Day 1   Mumbai (Bombay)

Tonight we’re leaving Mumbai and catching an overnight train to Goa from the spectacularly gothic Victoria Terminal. Because we’re in first class, our carriage is at the far end of the platform. This means we pass the second-class ‘sit up all night’ carriages. They look more like cages with two levels of people crammed into each one.

This is the ultimate in ‘cattle-class’. Of course, everyone has brought along everything but the kitchen sink so it’ll be a pitiful night for these people.

After the nightmare of second-class our first-class cabin seems total luxury. Our roommates are an odd looking pair of aging hippies. He’s Robby from Holland and Marcella is a monkey-faced girl from Switzerland. They’re heading for South Goa and have been there endless times before. Eddy has the best sense of humour. When the train jolts forward, I say ‘are we leaving already?’ he says ‘yes, we go now - second class go later’. We leave on time at eleven o’clock and I go to sleep feeling guilty about all those poor people at the other end of the train.

Day 2 Vagator

We pull into Goa’s Thivim Station at 10.30am - outside is bright blue skies and much hotter than Mumbai. We find an auto rickshaw to take us to Vagator, twenty-four kilometers through lots of small towns and villages. We book into the Dolrito Guesthouse which is at the end of a dusty, rutted track. It’s set amongst dense trees and coconut palms and we check into a clean room on the first floor with our own bathroom and balcony.

The Tin Tin Bar is closest cafe to the top of our track and looks very appealing. We have cold drinks while listening to a trendy Asterisk CD that a very black African woman has put on. It’s full on doof-doof that has the guys in the kitchen dancing and even we like it. Dance parties are the thing here in Goa and Vagator is apparently party central but I know we'll be snoring before they even start. Now we come across Veda Massage.

Apparently South India is the place to get an Ayurvedic massage. It really is the strangest massage we’ve ever had. In separate rooms we’re asked to strip naked then have two people at a time rubbing gallons of oil into every nook and cranny. No body part is sacred - definitely an experience we’ll never forget. Almost dripping in oil, we try to wash it off but even after a couple of hot showers we’re still sliding off the toilet seat.

On dusk we walk down to Little Vagator beach scattered with grass huts and cafes - like a Goan postcard. Above the beach is Little Vagator village so we climb the steep track to find a busy market and lots of very cool travelers.

Away from the beach are more cafes and stalls and we stop at a cool Tibetan café for dinner. Love the atmosphere – Tibetan waiters and Bob Marley music. It’s dark by now so we eat our tuna salad and garlic vegetable balls by candlelight. After dinner we move on to the Double Lotus which is an outdoor café under coconut trees and with low tables surrounded by mattresses. More candles here and lovely background music.

Instead of backtracking to the beach, we decide to walk back to Vagator via the laneways. It’s pitch dark but we finally find our way to the main street and the internet place where a motorbike roars up driven by an amazing looking couple. He’s big, black and beautiful while she’s a striking gypsy looking women with long wild black hair and hippy clothes – never dull around here.

Day 3    Vagator

This morning we wake to the soft sound of rain on the roof. It’s still warm and the rain looks pretty falling through the trees outside our room. Instead of wasting a day we decide to see some of the other towns not far south of here.

Out in the street we ask a guy playing pool in a nearby café if he can drive us to Calangute. This is so different from Vagator and seems to be invaded by over-weight sunburnt Poms in daggy beach clothes. It really is too awful so we take off on foot to Baga which is along a busy side road and heading back towards Vagator. We ask some locals how to get to the beach and end up in a wonderful village area overgrown with coconut and palm trees. The cutest little kids come running out to see us when we stop to watch a lady in a yellow sari drawing water from an old well. The rain has stopped by now and the clouds are starting to disappear.

Further down the laneway we come across three friendly young Indian men who walk with us to the beach. They take us to Coco Joes which is just one of many thatched cafes set up along the beach. Mark and I order beers and food while we talk to our new friend William. Bob Marley music is playing and when I say I like it William turns the volume up full blast and plays it over and over for the next hour.

More people are walking along the beach now that the weather has fined up and the cows are out in force as well. We say goodbye to Coco Joe and William and walk along the water’s edge back to Calangute.

Groups of young Indian men are frolicking in the water and having a hilarious time throwing sand at each other. The sunshine hasn’t made this place any more appealing, though, so we grab the first taxi we can find and hightail it back to Vagator - so nice to get back to the laidback feeling of this little town.

It’s wonderfully hot and sunny by now so we head for Little Vagator Beach. A few beach shacks stand dotted among the palm trees where locals are lounging around on the verandahs. Further on are cafes with sandy floors and beach chairs and umbrellas set up outside. We lay on a couple of chairs next to some glamorous French people. A man and two suntanned women in g-strings are smoking and having very animated conversations. We order lime sodas then, become surrounded by beach h awkers. These are exotically dressed young girls in colourful saris and wearing gold bracelets and earrings. They have the most perfect white teeth and the prettiest faces. Their names are Tina, Lolita and Celia. They ask funny questions like ‘why is mumma (me) is so brown (fake tan) and why is puppa like a fridge?’ They tell us that they work all day on the beach while their husbands stay at home sitting on their lazy arses. Celia begs me to get one of her henna tattoos. I suspect she’s no expert when she shows me her designs she’s sketched in a sad, tatty little book. I think ‘what the hell’ and end up with a childish, crooked band around the top of my left arm. She’s happy to assure me that it will last for at least ‘one month’.

We’ve decided that tonight we’ll go to Chapora for a quiet meal, so on dusk we walk up the track to find a driver. Out of Vagator we turn left and find that Chapora is only a couple of minutes drive down a winding dark road. The village is set amongst tall palm and coconut trees and is probably very beautiful in the daylight. But it’s not the peaceful little spot we’d expected. The main street is only about a hundred metres long and right now is overcrowded with hippies, cows and roaring motorbikes! Most of the hippies are at least middle aged and some definitely look like they’d had much too good a time in the sixties. Mark thinks they probably came here and just forgot to go home.

 About halfway down the street we find a buzzing, crowded café called The Yak Bar. It’s open on three sides and dimly lit with coloured lights for lots of atmosphere. We find a seat on the edge of the balcony so we can watch the circus around us. This is people watching at its best. There’s French accents, German accents, Israeli accents ….. Two stunningly hippy French women are engrossed in conversation next to us – very expressive hands and chain smoking. Soon a tiny calf climbs the two steps up from the street and mingles with the crowd. He gets shooed out by the waiter but is back again a few seconds later.

Later we cross to another busy bar where the same little cow comes in for a visit. The waiter laughs as he moves it outside and doesn’t even seem worried when it comes straight back in and wee wees all over the floor. Meanwhile bongs are getting passed around (not us) and everyone is off their face – don’t know if they’ve got the right idea or they’re just idiots.

By eleven o’clock we’re sick to death of hippies so we walk back up the hill to Vagator and the Tin Tin for more prawns, calamari and spring rolls.

Day 4   Vagator to Anjuna

At 9am we wake to heat and sunshine and decide to move on to Anjuna this morning. In minutes we’re showered, packed and in a taxi flying through villages and fields of coconuts. We’re wrapped in Anjuna at first sight. Like Vagator, it sits amongst coconut groves with a relaxed main street and the village occupying a few leafy laneways.

Here we find a fabulous guesthouse called Valentina. It sits on the corner of two quiet shaded laneways where a family of cows is ambling past. Sebastian and Maria own Valentina and live in a lovely white rendered house with a wide verandah at the front with four rooms to rent in the pretty overgrown garden. The guesthouse is in a long white building with tiny blue painted windows – just lovely. Our room is big and airy with a tiled floor and overhead fans. We have two shuttered windows – one looking out onto the sunny laneway and the other on to a small verandah inside the yard. Two simple beds with thin cotton covers, a chair and an old fridge that doesn’t work make up the entire furnishings. The first thing  Mark does is push the beds together. We have to share cold showers and a toilet which we get into by stepping over a low tree branch.

We ask Sebastian about hiring a motor- bike and have to show him that we can actually ride the thing. I can’t but will try anything once. I make an immediately bad impression by ramming it straight into a fence. Sebastian rolls his eyes and I’m done. He takes Mark on a trial run at a nearby field and they’re back in five minutes with Mark being given his honorary licence – I’ll just have to be the passenger.

From here we drive straight down to the beach then along narrow sandy backstreets that wind their way through village houses. We seem to be riding through people’s backyards but everyone is friendly and probably used to lost travelers. Can’t go more than a few metres, though, without someone asking ‘you want ganga?’ – no thanks!

At a few deserted market stalls away from the beach we try on some clothes caked in red dust from the track outside and so sun damaged that they’re full of holes. We feel sorry for the people selling them, so Mark ends up buying a shirt that will no doubt fall apart the first time he wears it.

Day 5 Anjuna

Today is hot and sunny once again. I ask about a shower so Maria heats a big bowl of water over an open fire then pours it into a plastic bucket. I have my first bucket wash and enjoy it so much. Back on our precious bike, we head for Anjuna’s famous Wednesday Flea Market.

The crowds are here already and the market is a sea of stalls that seem to go on forever. It’s spread out along the beach but stretches a hundred metres inland as well. There must be thousands of stalls with vendors coming from all over Goa as well as traders from Kashmir and Tibet. Everything imaginable is for sale – clothes, rugs, handicrafts, jewellery, CD’s, spices, drums, food…….. Every stall-holder calls out as we walk past and hawkers stop us every few steps. A young boy called Ganesh begs us to come to his stall where his mother is waiting. Her name is Ranupa and she’s a Gujarati tribal woman. There’s lots of them here at the market and all dressed in the traditional vibrant dress with mirrored headdress and smothered in silver jewellery.

After a few hours of mixing with hippies, cows, Indian tourists, ex-pats and travelers, we soon get fed up and head for a café with a sandy floor overlooking the beach. It’s packed as expected but we manage to share a table for cold lime sodas. Back in the market, Mark bargains hard for twelve cushion covers, a beaded bedspread and a scarf – unbelievably cheap!

After they speed off on their motorbike, we decide to ride back over to the quieter area near the market. It’s so wonderful to be riding through the open countryside in the soft warm darkness. Close to the market we have drinks at a café on the road and watch all the stall-holders heading for home. A continual stream of small trucks absolutely crammed with people and gear passes us for the next hour.

Finally home to bed after a great day. Tomorrow, we’re off to Manua to catch the overnight train heading south to Kochi and the Kerala backwaters. We’ll be travelling pretty hard from now on, so this relaxed beach break in Goa has done us good – but probably should have done it at the end.

Anyway, Namaste from beautiful India.

Love, Virginia and Mark