Old Goa and the Goa of Old

There comes a point in every travelers life that he must get off his arse and type up a blog post to keep the people who read it informed about his whereabouts. That time, for me, has come. I've been putting off typing up another blog post for the reason that there won't be many blog posts left to write after this one. The truth is that there's precious little time left for me in this marvelous country and if I catch up with my writing there'll be almost nothing left to write about.

But I must catch up.

If you're wondering where I am at the moment, I will tell you. I am in the diminutive town of Chapora - the Goa of Old. A quaint, one-street town which is a favourite Goa's hippy scene. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I write about the Goa of Old I must first write about how I got here. And getting here was preceded by a trip to Old Goa. If this doesn't make sense yet, bear with me - it soon will.

Old Goa was the capital of Goa during the era of Goa's Portuguese occupation. It is now pretty much a ghost town. What was once a thriving city at the height of the Portuguese rule is now just a husk of a town. The only buildings which remain are the churches and cathedrals which serve as a testament to the Catholic influence which differentiates Goa from other Indian states. Old Goa is also a convenient 15 minute bus ride away from Panaji, making it a perfect day trip for the travel enthusiast. Well, almost perfect.

Se Cathedral

Old Goa was definitely worth the visit and the churches and cathedrals were large and numerous, but it failed to excite me. I suppose that was partially due to the crowds of other tourists who got bussed straight in, and partly because Old Goa gave off an air of discomfort. It's quite difficult to explain, but Old Goa felt as if it didn't belong in India, in Goa even. Everywhere you looked you were confronted by another massive, out-of-place church. The churches dominated the area and I couldn't help but feel that it was all intended as a display of dominance by the Portuguese. The imposing structures seemed to be built to be formidable. It all felt like a religious prick-waving contest that got seriously out of hand.

Churches aren't my thing, but I do love a good beach. And so, with the beach beckoning I left Panaji and headed north to Anjuna. Anjuna is another stalwart of the old hippy scene and used to have a reputation as the place to go to experience a Goan trance party. I imagine things have calmed down since then because I only caught wind of one party happening and the next day everyone said it got closed down at 11 PM.

The sunset over Anjuna

Anjuna may not be the place to go for a party anymore, but it is a great spot to go for a swim. For once the waves were of a moderate size and could be bodysurfed, unlike anywhere else in Goa. That said, waiting for the waves of a moderate size that could be bodysurfed seemed to take up most of the time that I spent in the water. At this point you can probably deduce where this blog post is going to go. Yep, nowhere. When you're spending most of the day on a beach there's not much to write home about.

I did visit the Mapusa Friday market for a couple of hours, but it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. What was on sale was mostly just tourist crap and fish. I did scour the market for anything interesting or different, but all of the places were selling the same slew of tourist trash - trinkets and T-shirts mostly.

Funnily enough I decided that Anjuna wasn't the best place to be staying. I'm not sure why I came to that conclusion, but it made sense in my mind at the time. I decided to move on after only a few days of lazing on the beach. I even moved away from the beach - to Chapora.

Chapora is a forgotten town. Forgotten by
tourists, at least

The Lonely Planet likens Chapora to the Mos Eisley Canteen in Star Wars and when I arrived here I understood why. It's not much bigger than a canteen, for a start, and its residents (local and hippy alike) have a very relaxed and slow pace of life. That might have something to do with the charas those hippies are smoking, but I can't be certain. It is the Goa of Old and that's what makes it an attractive place to stay. Chapora has not grown up with the rest of Goa. Everywhere else in Goa is full of tourists, Chapora has only a light sprinkling - and most of them are long-stayers. Chapora is still decidedly cheap, whereas the rest of Goa has hiked its prices up to milk the package tourists. I like Chapora. It's just what I was looking for, an almost untainted Goa, a lack of other tourists.

There's nothing to do in Chapora, nothing pressing at least. And I can't help but like that about it. I can spend a full day sipping chai and reading a book and not have to worry that I'm being slack because there's nothing else to do. I think I might just get stuck here for a while...

A short walk from Chapora - Vagator beach

Sossegado

Writing this blog post is going to be hard work. Not because writing blogs is particularly hard, but because my fingers, and perhaps the rest of my body, have gone into a semi-comatose state brought about by the Goan beaches.

Palolem is a beach

My long train trip is over. All 38 hours of it. The train spat me out in the city of Margao in the south of Goa and I promptly caught a bus further south, to Palolem. Palolem is a beach town. It is is a beautiful beach town. It is, in fact, more of a beach than a town. The beach is, in essence, the town. Palolem is a beach. There are huts on the beach with people in them. And bars on the beach with other people in them. There are palm trees around the beach and a flat sea just off the beach. The beach is crescent-shaped, which is apparently a good shape for a beach to be. It is hot. It is sunny. There is a certain sossegado to life on this beach.

Sossegado is a distinctly Goan word. It translates, rather crudely, to laid-backness. It is undeniably the best word to describe life in a Goan beachside town. Life is just laid-back. There's not much to do but lie in the sun (or the shade, if you're a pasty individual like me who doesn't want to look like a burnt tomato at the end of the day) and read. And then spend some time in the balmy water. Because there's not much to do apart from be a lazy lout and enjoy yourself, there's not much to write about to interest other people in an obscure, traveler's blog post. Which is the reason I'm citing for not having written anything, up to now. I assure you it has everything to do with me being too lazy to remove myself from the beach and type something up.

Three paragraphs in and I've managed to say nothing at all. This is a pretty good sign. It looks like I'll be able to pass off my laziness by obscuring it in florid descriptions of beaches and palm trees.

This is my Palolem beach hut - swanky, right?

One remarkable thing about accommodation in Palolem is the accommodation itself. Almost all of the accommodation is of the tiny, beach hut variety, just off the beach, amongst the palm trees. These little huts are fantastic! They are assembled at the beginning of each tourist season, just after the monsoon, and disassembled at the end of each season, before the monsoon's return. Huts are pokey, with little more than a bed and a mosquito net (and a tiny bathroom, if you're lucky) which is exactly why I love them. Waking up in a rickety little hut and stumbling out on to a beach is a brilliant way to start a day. If you haven't experienced this, you'll have to take my word for it. Another brilliant feature of these little huts is the maze of sandy, shady alleyways that get formed between them. A walk along these narrow paths is a good way to step away from the countless European tourists in Speedos who inhabit the beach. Speedo's should be considered a crime against humanity.

I wake up to this...

Patnem, a semi-Speedo-free zone

A little way south of Palolem is another beach, Patnem. Patnem is also a crescent-shaped beach, but with the added advantage of having fewer Speedo-toting Europeans around. It's a lot less busy and is therefore a good way of escaping the tourist hordes. I spent some time there today, and I plan on spending some more time there tomorrow, and the next day. Anything to save my eyes from that horrible excuse for a swimming costume. And the people who seem to think it's a very attractive swimming costume. These people are almost always fat, roasted men in their late fifties from the south of France.

With the conclusion of my rant on the heinous crime that is wearing a Speedo in public, or even in private for that matter, I think I'll conclude this pointless update of my blog. You are now aware of my laziness. My confirmation of it is firmly in writing. It's starting to approach evening time over here, the sun is well over the yardarm. I'm going to be heading back to the beach soon to enjoy a cold beer and a spicy, prawn vindaloo.

Oh God, those vindaloos... The mouth-watering explosion of flavour that is the Goan specialty dish. The spices, the fresh seafood which practically swam on to the plate, the zing of chilli... The sudden reverie that merely typing the word 'vindaloo' induces...

I'm off... I think I'll have an early supper.

A snapshot of the rocky Colomb bay