then she gestured to a guy - probably her son - and handed him a key saying, "Take him to Room 9c." (hotel room numbers have been changed to protect the innocent). I was shown to a large room with double doors on the third floor of the building behind the main part of the hotel. The man unlocked the padlock that served as the lock for my room and showed me the large un-airconditioned room. It had cool tile floors, a large bathroom with shower and french doors opening onto a porch that overlooked the swimming pool. It was beautiful and I was enjoying it until I realized I'd forgotten to ask the price of the room and to bargain for it before accepting it.

I walked down to the desk and asked the same woman - who, in spite of (or maybe because of) her attitude had this powerfullly striking look about her - she had wide eyes, flaring nostrils, and long wavy black hair that spread over her shoulders. I began to ask her if she could arrange my train ticket back to Mumbai the following evening. Before I got the sentence completed, she said, "Yes, yes. What you need to do is talk to a travel agent." Then she sat with a pained expression on her face that seemed to question what I was still doing there. I asked, "Can you recomm-"
"Yes, yes. Go across the street to (I can't remember the name)Travel Agency. They do train tickets." This I did.

I sat down and a thin, girl in a yellow sari who had perfected the skill of being as dismissive as possible while staying within boundaries of customer service, informed me that it was impossible to book with under two days notice. I just looked at her and said, "Yes. And what can you do about that?" She then sighed and made a phone call to the train station. "If you pay Rs.600 now, and stop by at 5:30 pm, we will have an answer for you - they can maybe get you a second-class reserved sleeper." I shelled out the money and said I`d be back. I went to a super little restaurant for some chow - and then looked at my cellphone clock and headed back to the office. As my cellphone was on Japan time - three and a half hours later - I looked rather foolish coming back, so I went upstairs to the Internet cafe and checked my e-mail. As I still had a couple more hours before finding out about my ticket, I walked down to the beach. On the way to the beach and at the beach I was offered:

-pot (five times)
-young girls to give me pleasure (once)
-two massages, one by a young man and one by an old woman
-bracelets and necklaces(too many times to count)
-taxis (again too many times to count)

The beach was amazing and I realized that I hadn't been to the ocean in years. Now, here I was on the Arabian Sea watching people play in the waves as they hit the shore - you couldn't go out two far as the undertow was too powerful. I took off my Tevas and walked along the beach, took a picture of a young couple that asked me to, walked to the water, and got my shorts drenched by a huge wave - luckily I had my camera well out of the reach of the waves. I could have stayed their for hours, but the clouds came and it kept raining off and on. I decided that rather than just going around sightseeing the next day and seeing a lot of beautiful churches, I would - if the weather was nice - spend a good deal of the day at the beach.

I got confirmation of my train reservation and then headed back to my apartment - I was still tired as I hadn't slept too well on the train (I wore my headphones half the night cuz I was worried the little bugs would crawl in my ears - as it was I got bitten by what I think must have been bed bugs). I'm not sure how long I slept exactly, but I woke up and it was dark and I was crabby and feeling a bit alone in this off-season resort town. I decided to find a restaurant, but I wasn't all that hungry. I walked down the road to a neighboring beach - Baga beach - thinking it wouldn't be far at all. It was about a 45 minute walk in the dark. When I got there, I found the restaurant I'd heard was good in this location was closed for the season. This was probably the lowest point of my trip - a point where a traveling companion would have been great to have had. I walked back to Calangute and sat down at an open-air bar where an Indian guy was hosting karaoke - but he was the only one singing - he sang a pretty mean "Summer of '69" but sitting sipping my long-island (without ice) in a mostly empty bar listening to the karaoke guy sing to his wife and daughter who were sitting there was somehow a little pathetic. I finished my drink and went back to the hotel to sleep.

The next day was much better. I woke early and went down to the beach to sit and watch the waves. It was sunny and warm and peaceful. And the beach was really clean and had no litter on it - it was great. I ate breakfast, picked up my train ticket, and did some bargaining in the little markets for some trinkets and stuff. Then I checked out of my hotel and stored my luggage under the stairs ("Yes, yes. Just put them there.") and grabbed a taxi and went to the Ayurvedic treatment clinic for a massage - Goa and Kerala are famous for their therapeutic massages (where Aveda get a lot of their ideas and philosophies from). This was very relaxing, but I was told I couldn't shower until an hour after the massage - this would be difficult as I was already checked out of my hotel, so I returned to the beach and decided to wash off there in the waves - this was a good idea in theory, but now the sun had come out and of course without soap and a wash rag, I couldn't properly wash off the excess oil from the massage. So I played in the waves and sat on the beach and struck up conversations with vendors trying to sell me carved elephants and bracelets (I told one person that I was feeling kind of alone that day and his talking to me was just making it worse). As I walked and sat, I got pretty fried (especially with the oil not completely off my arms and neck). I finally realized this and decided to check the time.

I had just enough time to grab a meal - I had chicken and a wonderful dessert called bebinka (not sure if that spelling it right) - then I grabbed my backpack and fanny pack from the hotel and took a taxi back to Tivim as I had to catch the 5pm train back to Mumbai. I sat at the station feeling greasy and salty and burned, but thoroughly relaxed. I sipped some chai and waited for the train to come.

A couple days later in Mumbai, I`d read some people (7 or 8) had been caught in the undertow at one of the beaches in Goa and had drowned.

India - The Third Installment

Well, I typed and typed and lost it all when I accidentally navigated away from this page. Then I realized that about 50% of it was probably too boring to publish anyway so then I didn't feel so bad. But then I was just getting to a good part so I did feel bad again - and my fingers are tired.

So, anyway, I started by talking about this cool garden I'd forgotten to mention when I was writing about Delhi - I went there on the day after I went to Agra and it was called Lodi Garden. It is very cool and contains some 15th and 16th century ruins of tombs. The setting of the ruins in the park is great - nice contrasts between the crumbling structures and the wild growth of trees and bushes. You'll see what I mean when I post pictures.

Ok, so day two of Mumbai was a wandering sort of day through the Colaba district of the city - this is where the Gateway to India is. There were a few ships in the harbor and lots of people milling around. Then I got my first taste of monsoon weather. I was looking at street vendors' wares and was dry and five seconds later there was a downpour and I was soaked - the rain felt great, but getting soaked while wearing jeans did not. I ducked into a coffee shop to dry off and then went to a cd shop where I bought a $6.00 copy of "Crash" which I imagine is supposed to be in color, but not in my pirated version.

I was also biding my time a bit because I was waiting to hear about my train ticket to Goa. I found out that to take the night train, you really should book the ticket two days in advance. So I got Agnelo, the hotel clerk to take care of it for me. He told me I needed to give him a few extra rupies so he could bribe the ticket guy. I'm not sure if he actually did this, or said it so that he could make a few rupies, but I gave him the money because it sounded shady and cool. I'd already checked out of the hotel but was keeping my luggage there until I had to catch my train at 11pm. I ate at a really good restaurant called Samrat and ate far too much butter naan and rich desserts than was good for me. Later in the day I picked up my ticket from Agnelo for a second class reserved sleeping berth on the night train to Goa. After spending the day walking around the area between the train station and my hotel, I got used to being approached by vendors right and left and got pretty good at ignoring people who were just wanting to sell me things or get me to take their taxis.

I headed over to the train station at 10pm so I could get an idea of the platform I had to leave from and make sure where everything was. The train arrived by 10:30 and I walked and walked until I found my car. When I got on I was a bit nervous - I had heard that the trains could be a bit dodgy and that you had to watch your luggage closely. Luckily I got a lower berth across from an older gentleman named Narayan - he was a semi-retired postal worker heading down to Goa and - as luck would have it - to the same stop that I was getting off at. Soon we were joined by some 40-something guys traveling together. Second class carriages in India are nothing like any train I have ever been on before. you sit six in an area and then there is an upper, middle and lower berth on each side. There are fans on the ceiling to keep you cool at night, but the trains are in poor shape and offer little comfort. I bundled up my backpack for a pillow, tied a handkerchief around my head, put in my headphones - mostly to keep small bugs from getting in my ears (they may have been cockroaches). I was pretty tired and slept well until I woke up in the middle of the night with a bit of a stomach cramp - I remembered then that the iced coffee I'd drunk earlier may not have had clean ice in it. I took some medicine, but still needed to head to the bathroom - i.e. hole in the floor with treads on either side (glad to have had toilet paper with me - and Purell).

I woke up super early and had some chai that a food service guy came by with - Rs.2 (this amount increased significantly on my train ride back to Mumbai two days later). The rest of the train ride was eternal but I finally reached Tivim(my stop)at around 12:30 and took a pre-paid taxi to Calangute where I was staying. My driver took me to Mira Resort, just a short five minute walk from the Arabian Sea.

To be continued...