Lonely beaches and Venus rising.
Trip Start
Jan 02, 2007
1
19
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Goa,
India
Saturday, March 10, 2007
So this is going to breif, were in Mumbai at present, about sixteen hours away from flying to Bangkok and I'm still stuck spinning off stories about Goa. After the sicky period, me, Nat and Mark went to Maharashta state in search of some more remote beaches, just a few hours north of Goa, we took trains and buses, broke down and took other buses through remote villages and jungle shanty's to find a sleepy bay with perfect sheets of sand marooned by Palm trees. We were the only forigners around and rocked up to a kind of low cost Indian beach hut resort that was lacking custom, not much else to say except how nice it was to experience the tradtional beach communities of India.
After this, me and Nat said goodbye to Mark who headed up to Delhi and we made our way back to Panjim for one more night, then off to Palolem to meet Nats brother who'd been in India on business, researching the blow pop steel industry that is booming like bollywood at the moment
Cow (other) on Agonda beach
. We have both fallen in love with Panjim, its small, quaint, freindly, spotted with beautiful architecture and our last night wasn't going to be any kind of anti-climax. We visited the local observatory which is run by volunteers of all different careers and ages, journalists, teenagers, students, wise old locals, the lot, all bounding together to spin peoples minds with the mindboggling boundries of space. The place was buzzing with, unsuspectingly, the kids that Nat had visited some days earlier, bopping around the rooftop climbving over the telescope for a look, the volunteers held lectures on the stars and the whole project had a really heart-warming community feel.
The observatory was ace and the people working there were brilliant and so enthusiastic, they'd achieve so much from the beginning, a derelict rooftop and a telescope, to being host to India's first man in space. We saw the moon, Venus, Saturn (with ring) and a load of stars while being lectured on the infinite possibilities space has to offer, when you start thinking about how big a space it is, even a continent as vast as India and its magnitude of colossal cities start to become ant like.
The last bit of Goa, was with Cass, Nats brother, this was chill central, we chilled in Palolem and chilled in Agonda, until Cass, like my first trip to the beach, got desecrated, his pasty frame in raptures at the heat early March had to offer, he was crippled with sun stroke for the last couple of days but nothing taken away, as the whole time was great fun.
Then last but araguably least, we travelled to Baga, Goa's most built up place for a last night of partying before Mumbai, we met a few of nats mates there and went to the Coca Cabana, an outside club mega plex, with bars, swimming pools, pizza ovens and dance floors, free for girls, with free drinks, and just a fiver for me for the whole night. Very cheap, it was a good laugh depsite the rest of Baga feeling incresingly surreal and depressing. A mix of retired europeans sweltering in the summer heat, pushy market sellers, beggers, dirty beaches and horrific karaoke bars in one over developed abyss. Although the club was fun, especially amongst another group of freindly faces, Baga came and went, with no intention for return and it was time to go from Goa.
