EXCERPT from Planet Backpacker by Robert Downes
The Land of Make Believe,
Nov. 22, 2007
Calangute, India
What the fuck am I going to do for 12 days in Goa? I wonder somewhat dejectedly as my cab makes the 30-mile trip from the airport to the beach town of Calangunte.
Perhaps this is a tactical error, but when I conceived of this trip, I planned for a Goa beach break to be a respite from travel after two-and-a-half months on the road. Still, 12 days sounds like a lot of loafing for an action monkey like me.
But Calangute looks like a fun town, even though it’s considered dreadfully uncool by the international backpacking community. There are swarms of Western tourists here and I’m ready to see my ethnic cohorts again after swimming in a sea of Indian faces for three weeks.
Calangute is also a good base for day-tripping around the State of Goa, which runs for nearly 100 miles along the Arabian Sea.
I had half expected Goa to look like Cancun, Mexico, with 20 miles of high-rise hotels rimming the beach. Instead, it’s the same old squalor and anarchy of India, with small hotels, shops and cafes crammed into the narrow lanes paralleling the beach along with hundreds of touts and hustlers. And instead of pretty topless girls in string bikinis, the human scenery here is mostly paunchy Russians and Brits who look like walking conch shells, stuffed into sleeveless tee’s, skimpy shorts and thongs that only a stripper would wear back home. I think the Europeans owe Americans a sincere apology for claiming that we’re fat. Haven’t seen so many fat people since Christmas shopping at Walmart last year.
With Calangute as a model, it’s hard to imagine why Goa is such a big deal, much less one of the most celebrated beach breaks on this half of the planet.
But my heart melts at the sweetness of my room, which is on the second floor of a courtyard hotel, with a balcony overlooking the pool and a garden of ivy, palm trees and hibiscus. There are cool terra-cotta tiles on the floor and furnishings of rich teak and rosewood.
Here is a place to fantasize about being a writer in the tropics in the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson in Tahiti, Jack London in the South Seas, Mark Twain in Hawaii, and Ernest Hemingway in Havana. Obviously, I’m in the little leagues compared to those chaps, but I am smoking from the same bong, so to speak, by sharing their tropical sojourns.
But what if I fall prey to dissolution -- or worse -- tropical lassitude, which is the fate of all drunken writers who head south and go native? No worries -- after a month of sitting on my ass on trains and buses, my body has gone soft and craves exercise. I plan to walk for miles on the beaches each day, swim, and practice my rusty yoga.
Dinner proves to be a delight. The chef at an outdoor cafè called Electric Cats presents me with a tray of tiger prawns the size of bananas, along with langostino lobsters, fresh tuna and other fish. He is my new best friend in Goa, along with Mrs. Varma of the Varma Beach Resort. I choose a pound of sweet and sour prawns, some veg fried rice and garlic naan, washed down with a pint of the ‘strong’ variety of Kingfisher beer. The shrimp are so fresh and full of iodine that I believe my body could withstand the fallout from a nuclear blast.
I think I’m going to like it here.
The Last Hippie Tribe
Nov. 22, 2007
Anjuna Beach, India
When it comes to spectacles, you can keep your Taj Mahal. My choice is the Wednesday Flea Market at Anjuna Beach.
Talk about your Magical Mystery Tour: It’s like driving into a big rock festival, down a long dusty road lined with tuk-tuks and motor scooters. Then you come to hundreds of tents and stalls, filled with the treasures of India, China, Tibet and Southeast Asia. You see leathery Gujarati tribal women dressed in the colors of circus clowns with their faces dangling with what looks like a pound of metal jewelry. There are also small workshops along the way where custom clothing, textiles and jewelry are being hand-crafted by members of the last hippie tribe. Cows wander through the throng, which pulses with the techno and trance music of the world-famous Goan raves. The music provides a backbeat for the constant refrain: “Jus’ loook, my fren’, jus’ loook...”
Back in the ‘70s, an international group of hippies founded a colony near the village of Anjuna, living naked, doing heavy drugs and screwing their brains out with a different partner or three every day. It was the ultimate free love dopetopia.
Many are still going at it in the same spirit, with new young recruits from Europe and Australia.
But lest you’re tempted to say “coulda’, woulda’, shoulda’,” remember that there there are no handouts in India and even hippies have to eat. Solution? They launched a flea market on the beach, selling homemade crafts. It has since drawn vendors from all over Asia.
And talk about characters. My own hair falls something like 14 inches when I let it down, qualifying me for an audition with Led Zeppelin, yet I look as conservative as a lawyer in a three-piece suit compared to the groovy cats drifting through the market. Many are as picket-fence-thin as the Indians, covered with freaky Asian tattoos, and have matted dreadlocks that fall to the waist. And of course, they’re shirtless with dozens of bangles, piercings and who-knows-whats-who-knows-where.
I do my bit, buying a sphere of marble carved with elephants to be used for burning incense, and a couple of fabric lanterns. But I could use $1,000 and a mini-van to haul away more booty. Even a non-shopper would be hard-pressed to resist this wonder.
Hazards, warnings, danger, crime, etc.: As in the rest of India the greatest danger one might face in Goa is getting run over by a car. The rules of the road are seldom followed (if they are even known) in India, with traffic coming from any and all directions. Many Westerners rent motor scooters for their stay in Goa and flit amid the traffic on the state's narrow roads without much of a care. Consider getting a helmet if you go this route.
Otherwise, you will surely be offered drugs at some point in Goa, especially if you are a young backpacker. Caution is advised, especially if you intend to buy anything in the way of a quantity: be sure to read the chapter about life in a Mumbai jail in the novel "Shantaram" before you pull that trigger.
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