The Beach

Ah, Goa, the tourist cess-pitt of India. When searching the net for accommodation, I found a comment from a guy who thought Goa was the best country he'd ever been to. Never realised he was in India - fly in, do some yoga, smoke some hash, lie on a beach, fly home again. Nice and easy. And with Goa's Portuguese heritage, longstanding interaction with Western tourists, and tropical beaches, it's understandable (though not excusable), to see how such a misconception could come about. But for us, first stop was neighbouring country, I mean, state, Karnataka. The main beach town for tourists is Gokarna, which we foolishly approached by bus on yet another shitty, bottom jarring dirt track. And despite what we heard from jaded hippies, the town seemed to be maintaining its authenticity in the face of increasing numbers of travellers finding Goa too hectic (though we were there right at the beginning of the season). From the main beach, it was a three hour adventure in 40 degree heat to make it over the headland, past the reject Kudle beach to Om beach, where we settled in the midst of a community of Isrealis.

Beautiful though it was, Om wasn't feeling like home. The young Isealis were learning fire twirling, pumping out euro-trance, playing bad chess, swanning around in their undies and flirting with the yoga teacher. Our last evening's entertainment came courtesy of a Pommy drug dealer trying to ingest as much hash, rum, and ketamine as possible before his girlfriend arrived to drag him off to an Ashram to detox. The perfect straight guy compliment to his theatrics, the guy's mate leaned over at one point and muttered in a cockney accent "He just hasn't realised yet, like, he's in India, you know what I mean?" And we did.

Our next stop was Goa proper. The traveller hub of Palolem was a rats nest of development and commercialism the Gorkanans had escaped by the skin of their teeth. There was even a coffee shop in Palolem. I assume this was supposed to be a "Bad Thing". Apart from a traumatic bikini wax experience (you'd think all those wiry-haired Israeli girls would have been practice enough!), the western comforts of Palolem were fine by me! It was back to our favourite routine, hiring a motorbike and cruising around the tiny hamlets and coastal villages of the area, stopping in to perv at 5-star resorts along the way. Bliss...