I. Bullshit

I'm sitting on the train now, second class, in the open door of the train. As I bought my train ticket last minute, it was too late to reserve a seat, so I bought a "general ticket", and I should bargain with the TC (ticket collector) guy to give me some place. I didn't even try it after all, because the seats are quite crowded and not more comfortable than the floor, so I didn't care. This is a 10 hour journey, costs about $25 on first class, but second class is just $3. Three dollars. Seriously. I just took this pic 1 minute ago. Palm trees around:

Anyway, I want to tell you about Goa now.

Goa is special, because while India was an English colony with English as the official language and all, Goa was conquered by the Portuguese and they managed to keep it all the time until India became a self-standing country (in the time of Mahatma Gandhi), so until not long ago. Because of this the culture here is different than other parts of India, which you can observe on the mentality of the people, on the architecture and on old people, of whom some (as they say) still speak Portuguese among each other.

We arrived to this small state (the smallest of India) a month ago from Bombay, by the worst bus journey I had in my life. I'll tell about this later... it has its own story, which can even be funny when told.

My friend Ryan (from the vipassana course) advised me to go to either North Goa or South Goa, but not inbetween, because the nature is not as nice there, also too many people and most of them Indians. Not that I have problems with Indian people, I love them, but I prefer Western tourists to Indian tourists. So we took Ryan's advice and visited North Goa first and then the South.

In the end Judit spent 2 weeks in Goa and me 4. A lifetime wouldn't be enough to thoroughly describe my experiences of this time so I just quickly write the essence and try to build up a fair picture of Goa for those visiting.

II. North of Goa

In North Goa we stayed in Vagator, which is a calm little village by the sea with abundant green vegetation which makes all spaces small and cozy. Vagator is famous for its trance parties in the forest with lots of people and all sorts of drugs imaginable. Well, we were there before the season (and in fact all the things I write about Goa are about off-season, even though in the middle of October more and more people came and more and more hotels-bars-etc opened up), so that lots of people weren't there yet so we didn't go to any trance parties :(

Near Vagator there is Chapora, also a small village with a beach and the famous Scarlet Juice Shop where you can get the most delicious fresh juices and fruit salad. Also there is Anjuna, which is the biggest village around, with a fancy big A/C supermarket with all the Western goodies, and also with the famous flea market, which was founded by the old hippies to sell their clothes and buy weed. Anjuna was a big hippie paradise, and maybe it still is, but I think it must be too crowded in the season.

We stayed in Vagator in a guesthouse called Shalom, oddly without any Jewish people. Except our friend Roti, who was also a guest, but he arrived after us, I'll write about him in a minute.

The first 5 days passed by me dying from some bad food I ate in Mumbai (which steeled my stomach and my cautiousness so much that I had no problems ever since), so I just lied in the bed for that 5 days. Judit made friends with a Hungarian mother and daughter who we randomly met. They stayed at the same guesthouse as we did, which was highly improbable as we met 4 Hungarians in total during our trip of 4 months and also there were hardly any people at Vagator. Anyway, it came at the perfect moment for Judit as she had people to hang around with while I was alternating between the bed and the toilet. She learnt much of her English in this one week as finally she was on her own.

III. South of Goa

Once I recovered, we took our scooter and drove around the area with Judit, then we decided to move down to South Goa, which was Judit's last stop before flying back home. Roti, the Israeli guy I mentioned above also joined us. Roti, as many Israelis, just finished his 3 years' service in the army and now he's travelling. He's a real playboy, during our short time together I didn't see him much in a natural state of mind: he tried all the ways of fun ;) As one way of fun, for example, he went to this Russian casino ship one day, which - as they say - is not the wisest thing to do. Soon he lost his 25.000 Rupees (about $500). But he went on playing, so at one point he was at winning 125.000 Rupees ($2500). So he stopped, pocketed the 250 pieces of 500 Rupee bills :) and quickly left the place. He was quite happy, especially after spending most of his money on various drugs. :) Anyway, so we took the bus to South Goa together, where he wanted a cool place to stay and we wanted a cheap one, so we separated for a while. He helped us a lot for sure just by advising us to go to Palolem instead of Agonda, another beach 7kms from Palolem, which was quite dead at that moment. It's surely a beautiful place (we went there to look around) but before season there is no life there, while Palolem is not too crowded but not too empty, so it's quite okay.

We rented a cool little room at the middle of the village, and a scooter, thanks to the support of our good friend freegyes, who donated us some of his hard-earned money :)

We drove around the area in a week, found beautiful places, including a small but nice national park. We went crab fishing, watched dolphins, did some drugs with the Israelis, made friends with various people we found, then Judit fell in love with a Swiss guy :) and she left. The original plan was so that I accompany her to Mumbai, but then she got so confident while she was alone in Vagator practicing English, that she just hopped on the train alone and this is the last picture I have of her:

IV. South of Goa without Judit

After Judit had left the following things happened, in a nutshell: I moved to a small room on the beach; I attended yoga classes and went sea kayaking a couple times; I met an Iranian-German girl at the yoga classes; the girl introduced me to an Australian-English guy and an Indian guy; the four of us hung out together for some days and went on a scooter trip; they all left; I bought a mosquito net; I did lots of sports: ran every day on the beach, the kayaking thing and all that; I practiced drawing; I had a great time alone taking time for myself in peace; I took back the scooter and rented a bicycle instead; I met my Australian friend Ryan and his girlfriend Lana who stayed in Agonda, not far from Palolem; they introduced me to an old yogi who lives on the top of a mountain, moved there recently, before living in the Himalayas for 18 years all alone. We smoked some ganja for meditational purposes and I fixed his Internet connection. (He wanted to chat with philosophers, and find a padavan for himself); by accident I met a Hungarian diving instructor who lives in Goa; I learnt diving: I took a PADI Open Water Diver and a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course, I can dive with my buddy up to 30m; finally we left Goa together and I helped out in the dive center (in Karnataka state) for a weekend, but that's not Goa any more so I'll continue in the next post.

Now you see why I just listed these things so shortly... It would take days to describe all this :) But feel free to ask about anything, I'm happy to help out with any information, especially about South Goa.