Monday in Bombay was the anniversary of India's liberation from the British - Independence Day, the 30th anniversary. I checked out early in the morning, going to catch my 8:30 train to Goa, took a taxi into town and had a porter carry my bags into the station, only to discover that my 8:30 train was an 8:30PM train. I could, of course, have tried to stash my bags in a locker for the day and just hang out; but that didn't occur to me right at the crucial moment, and I took another taxi all the way back out to Juhu Beach and checked right back into the Ajanta Hotel at 96 rupees for the day, and had a great argument with the taxi driver over whether I'd pay him 5 rupees baggage charge. I did not, and actually ended up giving him a shade less than was on the meter.
Trying to justify spending the 96 rupees, I decided I should go swimming, but the desk clerk said there were lots of jellyfish, and that the sea was very rough - monsoon. So I rode back into town on the train, tried to get a boat out to Elephanta, but they were not running - monsoon, and came back.
On the train back to Santa Cruz Station I got pick-pocketed. 400 rupees. Was involved in a huge football-rush crush into a car, with my camera bag (with passport and traveler's checks) pulled one way and me going another, and hands going into all of my pockets. They only got one of my pockets, but that was the one with the heavy cash in it. I realized what was happening just fast enough to cover my other pocket and grab good hold of my bag, which they'd begun to open. It all happened within 5 seconds, tops. Good work. They got $45+ cash, and almost, a U.S. passport, $700 traveler's checks and a nice pocket calculator. I didn't bother with getting angry, or with reporting it to the police.
Checked out once again in the evening, which involved a half hour ride in heavy traffic to the Juhu Beach Holiday Inn to cash a traveler's check because there was no change at my hotel, and then a fascinating 60-minute ride through the hot Bombay suburbs on Independence Day evening. The throb of drums and glances into slum windows.
I was put into a double sleeper with a sweet Iranian kid, studying at a school at a hill station above Bombay. He gave me a Bahai pamphlet, and got off the train at 6AM.
I changed trains shortly after, at Miraj, into a 4-sleeper with a couple and their baby, and an older man. Lots of gossip en route with a chubby Goan from the next compartment. Turned out that the couple are on their way home from 2 years working in Russia, and the older man is a policeman.
We'd traveled very quick during the evening, 3/4 of the distance to Goa, but the last stretch went very slowly; stop and start at every little station, and a lot of places in between. In one of the 2nd class cars there was a little band, 2 trumpets, clarinet, drum and wood blocks, and they played all the way down through the coastal mountains to Goa. I got out at one station to stand and watch. They sat in their compartment playing away, with 2 or 3 minute breaks, elbows out the window, and a big crowd gawking on the station platform, sweet sellers and tea carriers pushing their way through on rounds.
After being burned in Bombay (ouch!) with not being able to find a hotel room, I was real anxious to get a room in Panjim. Train arrived at Margao around 2:00 PM, the cop took me in hand and got me on a bus to Panjim. Had tea and a short conversation with him en route. Very pleasant guy, based in Bombay and coming to Goa for an investigation.
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I had no trouble getting a room in Panjim. The place seems tourist-free really. 60 rupees for a nice air-conditioned room with a bath, and the hotel, Keni's, has a bar and restaurant.
Wednesday morning I checked at the Tourist Bureau about tours and hotels on the beach, and checked out and moved up to this place: Calangute Beach and the Tourist Resort Hotel.
Goa is a palm tree and rice-paddy paradise, laced with rivers and tiny one-lane highroads, dotted with little villages and estates. Calangute is a beautiful big sandy beach, palms all up and down, but the water is frighteningly rough - monsoon.
There are a few "hippy eating houses" as Fodor's calls them. Lots of atmosphere to them somehow. Had lunch and drinks and a couple hits of hash at one yesterday. Usual culturally insensitive lot of freaks hanging out, buying and selling and looking for the next Pink Floyd record.
I've gotten to know the manager here, nice guy named something like "Sheker", and I've begun settling into the same pleasant kind of routine as I had at Nageen Lake in Kashmir.
Yesterday I taxied into Panjim to catch a Tourist Bureau bus tour. Another unedifying bummer, but low key. A waste of time, except that I got a good look at Colva Beach, which seems to be nicer than Calangute.
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Walked up the beach to Baga for a nice dip before dinner, and then had a very pleasant and tasty meal over the beach, watching the sunset sitting there in the open air. A few palm fenis before dinner, and a cigar after.
I woke up around 1AM last night, with someone else in my room. One of those nightmare situations, but I just turned my head towards him/her, said "hello" in a surprised tone, and they stalked out the front door. I'd left my beach-side door, which opens onto a balcony, open, and the person had started to go through my shorts, looking for money.
Today I had two Goa events I wanted to witness, and both of them ended up flopping a bit. At the weekly market at Mapusa, I'd been told they'd be feeding milk to cobras, part of a Hindu festival. So I took a bus there in the morning, to see the market and the snakes, both. No snakes, but the market was there, as advertised.
In the afternoon I went to go see some "bull fights" which had been mentioned in the local paper, at Nerul. But, I got all bollixed up in the transport system, and arrived late. Too bad, that was a real event, and it would have been nice to see.
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