The last 2 days at Calangute were very nice, but when the time came to go, I was sure ready. To live healthily for any length of time in such a pleasant and disarming environment, you need some sort of stable point to let yourself revolve around. Otherwise it's just a sink into tavern low-life, with a few hours of swimming and sun-bathing every day.
Quite a good collection of characters floating around Dinky's, the teenager "Don't worry, chicken curry", with his pet monkey; the seriously down and out Austrian who cadged money out of any available foreigner and showed up one rainy black night with his head wrapped in bandages and teeth missing, as staggering and incoherent as usual; the few odd Germans who'd been around for quite some time but held themselves together quite well, there playing cards or just watching, every night; Trevor, the tiny 30-ish Goan Sheker my hotel manager said was a well-known thief, busted up legs and always begging meals and drinks, or trying to sell you hashish; another youg Goan, sharp and sensitive and sometimes very outspoken, disconsolate over the position of the small landowner in Goa under Indian rule; the one drunked-out hausfrau who came in on the last night, Sunday, monologing on the good old days 5 years ago when Goa was cheap; and of course Doug and I, cleancut young Americans, drinking, smoking, eating, and taking all of it in as a hilarious local-color movie, totally without reality or seriousness.
Sunday was a good sunny day, finally. Got a lot of sun, and ran into Doug walking back on the beach. We had tea at the hotel and then got stoned up in my room on the balcony. Took some wide-angle shots of the sunset. Rumors had been flying all week about a full-moon party Sunday night. The party turned out to be at Anjuna instead of Calangute, which seemed pretty far away, so pretty much on impulse we decided to have our own. There seemed to be lots of interest, so the introsprctive Goan landlord took charge, we bought wood from a little old lady who we had to get out of bed, and gathered on the beach.
An hour and a half of sitting around smoking, and the energetic-feeling ones decided to go on up to Anjuna anyway. The road once begun is followed to its end. I followed along, willing to follow for a certain distance at least. A couple of kids were cruelly rousted out of their beds by the partygoers in order to provide transportation. Two motorbikes carrying 4 passengers buzzed off into the moon-lit palm trees.
Monday morning I spent in the market at Calangute, mailing some records and a painting to ease the load on my suitcase and then in the afternoon Doug and I walked down to Baga and swam and lay in the sun. I loaned him my new "Time" magazine and read "Sagittarius Rising". Had a beer at the Lomir and walked back to Calangute along the road.
Doug had intended to leave on Monday, but the Sunday party and the fact that he felt pretty comfortable in Goa led him to postpone leaving until Tuesday, along with me.
We met a bit later Monday, at Dinky's again for the Last Night. The colorful personalities and abandoned atmosphere had begun to seem a bit threatening. An Australian gave us his narrative of being stranded, waiting six weeks for a telegraphed money order and warned us: "You'll laugh, until one day you're ripped off and get stranded."
A little later on one of the Germans, bless his soul, came up with the makings for a fish fry, and we all trudged back and forth carrying wood, and cleaned fish in the surf, and sat around smoking while fish and potatoes and onions roasted in the coals. The first fish was divine, but the 2nd was badly overcooked, crunchy like a biscuit.
Woke up next morning feeling a little ill, quashed the diarrhea with some lomotil and marched off to the bus. I had a 1st class ticket, and Doug a 2nd class, so we should have separated there at the Margao station, but there were no open seats in 1st, and spent the afternoon with him in 2nd.
Very cold night in my car. I pulled on my long pants and dragged a raincoat over me, but I was still cold. Train dragged into Bangalore around 7:30 this morning, and I rushed into a taxi and off to the Woodlands Hotel, and forgot to look for Doug to say goodbye, or rather "see you again down the road".
But I went back to the train station later in the morning, looking for the Tourist Information Office, he found me there, and we went off together into the city, me to cash a check and see about new glasses, he to try and get information about transportation in Sri Lanka, which he's afraid has been disrupted by the anti-Tamil riots.
Back at the train station we exchanged addresses and had lunch. I'll be traveling faster than him from now on, as I'm hurrying to be home by October 15 and have picked up an ambition to visit a South Pacific island, but we might meet up again.
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