Travel Writing

Travel article published in Weekend Supplement of Natal Witness. Author Chris Ellis

GOA, GOA……GONE

Chris Ellis, our peripatetic correspondent, is currently teaching
at the medical school in the United Arab Emirates.

We have been on another foray. This time down the West coast of India to Goa, an old Portuguese colony that is now part of India. We set off from the airport at Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates with, it seemed like, most of the population of India, who were expatriates returning home for a spot of leave. I was literally the only white face in the entire place. I felt like the last Viceroy before he got on the boat going back to Cheltenham.
Indian airlines had laid on a plane, which had seen better days. The seats were upgraded deck chairs with the upholstery hanging off them. I checked that mine was securely bolted to the floor. The plane was packed and at one stage two Afghan tribesmen got on late, and the air stewardess wouldn’t allow them to bring their goats on with them, which we all felt was rather unreasonable--no, not really, but I was beginning to expect anything.
As we were taxiing onto the runway the chief steward announced, in a heavy Indian English accent, over the loud speaker, “we are about to take off. If any passengers have any objections, please contact the cabin staff”. It seemed a little late in the day for objections and, anyway, the wife informed me that I had misheard, and would I please pull myself together.
We landed at Goa International airport outside the town of Vasco da Gama. I am not sure if Vasco would enjoy going through customs here if he were alive today. Queues, inconsequential forms, peeling walls and ineffectual ceiling fans all give the airport an atmosphere of imperial decay. Goa was a colony first conquered, in 1510, by a Portuguese nobleman with the magnificent name of Alfonso de Albuquerque. With a name like that I imagined a tall chap with a large extravagant hat with feathers and waxed moustaches sticking out like the wings of a Boeing 747. He obviously strode down the gangplank, with swashbuckling gait, in long tight laced trousers and a rapier dangling from the buckle on his belt.
This legacy has left the country with a European heritage mixed in with the ancient cultures of India and everywhere you go there are small catholic churches and wayside shrine not far from Hindu temples.
We were met outside the airport by the hotel driver, who was either having a bad hair day or had a full bladder because he drove as though Alfonso himself was hot on his heels. He spent the journey continuously tooting his hooter at the hundreds of scooters and motorbikes, which crowd every road in India. Perhaps it was a cunning ploy on behalf of the hotel to subject guests to several near-death experiences before arriving so that they would immediately seek out the bar. Luckily the driver’s name was Apollo so we assumed that, at least, we had the Greek gods on our side.
We passed through green rice fields and down narrow curved lanes lined with coconut trees. This is an entrancing land of old, rather shambolic houses with terracotta tiled roofs and balcoas (balconies) and chaotic roadside stalls.
Our hotel was on Varca beach, which is south of the more well known Colva beach, and is set on one of the many sandy beaches for which Goa is famous. And it had one of my most favourite things in the whole world- a bar on the beach as well as a restaurant on the sea’s edge. Here the sunsets seem, for some reason, to be much slower than those in South Africa. One theory is a local drink called Toddy, which is fermented coconut juice and from which the English derived the drink called a hot Toddy.
The beaches are lined by “Beach Shacks” which are small thatched restaurants next to the coconut palms. On one night we ventured forth to a restaurant on Benaulim beach, which was very originally called Fisherman’s Wharf. I wonder how many restaurants in the world are called Fisherman’s Wharf. Someone once told me that there are 80 towns in the world called Richmond. Perhaps they all have a restaurant called Fisherman’s Wharf. Anyway on this night they were serving a cocktail called Whose Alice?, which I assume was named after the song of the sixties. A question to which those on the dance floor who were still conscious used to reply “And Who the Heck is Alice?” or words to that effect. The restaurant didn’t guarantee that you would know who Alice was, even after drinking a dozen of them. Needless to say, the seafood and the curries were to die for.
Goa still has that feel of the sixties and on the northern beaches of Anjuna and Calangute the hippies still hang out and have the full moon rave parties. For a more sedate holiday I would suggest the Southern beaches and just relaxing. Relaxing is what everyone does very well in Goa. They even have a word for it, susegad, which means, why hurry, you can do it all tomorrow. To get into this zone you can try one of India’s Ayurvedic treatment centres, which are available in most hotels. Your correspondent chose the “rejuvenation” package, which reached all the working parts and a few that had not been working for years. Goa, Goa…Gone, a very relaxing place.