As I tumbled and bounced around the back of a dilapidated taxi-van, driving north across the Indian state of Goa, staring at the jostling trees, rice paddies, and huts streaming past my window, and trying not to think about the sweat pouring down my neck, it occurred to me that I was only now really starting the “backpacking” portion of my adventure. Despite three nights spent in dorm style hostels in Masada, Haifa, and Eilat, my three months in Israel were spent in guest rooms or on spare mattresses of friends and family. The lodgings in Holland were even cushier with comfortable and clean hotels booked ahead of time and another guest room waiting for me with my Uncle Shimon. Then there were the three air conditioned weeks in Dehi split between extra rooms with Rahil and Bekkah, and the 5 days spent in the hospital with not-Typhoid.
But, no, those days were over. I was on my own with only vague notions of where I would be heading, sleeping, and going after. My main concern was whether there’d be any other travelers or even open guest houses given the off season date of my arrival. According to Lonely Planet there were 14 beaches in Goa, and I had opted to try Arambol, the northernmost one, first. It’s reputation as a chilled out, scenic, and cheap hippy destination seemed to resonate with what I was looking for in my escape from Delhi’s congested city life. What I found was an Israeli spring break ghost town. About half of the shops were closed and those that were open offered huge price cuts to lure in the remaining westerners. Every restaurant had an Israeli food section and I saw a spattering of Hebrew on signs around the town.
There were, however, no Israelis, just 20 to 30 backpackers and aging hippies who had set up shop years ago and got by on the occasional yoga lesson or massage appointment. It wasn’t hard to see why. A great meal (King Fish is amazing) would cost you under 100 rupee ($2 USD), beer was 40 rupee ($0.80), a bottle of 80 proof coconut fenny was 80 ($1.60) and lodgings ranged from 50 to 350 a night ($1 to $7). The sun was always out, the ocean was always gorgeous, and, because there were so few tourists there, all 20 to 30 of us got to know and become friendly with each other pretty quickly. I met a great group of British gap year students, recent Nigerian university grads, and Australian, Belgium, Dutch, German, Spanish, Austrian, Norwegian, and Swedish travelers. I met one American on my first day and another on my third to last, but generally speaking I was the only US representation around. Everyone had various reasons for traveling ranging from taking a year off before university to living half the year in Goa every year and it all made for some very interesting late night conversations and debates. I found myself taking on three Europeans in defending America’s entrepreneurial spirit as the source of its success one moment, and hearing about the level of corruption in Africa the next. There was a decent amount of drugs going around but not as much as I had been lead to believe, but then again, it was the off season. As for the locals, they seemed to recognize the degree to which tourism funded their lives and were considerably nicer and more laid back than in Delhi though just as persistent in touting their wares.
Like the rest of India, Arambol was covered with stray dogs (but no cats!) that all looked related. Every area in India that I’ve been to so far has its own hyper extended canine family and at this point I could probably differentiate a Goan pup from one in Delhi, Darjeeling, or Sikkim. They’re all cute, lovable, and sleepy during the day, and loud, rowdy, and territorial at night. The Goan pups’ night time transformations were especially disconcerting and I found it often in my best interest to win over the love of one when walking home late at night to follow you and bark off the others who would growl viciously at you along the way.
There was plenty of Internet access and for 150 rupee a day ($3, just double it and divide by 100) you could rent a motor scooter and explore the rest of the state. While there was a decent number of sights to see, the real joy in this was the act itself of riding a scooter down windy roads, over bridges with gorgeous views, stopping to talk with the usually friendly locals or to grab a bottle of Limca (why don’t we have this stuff in America??) One day I rode on to a ferry, headed up to Teracol Fort, and enjoyed some freshly made brusccetta while gazing over the water below. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more relaxing getaway.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s a reason it’s the off season and a reason that I eventually left after 2 weeks. Every day was hotter than the one before. While the ocean provided a breeze, it also brought with it a suffocating humidity that left everyone just plain used to being wet all the time. While dirt cheap and with gorgeous views, none of the accommodations had air condtioning, and it wouldn’t have made much a difference given the rolling blackouts that were a regular part of the day. You take the bad with the good but only up to a point. After a walk to buy a new phone (travel tip: swim trunks with pockets are super convenient. Swimming with your phone in your pocket, not so much) left me sweating out so many electrolytes that I ended up with a fever, I decided it was time to head north.
This wasn’t an easy decision. My plan was to head south from Goa into Kerrala to see Cochi, Trivandrum, Pondicherry, and Aurroville among other major south Indian destinations if not for the stifling heat. But the fact is that India is an enormous and diverse country and there’s no way I was going to see all of it in one go anyways. You can spend years returning to this country and still only see a portion of all there is to see, by which point all that you’d already seen would have completely changed anyways. So for me, missing out on the wonders of the south is just another reason to come back here again some day. Another thing that made this decision difficult turned out to be how hard it was to get a train ticket out of there. In a country of 1.1 billion people, trains fill up fast, especially when summer hits and everybody flees to the north. After about an hour of online research I realized I was going to have to do some leg work to find a way out of Goa…
No comments:
Post a Comment