Griffs in Goa

Saturday 27^th

Went to Agonda on the scooter today – filled up with juice at 78p a litre. The 75 minute journey took us through some of the best scenery Goa can offer. The roads have impressed immensely in the two years since our last visit. We crossed the River Sal on the free ferry and then continued South through the Cashew forest, we climbed steep hills which the Honda really struggled with and passed monkeys by the side of the road.

Driving in Goa can only be described as chaotic and dangerous. If you can imagine a combination of Jousting, playing chicken and Russian Roulette all in one then you have only just thought of half of the experience. Driving here is a true manifestation of the Darwinian principle that the biggest, fittest and meanest survive. You cannot imagine how terrifying it is to to have a fully laden speeding Indian bus hurtling towards you on your side of the road for no apparent reason other than it can, blasting his deafening horn which tells everyone to get out of the road.

Des-Res

 week and stay in wooden huts on the beach. The huts have a double bed, a fan, a mosquito net and a shower and toilet. For that you pay about 600/- a night (5.80p). We had lunch at the Little Italy shack. The Avocado and Greek salad were excellent but the hummus and pitta were grim. The shack manager who hailed from Jammu and Kashmir was hoping for an improvement in trade in the New Year – I think he’ll have to up his game in the hummus dept to succeed!

One of our favourite restaurants where we eat in the evenings is a place on the beach called Johncy’s. It is a well established eatery with a good reputation. It is always buzzing, mainly with Indian customers often in large extended family groups. Whatever the time of the day the service is impeccable and the food top quality. The staff are exceptional and well worthy of praise, most of them are from Nepal and work like Trojans and always with courtesy and a smile. Johncy’s must have a least two hundred covers. It is open from 7.00a.m till 2.00a.m. They have just eleven front of house staff (waiters and pot collectors) and 23 kitchen staff. The waiters rely on tips as their salary is 1600/- (rupees) a month, which equates to 5.71p a week. They also get their meals and accommodation. I am not sure where these guys sleep but I know of places where the staff either sleep on the restaurant floor or on the tables. These guys would be worthy of working anywhere top class in the world if only they had the opportunity. What a contrast to the second rate expensive food and gormless, insincere and often surly service we get in the UK.

Xmas Morning  –  9.45 a.m. Hawaii Shack

The tide is up and it is very calm. A few early swimmers are enjoying a cool swim while on the horizon a couple of small pleasure boats with eager tourists are heading south towards the Sal River in search of Dolphins.

The new and now ubiquitous lifeguards bring out their

Lifeguard - busy doing nothing

 paraphernalia: a seat perched on a ladder, a large surf board and a red flag on a long pole. The ministry of tourism with much hype, have introduced over 180 new lifeguards to the beaches of Goa along with walkie-talkies and numerous Maruti red jeeps. I am not sure where the new recruits have been trained or if they have been trained at all. Most of them (and they are all men) are just five feet tall and probably weigh 60Kgs at most. They would be absolutely useless in trying to save a flailing, panicking, large and overweight tourist like myself. In truth, they are not there to save the Western tourists, most of whom can swim. They have been brought in to stop Indian tourists from out of state from drowning themselves. Most of them cannot swim. It is quite often a humorous spectacle observing their antics in the sea. The men strip to their underwear and the unfortunate women have to go in fully clothed. They often walk in hand-in-hand to about just over knee height. As the waves knock them over they get up with much screaming and shouting, then the next wave knocks them over again and again and again…… you get the picture! The drowning normally occurs when groups of drunken men just show off and go out too deep. The Goan Minister of Tourism claims, to counter the great expense to the state, that it has been a great success, with over forty lives saved already. I find this statement really hard to believe because since we have been here the sea has virtually been like a mill-pond.

There is a more sinister side to the introduction of the lifeguards and their jeeps. The lifeguards inform the police on the whereabouts of the beach sellers and the jeeps are being used to transport the overweight ‘plods’ to their hard-working prey. The sellers are ever watchful. When a red jeep is spotted, they often hide their goods under the sun-beds of compliant tourists and they lift the bottom of their saris a little and run away to the back of the shacks in a wave of flapping colour. Two days ago I witnessed them getting caught by the police. The police used their wooden sticks (called lathis), hitting them on the legs and feet to get them into the jeep. They let one girl go free because she is pregnant but they still confiscated her goods.

Xmas eve was a quiet affair for us – another excellent meal at the Meridian and then home to bed for 10.30p.m.  I slept really well thanks to large port and brandies but TG was kept awake by the setting off of very loud firecrackers which continued until well after 8.00a.m. the next morning.

The rumours of terrorism and supposed terrorist are still circulating yet the Indian State Minister for Goa has said that Goa is safe and there are no intelligence reports indicating that Goa is a target.

Thurs 26^th

We met an interesting girl yesterday who was sat next to us in the Hawaii shack. She had both knees strapped and she was using a longhi (sarong) which was wrapped her outstretched feet to do so exercises to strengthen her legs. TG was curious as she had been doing similar exercises earlier in the year after her operation on her ankle. The girl was from Indiana and was in India working out a two year contract teaching PE in a school in a small town south of the Himalayas. Here knee was strapped after ligament damage playing rugby. Apparently, rugby is very popular in the Mid-West!! Conversation turned to events in America and she informed us that ‘everyone she knows is excited and hopeful’ about the forthcoming Obama presidency. I hope for all our sakes she is not disappointed.

Sunday 22^nd

Woke this morning to loud (club volume) music being played from the house behind our place. The type of music varied from heavy bass reggae to Xmas songs with one in particular being played frequently imaginatively entitled ‘We wish you a merry Xmas’. We are constantly, while having out having our evening meal, approached by groups of young kids with red Santa hats and a leader in full Santa gear singing the above song except they are terribly out of tune and they sing ‘Vee viss you a Mary Xmas’ which I now annoyingly find I am singing whenever I ride the scooter.

Today we went to a beach south of Varca. There were four or five shacks. It seems that their main clientele were Russians as all the signage was in Cyrillic. The place was deserted except for a couple of sour-faced but extremely fit Russian girls. If only they smiled. I wonder what makes them so miserable all the time? Living in Russia no doubt!

Six of these makes a great lunch for two

There was however some lively action going on in the sea. Some six or sevenyoung Goan men were out in the sea catching fish. The process involved three of the lads swimming out and holding a forty foot net while the others splashed, shouted and swam towards the net, sort of herding the fish towards the net. I joined in with the ‘herders’. Once we herded the fish into the net, we lifted it out above our heads and hauled it to the shore. It was a good catch, maybe a hundred Catfish. They offered me part of the catch once they had untangled the fish from the net – I took ten fish. I took them to the Sea pearls shack and asked them to cook them for me in a medium spicy sauce as recommend by the lads. I bought a couple of Kingfisher beers for the lads still at the net and the shack charged me 50 rupees (66 pence) for cooking the fish. How cool is that? Having a swim and catching lunch at the same time. The fish was excellent in an Ambot Tik sauce.

More power cuts, this is the third and hopefully final attempt at getting this online – fortunately the internet café is on the beach.

It has been confirmed in today’s papers that there will be no beach parties from 23 December to 5^th January. The Goan government have sadly capitulated to the very minute threat of terrorism.

Saturday 20th

Electric Spaghetti

Both woke up with ‘dickie’ tummies yesterday morning probably due to the extremely spicy Prawn Balchao curry the previous evening. OK by lunchtime after consuming the cure-all lime sodas.
The power has been off several times today. Sometimes it lasts for just five minutes, other times it can be off for hours. They do not seem to have an affinity with electric here. My friend Alan has just bought and moved into, his brand new two bed-roomed apartment – he has yet to make the final payment and the snags are ever ending, particularly with the electrics. There is one socket working in one bedroom but no lights – one boiler works in one bathroom but not in the other and there are no lights working in the lounge. The attached picture highlights Indian electrical prowess and ingenuity
The weather has been very overcast but we still got burnt and I have prickly heat for the first time ever.
The terrorist threat still lingers with loads of rumours going around about what is happening here regarding the Xmas and New Year celebrations. Some say that the beaches will be closed at 10.00 pm and others that the big 5 star hotels are closing over the Xmas period. We went up to Colva beach yesterday and they have half built gun emplacements using sand bags – the Goan’s never finish anything properly. My worst fear is if there is another attack and India over-reacts. We were talking to some Indians from Mumbai who advocated ‘nuking’ Pakistan. There is growing animosity towards the Moslems here. The Kashmiri’s are not allowed on the beach and are virtually prisoners in their own shops and the local Moslems who own the supermarket and the money exchange are disliked, mainly I think because they are successful and the Goan’s are jealous. One strange thing is we have not seen one Moslem lady here at all.

There is no doubt that it is a lot quieter here than previous years. The Goan’s blame the attack in Mumbai and I don’t think they realise how hard the ‘credit crunch’ has hit the UK and beyond. The very idea that British tourists can no longer afford to come out here is unimaginable to them.
The shacks on the beaches are half empty which is great, as it allows uninterrupted views of beautiful sunsets which are always accompanied and enhanced by the obligatory G & T.

Pulling in the net

Wednesday 17^th   

I hired a scooter yesterday for three weeks. I have taken it back as the battery was duff and the brakes not brilliant. They told me to come back at twelve and it will be ready. I went at twelve – now it will be ready at two-thirty – nothing changes here. It’s no problem really as they let me have another while they fix it just inconvenient – they tend to forget you are on holiday.

I have just dropped Theresa off at the dentist for a clean and polish (her teeth that is!) should be about ten pounds.

It is very hot. Abnormally hot for the time of year according to the Goans. There has been a predominant easterly offshore wind for the last few days – it should be a cooling onshore westerly.

Regardless of the heat, the local fishermen spend long hours out in the full glare

Sharing out the catch

of the sun repairing nets while their wives layout the catch on the side roads to dry out. This fish is then used for salt-fish in the rainy season when it is too precarious to go out to sea to fish. Yesterday the fishermen spent all afternoon on the beach pulling in the net, sorting out the meager catch then repairing the net again. Very labour intensive and hardly worth it for the few baskets of fish they caught.

We’ll we are here again. I’m on the beach and right beside me I have a wizen old woman who is wearing heavy thick-lensed glasses, she is leaning on a stick with her hand held out and repeatedly saying hello, thank you, hello, thank you. I know you thought it was Theresa but it’s not. It is yet another beggar. The patience and tenacity of these poor unfortunate people is impressive. I probably can’t even start to imagine the severity of the hardship and prejudice that she has suffered.

Our flight from the UK was OK but the transfer at Bombay was ludicrously disorganized and bureaucratic. If Bombay’s answer to the terrorist threat is to treat weary travelers to more unnecessary investigation and ticket stamping then nothing will improve. The recent terrorist attack started from a boat from which originated from Pakistan not a BA flight from Heathrow. Most terrorists, as far as I am aware do not tickets or passports when on a mission. It seems to me that inconveniencing the general public further seems totally pointless but governments have to be seen to be doing something and the quickest and cheapest answer is to inconvenience the innocent. Chaos ensued when we transferred to the domestic terminal – the Indian Airlines staff were late for work at the check-in desks and when they did arrive chaos broke into overdrive. Ad hoc queues formed for security checks, there was lots of shouting, hand- jestering and head wobbling. The confused travelers stood about in bemused incredulity. Traveling anywhere in India is not for the faint-hearted but it is particularly more taxing after a ten hour flight, fortunately our short India Airways flight down to Goa was non-eventful – tea and biscuits were served  by stewardess’s dressed in sari’s – I wonder if there is a health and safety issue there?

FRIDAY:

I read in the paper this morning that the Indian government are trying to discourage Israeli’s from coming to Goa. Every season some 40,000 come to the beaches and the local government see them as a possible target. I am told that on a beach in North Goa the Israelis have there own security network installed – how weird is that? It’s very quiet here with a lot less western tourist than usual. All the Goans are blaming it oon the incident in Bombay. I don’t think they see the effects of the ‘credit crunch’ as an issue. The very idea that British people cannot afford to come out here is unimaginable.

SUNDAY:

Not sure what was wrong with me yesterday. I seemed to have slept most of the day on the beach which is very unusual for me. I think it was a combination of getting over the journey and the heat. It is very hot here at the moment. The Goan’s are saying that it is too hot for the time of year – after all it is their winter.  Today, however, I’m fine again. About fifty yards across from our digs is a lake which is teaming with wildlife. There is a magnificent Marsh Harrier, several Purple Swamp Hens, Coot, Paddy Birds, Waterhen, Egrets, Jungle Babblers and some wintering Gadwall ducks which is a first spotting for me. Below our balcony the cacophony of a typical Goan morning ensues. A clucking mother hen with four chicks proudly but warily wanders under the almond tree while three young pigs squeal and snort around the place looking for scraps of anything barely edible. The owner’s young puppy yaps and wants to play with the pigs but one of them noisily gives him short shrift and above the raucous crows argue over everything. On the other side of the lane is a half built five storey block of apartments. They are half hidden from our view by the Mango and other trees. This illegally built shell of a property resounds with the sound of loud Hindi music and is home to the workers – men, women and their children – they live in the most basic of conditions and work from sunrise to sunset for six days a week, the music being their only entertainment. The local Panchayat (council) have forbidden the building of new properties which are more than two storey’s high, however, the owner/developer is the brother of a government minister and refuses to pull it down.

Today is the workers day off. A woman surrounded by three small kids sits on a pile of gravel and does some sewing while her husband relaxes in the early morning sun amongst the building blocks.