Our beach huts… Theresa’s, Kalyan’s, and mine.

After approximately 24 hours combined on the road, we entered Goa, welcomed by warm and humid weather, lush vegetation, and, of course, the massive multilingual ‘WELCOME TO’ signs every Indian state has. We headed towards the Southern part of the state, often described as the ‘least touristy’ area in Goa. This is a bit of a misnomer- all of Goa is pretty much tourist saturated, but from what we heard the Southern part would be more of a rustic beach escape, as opposed to the beach cities which are more popular in the other areas. The plan was to head down to the beach for a night, pack up in the morning and head north, which would include catching Goa’s version of Carnival in Panaji.

After a long, uneventful drive to the Southern part of the state, we reached our destination. It was… interesting.

After getting just a little bit lost on the beach roads, we found the place the guide book mentioned. We had made reservations, but because we didn’t anticipate how long it would take to get there, it was for the night before. By the time we got there, the place we planned on staying turned out to be fully booked. It also turned out to be an LA yuppie’s dream. Beach huts, beach wood walkways, palm trees, cool ocean breezes, plentiful hammocks, leaf canopies- imagine Swiss Family Robinson opening a little resort on an Indian beach, complete with yoga classes and yogurt fruit bowl breakfasts, and you’ll get the general idea. (Well, the owner wasn’t Swiss, but they were European!)

We stopped for a quick lunch, and that’s when I saw that cat. This was to turn out to be the vibe Goa creates… it’s incredibly relaxing and laid back, almost ridiculously so. You could come here and literally do nothing for a week, and feel fantastic. There’s restaurant huts and bar huts dispersed down the beaches, lots of sun and warm water, and the food served is more typical of Southern California health cuisine than Indian food. There’s not much artificial lighting, but at night the lack of pollution lets the moonlight and starlight guide you around easily. It really feels like an escape from everything, which attracts al these Western tourists… we met people from all over Europe, and I even met a couple people from my old English hometown of Bristol.

(Oh, and I was reminded by this of how much working in the States sucks in terms of vacation. ‘You’re from the US? Oh, so let me guess… you only get two weeks vacation a year?’ The people we met all got at least six weeks, and the two I met from Bristol were nurses on a year long sabbatical to travel the world.)

And then there are the dogs.

The dogs of Goa are the luckiest dogs on earth. When good dogs die, I have no doubt that they go to Goa.

There’s feral dogs all over India. They roam around the cities sniffing around trash, run along the roads and highways in the countryside, and of course, the beaches of Goa. What sets apart the dogs of Goa are the people. Dogs in India, especially these feral dogs, are generally considered pests and completely ignored, left to wander but not given attention. In Goa, this all changes because of the Western tourists, who think these dogs are the coolest things in the world. (A bit scruffy maybe, but awesome.)

The dogs get to play with the tourists. They get fed by the tourists. They hang out with them at dinner tables on the beach, getting along nicely. They get all those benefits of being owned, but in the end are still their own masters. They live on the beach. They can play on the beach all day. And, being feral, they get to keep their balls/uteruses. How neat is that?

The place we wound up finding turned out to be a bit less heavy on the resort side of vacationing. It was kind of a communal beach area of different sets of beach huts, all pretty much on the beach and inexpensive. Those three huts you see at the top are where we stayed, all for about $8 for a night. At this point it was fairly late, so we went to the beach for beers at one of those bar huts, and turned in.

The next morning, Kalyan and I got up early to take photographs of the sunrise. Afterwards, I decided to go swimming in the Arabian sea. I don’t think my writing can do it justice, but… it was great. The warmth of the water along with the ambient temperature that morning was perfect, and I was content to just bob in the water and swim around for some time. This was the danger of Goa. I feel we could have been sucked in at this beach if we were less disciplined, content to lazily roam the beaches and enjoy the warm water. That, and I later learned the water has sharks and barracuda.

As it was though, our departure from Goa was rather bitter tasting… we got pulled over by a police officer checking cars for out-of-state-permits (as I’ve described before), but instead of the usual 100 Rupee bribe, we got hit with something like a 1200 Rupee fine/bribe. We aren’t quite sure what happened here… our driver and the officer argued, the officer claiming our driver didn’t get the proper permit and our driver claiming the officer was trying to screw us, but with the threat of getting our vehicle impounded, we had little choice but to pay. When we asked for documentation to make sure we didn’t have to pay another fine, we realised that it was dated with the current day only, leading us to believe the same thing would happen again the next day, and prompting us to leave the state.

It was an unfortunate way to have to leave the state, especially after we had to travel so far to get there. That being said, I’ll always remember that water.