Goa diary - Part 1

My first vacation in 2005! (OK so I'm not counting the days I spent doing "volunteer work"..cough..unemployed..cough). For the second year in a row, I "did" Goa. Along with everyone else in Bombay it seems. Then again, proportionately, I think there were more Delhiwallahs there..lots of "haalthee-waalthee" Punjabi mundas with fair skin, aquiline noses and atrocious English and worse manners. But I digress...

I made Goa plans with a bunch of fun friends of mine..and friends of theirs. All "family".. well, except for the straight women who came along with us. Had a harrowing time trying to locate the car we were driving in at Bandra East. Man, the traffic in that part of the city is HORRIBLE! Anyway, found the car, found the driver and off we went..driving off into the sunset (well, not quite..seeing as driving due west would send us into the Arabian Sea and enroute to Somalia - NOT where I planned on spending New Year's Eve). Realized very early that our driver was a maniac, a speed demon, insane actually. This made us break off ou journey a little earlier than we expected...spening the night at a ratty old hotel in Chiplun - about halfway to Goa. After donating what seemed like the better part of a pint to the mosquitoes of Chiplun (I got a thank you card from their happy buzzing children yesterday .. written in blood?), we took off after many groans and moans at 5 am. (Minds outta the gutter..it was wicked early that's all..and COLD!)

And passed miles upon miles of beautiful Konkan scenery. I think I quite bored Ro's ears off yapping about the differences in architechture between Brahmin tiled roofs and Kunbi ones. Man, I need to forget some of the trivia I'm carrying around. I need one of those Dumbledore pensieves or something. Anyway, about 20 hours after leaving Bombay, my sore litle ass got to Baga-Calangute..into what seemed like the precursor to Spring Break in Cancun...only with HOT HOT HOT HOT men around and very mediocre women. That's what will remain the lasting memory of this vacation for me. The men were incredibly hot. The women? Not quite.

And then the vacation melts into one vision of "wake up, breakfast, beach, lunch, beach, tea, beach, club, dinner, club, bar, club, sleep". Lather, rinse, repeat.
English breakfast - sausages, bacon, toast, marmalade, potatoes, tomato and Heinz baked beans with a huge pot of Assam! Man, if I ate breakfast like that everyday I'd turn into Ariel Sharon's younger, obese'r brother! It's a wonder I even had room for lunch follwing such a breakfast...and the couple of beers that followed. And all this EVERYDAY for 3 days! Not to mention the lunches at Sousa Lobo's, the shopping at Casa Goa and the 3 km trek up and down the Baga-Calangute road pushing off the cabbies, the Rajasthani lantern sellers and the Kashmiri handicraft guys (Though I wouldn't have minded taking home a couple of those Kashmiri shop guys...man! That militancy and bad weather breeds some hot guys up there!). I resisted shopping till the last day..and even then I ended up buying cashews (My favoutire Konkani dish tendle-bibbo upkari is made from it..).

I felt weird a few times...I had spent last New Year's Eve in the VERY SAME place but with M. by my side. It felt weird to go places where the two of us had enjoyed ourselves so darn much. Passing O'Pescador where I sang a song for him over dinner, walking past Roseal's - the shack the two of s spent our days at, even eating beef stroganoff at Sousa Lobo's..all mixed up with mackerel Rechiad. Everyone a memory of a lost love.

The next post will be about my fantastic (tres tres fantastique) New Year's Eve watching the fireworks on the beach and dancing the night away at Eden - Calangute's very own gay club and about the fun people I met in Goa...2 of whom I would have dated - had they been available!

Current Music:
Missing - Everything but the Girl

Like the deserts miss the rain. Ah well...C'est la vie, non?