North vs South Goa

So we’ve just booked our tickets to Hampi and will be leaving Palolem and South Goa early on Tuesday. We’d originally only intended to stay here a few days, but it quickly became apparent that wasn’t going to be enough.


Palolem and the beaches north and south are truly beautiful. In fact Cola beach which we visited on Thursday is now my new gold standard for beach paradise. It’s a stunning little cove, with a fresh water stream forming a lake which is separated from the sea by the beach. The natural beauty is only spoilt by a couple of modest restaurants and a couple of dozen tents and huts well hidden under the palm trees. Currently, you have to follow an incredibly bumpy dirt track for nearly half a mile, which makes access difficult for the casual visitor (we nearly turned back on our scooters) and any major development to occur. The day before we’d made our way to Turtle beach by walking south across three other beaches and a small boat ride across the Talpon river. Again, the beaches were amazing, with huge stretches of unspoilt shores (some of which were teaming will little sand crabs I love) where we were the only human presence as far as the eye could see. The beaches also seem to generally be cleaner and better looked after. Even Palolem beach which has restaurants from end to end seems to be much more litter free. So South Goa 1, North Goa 0.

As I already mentioned the night life here is different, with the silent discos the only option for late night partying. Whilst we had a lot of fun on Thursday, neither of us were in a hurry to go back. There is something just not quite right about the whole thing and it’s a poor man’s alternative to proper speakers can blast the sound through your ears and your body. South Goa 1, North Goa 1.

Another noticeable difference is the makeup of the people visiting. Firstly, there seem far more couples here and a few more families. There are not many hippy types either though apparently that was different earlier in the season. The split between nations also is different with less Russians, less Indians (tourists) more Swedish and much more English. Less English people would normally be a good thing in my book (it was nice to be a minority in Arambol), however most don't seem to be the type that have done a good job of ruining most of the Mediterranean. We also seem to have met more people, some of which have been very interesting to talk to. From long term English residents from Manchester (living a life that my parents often talked about doing by selling up and get out of the UK), fellow backpackers and Artists both in the traditional sense and martial. We haven’t however felt quite at home like we did with our beach hut in Arambol, but we’ve still made some friends with Pendi and Sunni whose restaurant we normally headed to for sunset and they always put a smile on our faces. South Goa 2, North Goa 1.

So over all, I’m just edging towards South Goa, especially if I were going to come back for a more traditional holiday. This is the sort of place my parents would have loved to go to, and I understand why my Sister and Brother-in-law loved it here as well.

Here are the photosets ....

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Palolem
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/TheWalkToTurtleBeach
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/ColaAndAgonda

Jos Palmer

I mentioned in a previous post meeting an artist at the Silent Disco, Jos Palmer. We’d looked at some originals and prints that he had with him at the time which made a strong impression, so we promised to track him down at the The Spiral Ark Project (a cafe and art shop) so we could look at buying something from him.

We had planned to find the Spiral Ark on Saturday afternoon, but as luck would have it we saw him on the beach (hanging out with Master Lee and his entourage – more about them later) just two restaurants down from our place so we went over for a chat. Jos happened to have several framed prints with him at the restaurant (run by his Russian friend), along with pictures on a laptop and we soon found the piece of work that we’d particularly liked when we’d seen it at the Silent Disco. Jos explained that the original, a piece in a series of works was for sale at 56K. This was slightly more rupees than we planned on spending, however it turned out we weren’t talking about rupees, we were talking about pounds! Having been somewhat humbled after thinking we might buy an original, we asked about prints which turned out to be more in our price range and Jos invited us to meet him on Monday morning to visit the cafe and see all his work including the original of the piece we liked.

So this morning at ten we met Jos and took a Rickshaw over to the Spiral Ark. The Spiral Ark itself is “housed in a converted cashew-nut roasting factory in the peaceful countryside”. It’s a beautiful and tranquil place just a few minutes ride away from the beach. Jos showed us his work as we enjoyed drink and we got to know him a bit better as he talked about some of the background about his work and himself. When we’d first met him at the silent disco he seemed like the artist type, quiet, softly spoken and a sensitive way about him. However when we met him at the beach and talked him to at the cafe he revealed a few surprising details about himself which made his work all the more interesting and remarkable. Jos had spent over ten years in the British army, have served in the European conflicts of the 1990s, as well as serving in Iraq. Having suffered a serious injury to his leg, which at one point had been causing so much physical pain that the doctors had considered amputation, he was determined to rehabilitate himself and worked his way to being fit enough to walk again without any support. It was at this time that he picked up a pen and started drawing. This was the other part of his rehabilitation, having mental scars to heal as well as physical. It provided both a way to pass the time and an outlet express himself during his physical recovery. Incredibly, this was the first time he’d ever done anything artistic, an ability he never knew he’d had and it was only after a friend had commented on work that he even considered becoming an artist.

Since his recovery he has travelled, notably in the North of India, taking his pens with him and is now staying in Palolem for a time as he tries to establish himself as an artist. However, not content with just taking on the challenge of making a living from his art, he has taken up an offer from Master Lee to train for the national kick boxing championship in India at the end of the year. Master Lee is probably worth another blog entry in itself if I had all the details and is another fascinating character we have met here in Palolem. After special permission from his fellow masters, he is on a quest to go out in the world to use his healing powers for anybody that needs it. On meeting Jos, Master Lee worked his magic and has cured him of the remaining pain and problems from his injuries that wouldn’t go away from conventional physiotherapy. So, upon being offered to start training with Master Lee over the next nine months Jos couldn’t refuse, such is the privilege. Many martial art students from all over the world who are highly skilled themselves have asked to train with Master Lee and been refused. However perhaps in Jos’s case Master Lee sees a blank canvas (excuse the pun) which he can mould to truly test how effective his own personally developed style of combat is.

After talking to Jos he really seems to be on true journey of personal discovery and as he makes this journey he is capturing it in his art which I think (and I’m sure Maren agrees) is producing some beautiful work. As you can see it has a psychedelic appeal, with vivid colours packed with detail that represents both the physical places been to and his personal feelings. They are the kind of works you can just look again and again, finding something new each time. All of this for me makes it very representative of India and is exactly why Maren and I were set on buying something. We can already visualise it sitting on a wall in our home (wherever that may be) reminding us of our travels together and since we’ve met and learnt a little about the person that created it, it will be that little bit more special.

Jos’s website is currently undergoing an update, but can be found at http://www.josshoponeoone.com/ and when I hear that it’s up and running I’ll mention it again, however Jos kindly let us take a few pictures today and you can see larger versions in the Palolem photoset.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Palolem

Silent Discos

Palolem, like the rest of Goa has a midnight restriction on any loud music outdoors. However, rather than bribe the local police as they do at the party places in North Goa, the outdoor clubs in Palolem have come up with another solution: Silent Discos. We’d already been given the low down from our friend John, a long term resident here who explained that when you go to the clubs you rent a pair of wireless headphones which have two or three channels of music which you can choose to listen to whilst on the dance floor. Neither Maren or I could quite get our head round it, thinking that it must be very strange (as I’m sure many of you reading this are), but after being approached a couple of times on the beach by people promoting the clubs, we decided to go along and see what it was all about.

And strange it was! As you get close to the club and walk in the first thing you notice is a complete lack of music which has been replaced by the noise of many people talking and the sight and sound of people shuffling on the dance floor all wearing headphones. We quickly rented a couple of pairs of headphones for ourselves so we could join in. On channel A they were playing cheesy pop classics and on Channel B it was dance music that was mainly of the (bad) electro house variety. The first game we started as we sat down and enjoyed a drink was to guess which channel each person on the dance floor was listening to, which in many cases was easier said than done but a lot of fun. We were struggling with one guy in particular, who we eventually decided was listening to the cheesy pop, at which point he approached us and said “I hope you know which channel I’m listening to, as if you can’t work it out that means I’m a really bad dancer”. This was the first friend we made that night, Tobias, a TV producer from Denmark.

The whole club feels like one big social experiment and gives you some very interesting, if sometimes unwanted, insights into human behaviour in a club. The first was listening to the sounds coming from the dance floor that are normally drowned out by music booming from the speakers. Perhaps if you wanted to measure how good a piece of music was for a party, you should just measure the level of volume coming from this dance floor as each track was played. The whoops, hollering and people singing is very odd thing to hear by itself. When a particularly popular piece of pop music came on, half of the dance floor would sing along. However imagine the kind of singing you hear from someone when they are listening to something on their iPod and multiple that by a hundred odd people who are getting increasingly drunk. And whilst one half of the crowd is singly along (very badly) to Living on a Prayer, the other half are trying to look cool dancing to house music. As a result the dance floor and the party itself feels disconnected and there isn’t really a unified soul to the party. In fact every group of people at the party seems to be having their own party, which I guess is usually the case at any club, but in this environment you are painfully aware of it and can easily get sucked into each different vibe from each different group. What is also really odd, is you notice all the things that music normally drowns out, like every single drunken conversation, especially the more argumentative ones which isn’t particularly pleasant.

And, as was the case with a Russian guy that had one too many to drinks, when someone falls over crashing into people and a table, you can hear every bone crunching sound as their arse hits the floor. In short, the ugly side of people drinking is amplified by the lack of sound to drown it out. Even going to the toilet is a weird experience, with the silence that is normally present at the urinal even more awkward, as you hear every sound made by men having a piss. For me though the funniest thing was that the place was so quiet that there was even a dog asleep on the dance floor, which made for a most amusing photo.

That said we had a lot of fun. For the most we danced to the cheesy music as I found it almost impossible to take the place seriously. You can’t get into a dance music vibe when all of a sudden half of the people in the club are jumping up and down singing along to some 80s pop classic. Dance music is very serious business after all. So we joined in with the silliness, able to switch on and off the music as we pleased and when we took a break to have a drink we could engage in some fascinating people watching able to observe all sorts of social dynamics in a new light.

We also met several of our new friends there and made a few more. It was the last night for a Kiwi couple we’d met the day we arrived that were on their honeymoon and they’d dragged along as many people as they could to the club, including half of the staff at their (and our) favourite restaurant on the beach. It was particularly amusing when I lent one of the young Indian guys we know who works nearby a set of headphones so he could have a dance. He could surely battle it out for craziest dancer in Palolem. We also met an English artist, Jos, who does some incredible psychedelic art which will be buying some of before we leave Palolem. Along with him in the odd mix of people was Master Lee, a martial arts expert from Korea who was there with one of his pupils quietly enjoying the night getting stoned. And finally I must mention again, Tobias, who we said was one of the “pockets of fun” in the club throughout the night and was one of the few people we found that seemed to be at the “same party” as us.

Goodbye Arambol, Hello Palolem ...

So, as you might have gathered we’ve left our beach hut in Arambol. Our second week there flew by thanks to plenty of fun, making some new friends and a return to full health.

The first part of the week was largely focused on the two parties I was playing at, both of which were a lot of fun. The first on Tuesday didn’t really go to plan though. Maren, who could never be called shy, enthusiastically flyered up and down the beaches (which I can’t thank her enough for doing) on the day of the gig and the day before. I have to admit I was too embarrassed to flyer for myself, but as Maren seemed to be generating quite a bit of interest, I put in a fair few hours getting together a set list, which for when you play for four and half hours takes a bit of time. In the evening we enjoyed an early meal together before heading out to the bar to setup. When we arrived there was bad news. Overnight there had been a heavy rain storm (which our little beach hut just about weathered although we did have a minor leak) and the main subwoofer for the bar had stopped working properly and was making an awful sound. This has only been discovered half an hour before we arrived and Kosta (one half of the couple that ran the bar) was trying his best to fix it. No matter what he tried the sound was awful. Jane (the other half of the couple that ran the bar) apologised and said she’d understand if I didn’t want to play. It was almost unplayable and I briefly considered leaving, however people had already turned up and I decided to do the best I could, if only because of the effort Maren had put in trying to get people to come along. Maren in the meantime had already gone off to see about commandeering another sound system from one of the other bars. Alas, it wasn’t to be and she was unsuccessful, however everyone she approached had really made an effort and as I played back at the bar, everyone had been understanding and supportive, especially those that had come along especially to see me which was heart warming. However as the night wore on and the drinks flowed it still turned out to be a positive experience. A decent number of people turned up and whilst the sound prevented much dancing action, we both had a great time, talking to lots of people and making new friends. There were even fireworks and a show with a performing dancer and if nothing else we enjoyed free drinks all night.

The day after we hired bikes again so we could travel down to Anjuna for the flea market on Wednesday. It’s quite a spectacle, stretching from the beach front for what must at least half a kilometre. It is however something of a tourist trap, with most of the sellers trying to take advantage of shoppers with many selling their wares above the price you’ll find at the many stalls along any beach in Goa. However Maren certainly wasn’t going to be taken advantage of and when seeing a black top she wanted she bargained hard. An initial price of 350 rupees (a good 100 Rs over any price we’d been given before) was offered, which Maren laughed at and told the seller that she’d give no more than 150 Rs rupees. After several minutes of hard bartering the seller finally gave in as Maren, having not budged from her price one inch, showed him the hard cash and he grudging accepted her original offer.

After wandering around we headed off to the bar at the end of market on the beach, which has a live band every time the market is on. Despite some very dodgy pronunciation of English lyrics (the funniest of which was the Oasis song Wonderwall sounding something like Wanderball), they were excellent. The lead guitarist notably playing some amazing solos in every song they played was genuinely talented. Then afterwards we headed to Curlies where we’d spent NYE. Never one to miss an opportunity, we spoke to guy that was running the place and how easy/hard it was to play a DJ set there. It turned out, that we were in fact speaking to Curly himself. Unfortunately, due to a police raid there was to be no party tomorrow and Saturday’s line up was complete but he’d let us know and he got someone to listen to one of my mixes that I had on my phone. In the meantime we sat down on the beach to enjoyed a cold beer and we bumped into the beggar with the missing leg that I’d given money to on NYE and after we offered him a drink so he excitedly joined us for beer and we got to know him a little better. Not long after we also spotted Manoj (pronounced Manush) walking along the beach who was one of the new friends we’d made at Psy Bar. Manoj was on holiday in Goa before taking up a new job in Bangalore. Originally from Mumbai, he had just moved back to India having lived in San Francisco for the last twelve years. We invited him over to hang out for the sunset. Afterward we introduced Manoj to a “Bread Omelette” (which I described in an earlier post) and headed back to Arambol together.

Thursday was the day of the second gig, this time at Coco Loco. This is the main party bar in Arambol and I had no worries about the sound system this time, since we could hear it booming across the beach every night from our hut till late. Maren worked the beaches again in the afternoon and I, having not really played much trance recently, spent a long time re-familiarising myself with my tracks and building up a set list. We had an early dinner again and this time we hoped things would go better. On arrival, there was an initial panic over the mixer since it was one that was designed more for live music rather than DJing. However, other than having to cope with an unfamiliar clunky mixer with far more inputs than required this time I had a real system to work with. Things started off slowly, but as it got later more people turned up and after being given the green light for more “boom boom” from the bar owner, I began to unload with some of my favourite music. Maren had sussed out that the bar owner and staff didn’t really have much understanding of dance music genres, so I played a couple of spells of techno along with everything else. I had so much fun and it seemed quite a lot of other people did too and at the end of the night the dance floor was rocking. However, just as everyone was getting involved another police raid, this time at Psy Bar cut the party a little short. The bar owner wasn’t taking any chances with loud music past twelve so asked me to stop playing. However in short, I got to play pretty much every one of my favourite tracks from progressive house, trance and techno in one night, over a great sound system, all whilst on holiday in Goa. I couldn’t possibly moan about that. We also enjoyed another night of free drinks and made some more new friends. So a great night all in all.

On Friday we headed to Panjim (recently renamed to Panaji), the capital of Goa. We’d made plans to go with Manoj earlier in the week as he was keen to take us to a really good Goan restaurant that he’d been given a recommendation about and it was a good excuse to have a walk around the town. Also, coming along for the ride was Maren’s friend Malen and one of our new friends from the party at Coco Loco, Matja, a back packer from Slovienia who had been in India for the last four and half months. Maren had however been introducing him as being from Finland and after much joking we decided that we must all be from Finland and so the Finish Touring Group was born. Initially there didn’t seem too much going on when we arrived late in the afternoon. The town itself is more than just a tourist town but is still heavily influenced by tourism. This is the main port for fishing boats, which supply the majority of the fish to the rest of the state, particularly North Goa. There are also some large cruise boats that leave here so tourists can go to gamble, which is normally illegal on the mainland. The most notable building in the town itself is the Christian church, which with its Portuguese heritage gives the place a bit of a European flavour. We all split up to walk around the place and after getting back together, Manoj had found a tiny bar that he wanted to take us to so we could sample the local liquor of Goa. After a quick visit to the Hindu temple around the corner, we squeezed into the bar and the couple that ran the place provided us all with a glass of Fenni. It’s a rather odd and not particularly pleasant drink, almost clear white which is made from cashew nuts but with a mixer it’s not undrinkable. I enjoyed the pickled mango that that we ate with the drink far more. The old couple, Susan and Francis were also really nice. Susan and Francis aren’t the names you’d typically associate with Indian people but it’s common in Goa due to the Christian population. Afterwards we headed off to the Ritz Classic Cafe, the restaurant Manoj planned to take us to. It was far more upmarket than most of the places we’d been to in Goa with smartly dressed waiters and air conditioning cooling the rooms. However, it was certainly no more expensive. In fact after ordering some of the freshly caught fish that were presented to us on a platter, we’d got twice as much fish as we would have done at one of the beach restaurants in Arambol and had far too much food. That said we did a pretty good job of eating most of the red-snapper and king fish that we had ordered which was served up both grilled with a tikka marinade and as a curry. It was easily the best meal that I’ve had in Goa and India so far.

On Saturday, the Finish Travel Group got together again this time to head round the beach to the Sweet lake and follow a path into the jungle to find the Banyan tree, which was an large old tree where some Indian hippies supposedly hung out, along with Westerners that found their way there. Goa’s brand of spiritualism is much like you’d find elsewhere in India with people sharing food, singing mantras and gathered round a fire. However the Goan twist (at least in this particular case) involved chillums being passed round at very regular intervals, led by the Indian Baba of the group inhaling as deeply as I’ve seen any man smoke

Afterwards we made our way along the path to stop for a bath in the stream that flowed back down to the sweet lake. Some locals helped out in applying what is said to be a very beneficial mud all over our bodies and then we dried off in the afternoon sun before washing off (with the frogs) in the water. As you can see this made for a great photo.

Sunday was our last day in Arambol, having decided that we were going to south to Palalim. We were sad to be leaving having got very comfortable at the Coco Huts. It was a pleasure to be looked after by the extended family that ran the place and we loved starting the day having breakfast at the restaurant with the view over looking the beach every morning.



Our final meal there was one of the best. Manoj and Metja joined us and we enjoyed a nice bottle of Indian red wine which Manoj has bought as a gift a couple of days earlier after Maren had said it was one of the things she had missed.

The next morning we were up early and enjoyed our final breakfast at the Coco Huts, before setting off to take the bus to Palolem. Despite having to change three times along the way in Mapusa, Panjim and Margao, it wasn’t a bad journey and we arrived just in time to enjoy the best sunset we’ve seen since we arrived in Goa. We now have a new hut, and a new breakfast sea view and having already made a few friends, it looks like we might get very comfortable having swapped one paradise for another.

To check out the photos there are new images added to the Arambol and Anjuna photo sets along with 3 new ones.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Arambol
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Anjuna

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/PsybarAndCocoLoco
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Panjim
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Palolem

Kris's guide to Goa ... so far

Partying

I have to say I've been very pleasantly surprised by the party scene. It's certainly nothing like the white-wash of psy-trance I expected and whilst that is still the dominate genre of music here (and some how just seems right for the vibe of the place) there are plenty of parties playing all kinds of music. After a very quiet new year's day we went out to meet up with Maren's Indian friends for another night out. The first place was a stereo-typically Goan venue, an open air club up on a cliff looking out down to the beach called Nine Bar, which was unsurprisingly playing psy-trance. It's cool venue and after a few beers, we were all dancing away to pounding psy-trance along with the ever increasing crowd until things closed at ten. However, the next party took me completely by surprise. We drove half an hour north from Anjuna/Vagator to a bar located in the hills in Morjim. The venue was on two levels, the lower half normally being a restaurant was the chill out area, whilst going upstairs took you on to the roof, where there was an open air dance floor, along with a swimming pool and bar. The crowd was largely made up of trendy looking Indians and Russians and once again to my surprise they were playing techno. I soon discovered it was the same DJ that had been playing at Curlies on NYE, he along with two other DJ played five hours of sort of techno I dream about with at least ten tracks from my own personal mixes alone. An amazing night dancing in the moonlight. And it seems that this is not abnormal, with bars and clubs playing all the kinds of music you'd expect to find in Ibiza. Perhaps Goa is losing it's dance music soul, but I for one am not complaining.

Beach Huts

The day after the party in the hills we had to check out of our nice hotel in Anjuna. We planned to head about forty minutes north to Arambol where one of Maren's new friends, Marlen, (who she'd met on the train to Kerala) was staying. It was time to downgrade to more modest and sustainable accommodation and we checked into same place that Marlen was staying on the beach called Om Star, however we quickly moved to some beach huts located on the hills at the north end of the beach for various reasons, one of which I'll go into more detail shortly. The huts whilst very basic are romantic. You can clearly hear every wave crashing on the shore (which I can hear as I write), and the view (as you can see) is beautiful.

Dogs and Cows

There are lots of dogs here which roam the beaches and streets most which seem to have no owners. Whilst most of them are dog-eared mutts that probably have fleas, they look like they get enough to eat and seem healthy. They are also seem well socialised and rarely cause a nuisance, normally looking for little more than some shade under your sun bed.

During our last night at Om Star one of these dogs found it way in the alley beside our rooms in the middle of the night and was from the sound of it's howling in incredible pain. I have never heard such an awful sound of suffering from any living thing. It wasn't long before the people in the rooms closest to the stricken dog came out to investigate. There was no obvious physical damage and so it was thought that the dog was badly poisoned. I was pretty certain what needed to be done from the start before those that had gone out to see the dog had exhausted all other options. Calls were made to try and contact some sort of animal rescue, but predictably there was no answer given the time of night. Attempts were made to make the dog more comfortable but they rarely resulted in anything more than a minute of calm before the unearthly howling began again. So there was only one option to end the suffering which is why I didn't want get involved as I didn't want the responsibility. A Israeli guy planned to put the dog out of it's misery by smashing the dog's skull with a huge rock but couldn't bring himself to do it and so began get himself drunk so that he could. However, after several long hours, it was one of the long term residents, a retired middle aged east Londoner called Dave that took it upon himself to strangle the dog, and with a final grotesque howl the night was silent once more. Everyone involved, including ourselves were traumatised, it was a horrific night.

The other animal you'll regularly find on the beaches of Goa are cows. It is certainly an odd sight to begin with as it's not the kind of environment you'd think they'd even like but they seem pretty happy to spend the day by the sea in the hot sun.

Get a scooter

A couple of days after settling into our beach hut we decided to rent scooters so we could properly explore North Goa. On the first day we set about heading back south to Calangute, stopping along the way for refreshment in Anjuna and visiting the beach at Baga. Calangute is probably the most commercial part of Goa popular with those booking package holidays back in Europe and the new wave of middle class Indians. On the second day we planned a more daring trip to Old Goa. To get there would take us over an hour and through one of the busier towns in Goa, Mapusa, and along one of the few highways thus requiring the compulsory wearing of helmets. Aside from having to negotiate a swarm of traffic in Mapusa it was a fairly easy ride though we must have taken the long route when confusingly we didn't leave Old Goa from the direction we'd came in.

Old Goa itself was interesting. We expected that it would be like visiting the "Old town" of a Mediterranean island, but that wasn't the case. Old Goa is largely a monument to the Portuguese occupation that lasted over four hundred years, the Portuguese having only being finally kicked out in the 1960s. At it's peak Old Goa rivalled Lisbon as a centre of power and was bigger in terms of population than many of the major cities in Europe including London. The main visitor attractions are the churches which still stand of which we saw three. One is still in use today, another which has been turned into a museum and a third which is in ruin and the site of a major archaeological dig. These along with much of what remains of the city have been a world heritage site since the 1980s. The striking thing about Old Goa is how much the place reminds you of a European city with wide straight roads, open grassy spaces and Mediterranean trees spread out between the important buildings.

After Old Goa, we headed west towards the coastline along the Mandovi river towards the Aguada Fort, one of the many and the strongest of the Portuguese forts that can be found along the coastline of Goa. The views across the river mouth are quite spectacular and the fort itself is quite impressive being largely intact.

The beaches

As the afternoon began to draw on, we headed along the coast north back towards home with plans to check out a couple more of the beaches in Goa, this time in Morjim and Asvem to catch the sunset and check out a warm up party at one of the beach clubs for a major event that was happening later that night. The beaches are amazing in Goa, and there sometimes seems no end to the wide sandy coastlines. Morjim and Asvem are no exception, in fact they are probably two of the most beautiful I have seen. Morjim has become a popular destination for the Russians and has a largely unspoilt beach that stretches for a good couple of kilometres. At Asvem beach you can walk out a few hundred metres in the shallow waters and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and a cocktail at a bar called Shanti.

Being Ill

So, if you are now green with envy back in the cold at home, let me give you some small consolation. Our stay in Goa hasn't been perfect as unfortunately Maren and I have both being suffering from a stomach bug for the last few days. Hence this is why my guide to Goa doesn't have much to say about the food as we've been largely sticking to safe dishes whilst we get better, but I'm keen to eat more of the freshly caught fish that is cooked up along the beach restaurants here in Arambol every evening.

The hippification process

Perhaps I haven't mentioned, but Goa has a large hippy (read crusty deadlock deadbeats) element and hippy merchandise is on sale wherever you go in Goa, from clothes, to necklaces and earrings, all kinds of colourful fabrics for sarongs, bed sheets and whatnot. Maren has already added a couple of kilos to her backpack since she has been in India and having run out of things to buy herself, she's started encouraging me. So far, I have a couple new sleeveless tops, a couple of necklaces, a bracelet, a new silver ring with a mantra (OM Namah Shivaja) engraved on it and pair of Thai fisherman's pants which she was determined for me to wear. Also, since my watch finally gave up working I'm in no rush to get a new one. Worryingly, I've been quite happy to go along with things and it might not be long before I'm able to seamlessly blend in with the hippies.

Getting Gigs

Lastly, I have to mention that tomorrow I'm going to playing at my first ever DJ gig at one of the main bars in Arambol and just a couple of days later I'll be playing again at another venue (perhaps the biggest for DJing in Arambol). There isn't a massive party scene here unlike down in Anjuna and whether anyone will come remains to be seen as the number of people on any given night seems to vary wildly, but Maren and I will be flyering up and down the beaches over the next couple of days. Either way I'll get to play my own music for at least four hours each night, playing techno on Tuesday and trance on Thursday and enjoy a couple of free drinks at the bar. Check out my very first flyer below! I only wish some of you could be here to enjoy it with Maren and I.

Here are the links to the latest photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Anjuna

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Arambol

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/NorthGoaScooterTour

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/OldGoaAndTheFort

NYE 2009 - The most magical night of my life

Wow. The first thing I need to write about Goa is my new year with Maren. It deserves a post all to itself. Quite simply the most fantastic and special night of my life. It really felt like a fair tale at times and it could not have been more perfect. After getting off the train at Thivim it took just over half an hour in a taxi to our hotel in Anjuna. I was relieved to find that the hotel I'd booked online was every bit as nice as the pictures on the website had suggested and after dropping off our things we headed to the beach to have a meal in the afternoon sun with a beautiful sea view. We'd both decided that since we'd just just arrived and that apparently getting around anywhere at night had become a nightmare due to traffic we'd keep things simple and spend our new year in Anjuna rather than try to meet up with any of Maren's friends that were elsewhere in Goa. So after we'd eaten we took a long walk along from the very north end of Anjuna beach down to the south end to check out one of the potential options for the night, a beach bar called Curlies which is something of an institution in the Goa party scene. When we got there it was late afternoon and we shared a few beers before deciding that this was definitely the place that we wanted to be. As the sun was setting we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go out.

By the time we'd left the hotel, it was dark and as we walked back to the beach I started to really understand what Anjuna, Goa and the psychedelic trance scene was all about. Along the beach is bar after bar, each blaring out thumping psy-trance and each lit up with colourful lights and decorations which you can see all down the coastline against a backdrop of silhouetted palm trees in the night sky. It is truly a sight to behold. We stopped half way down the beach to have drink at one of the bars and take in the atmosphere that was beginning to build. We didn't stay long before continuing the walk back to Curlies and as we approached the place had completely transformed from what we'd seen during the day. Curlies, as with most of the bars along the south end of Anjuna beach is raised up off the shoreline. At highest point is the bar and to the right of the bar a stage for the DJ or band who might be playing. As you work your way down there are tables and chairs under cover on one side and a large open dance floor on the other until you come to the edge of marquee like cover where the descent back to the beach is made up of several large ledges on which people sit or stand on. These ledges form something like an amphitheatre to the beach. Once you are back on to the beach, there is a hive of activity, where tens of small stalls are set up mainly cooking food over open stoves and selling cigarettes. When you look from the top, it really is an amazing sight. There are colourful lights everywhere, with strips of leds in red, green and blue outlining the structures of the bars. Also an almost full moon lit up the shore with natural light along with the fires all along the seafront as the stalls cook their food. As for the people, there is a huge mixture from local Goans to tourists from the big Indian cities, along with westerners from many different countries and a strong Russian element. There are the young and the beautiful who are here to party and there are families as well and they vary from the very rich and to the very poor. All of this to a background soundtrack of throbbing pulsating basslines from the huge sound systems of the bars. The atmosphere that it creates is quite unlike anything I've every experienced before.

After getting a drink from the bar, Maren and I sat on a pair of chairs on the top ledge over looking the beach surveying everything going on in the ever growing kingdom below. Soon we got talking to man from Dubai, who as a Muslim so wasn't indulging in the same way as Maren and I, but was quietly enjoying himself. I found myself in one of my philosophical moods chatting to him about all sorts of things and sharing personal beliefs. At one stage we were talking about materialism and I was talking about how some of the best experiences in life can be free like this amazing party at the beach and some could be very expensive and I gave a driving a sports car like a ferrari as an example of one of the expensive ones. He was then asked what car I would like and I said that I would love to drive a Lamborghini and then he asked what colour and then I could have sworn that he said he would arranged it if I wanted it. I wasn't sure if I had misheard or misunderstood over the loud music or I had had one too many drinks, but as I looked at him again he did look like he had money, he was wearing a very expensive looking watch and jewellery and though his clothes were casual they were very expensive designer clothes. I suddenly felt very self conscious and explained what I just thought I'd heard to Maren. She unsurprising thought it was some what dubious, but there was a slightly strange air about him and it was fun to think it was true.

It was at this point that we started to talk about the music that was playing and I complained that psy-trance wasn't really the genre of music that I would listen to given the choice. However, Maren told me to listen and it really sounded quite good, in fact, it wasn't dissimilar to the kind of techno I have been getting into myself recently. The more we listened, the better it sounded and I realised it was in fact techno and not psy-trance so we made our excuses to the "fake shiek" and decided to head to the dance floor. Maren needed to visit the bathroom before we started dancing and in the time she left me, all my musical wishes had come true. Before I'd even had chance to ask the DJ whether he had any tracks from one of my favourite producers, Spektre, he had already started playing their remix off "P.S. You Rock" (for my fellow Spektre heads he also played Rabbithole a bit later on as well) which I have literally fantasized about playing out to a large crowd myself or just being lucky enough to hear it played in a big club. And this DJ was doing exactly that on NYE, in Goa of all places and when Maren returned we danced away to amazing techno.

The next time Maren left me alone, another amazing transformation had occured. I'd properly got my dancing shoes on by now (anyone that has been clubbing with me will know what I mean), and I was dancing on the stage by the DJ along with some of local Goans guys who seem to take their dancing seriously. As I looked around me I'd noticed that several of them were copying my every move on the dancefloor. I had an every increasing army of dancing clones! When Maren returned I showed off my new dancefloor powers. It was one of the funniest and most fun times I've ever had dancing. However, just as my ego began to get carried away thinking that I would soon have half of the dance floor under my spell like the pied piper, a wave of utterly drunk Irishmen came and destroyed my fun, preventing anyone from dancing properly within several metres as they bumped and felt over everyone around them using each other and anyone else to prop themselves up to remain vertical. Maren and I decided that only extremely camp dancing would repel the invaders, so I massed my troops in an effort to make them leave, however it was not long before the majority of us were ushered off the DJ stage as they turned it into some kind of VIP area as midnight approached.

Maren and I decided to take a breather and get out from under the cover and look at what was going on down by the beach. In the time we'd been away, the number of people had almost doubled and entire beach was a heaving mass of activity. If you enjoy people watching like me you could be entertained for hours and hours. However, we headed back inside to dance once more as midnight approached as the music was unlikely to stay the same after the DJ finished his techno set, so we ended up right back at the front to see in the new year.

When the clock finally reached midnight the music stopped and fireworks on the beach began and everyone moved outside to get a view. This only made the view along the beach even more spectacular. This was obviously the biggest night of the year for the pyrotechnic guys gathered on the beach and they put on an amazing show. It wasn't the size or scale of the fireworks that was impressive, but the intricacy and the array of colours made it so spellbinding. Also it was being electronically timed to the psy-trance sound track that now was playing again from the bar so as the music ebbed and flowed during the breakdowns the fireworks did too. And not only were there fireworks right next to us on the beach, but fireworks were lighting up everywhere along the coast as far as the eye could see. As Maren and I watched together I realised that this was the most amazing new year I'd ever experienced, made all the more special with who I was sharing it with. As the fireworks reached their finale Maren and I let out a scream of joy as loud as we possibly could along with many others who were watching.

Afterwards Maren and I found a place to sit down on the beach and I told her just how much tonight meant to me, how much I loved her, how I'd never felt so happy in all my life and that I wanted us to remember this night and how we felt forever. I just felt so amazingly lucky and fortunate. It was then another bit of magic happened. A beggar approached us, which happens regularly in Goa and many parts of India, especially when you are a relatively rich westerner. There are all types, from the religous Sahdus to young children carrying babies looking for a hand out. Perhaps the most difficult to ignore though are the badly crippled and then man that approached me was in a bad way, with a leg missing and his other limbs servely crooked so much so he was only able to move around using all three of his limbs at the same time. Maren had not seen him and told to ignore him, as we could easily be mobbed if we started handing out money, but tonight after experiencing so much joy I could not ignore him. I didn't have any small change, so I just reached into my pocket and gave him the first big note I could find but more than the money I suddenly felt compelled to give him a hug. A proper hug that I really meant and he hugged me back, and for that brief second I really felt that he understood that I really meant it. Afterwards, after I explained to Maren what had happened (and she'd seen him and understood why I'd given him money) I really wasn't sure who had got more from the exchange but it had touched me in a special way and was yet another element of the night that I will never forget.

We sat and soaked up the atmosphere for a bit longer before making our way along the beach back to our hotel. The beauty of the views along the coastline had not dimished, flurorent lights lit up the bars all along the shore and fireworks could still be seen going off occasionally up and down the coast along with green lasers shooting out into the night sky. The full moon was so bright we could easily see our own moon shadow as the waves crashes along the shoreline in front of us. We stopped along the way to buy one of the snacks being cooked up by the food stalls we'd been curious about all night. It was a kind of sandwich made from something like a pita bread, fried eggs, salad and cheese with a squirt of tomato chilli sauce. It was most enjoyable. As we walked we passed bar after bar still celebrating the new year with loud music and dancing. In fact it was almost impossible to find a quiet spot along the beach, but as we searched for somewhere to stop at for a quiet drink we came across a small authentic looking restaurant which was an oasis of quiet and calm and was the perfect place to end the night. We ordered a masala chai (which was incredibly sweet even by Indian standards) to drink whilst we reflected on the night. It was simply incredible and the most fun I've ever had. I've never laughed and smiled so much and I've never felt so happy or felt so in love with someone. The whole night had felt like the universe had made it all happen for one very special night for the two of us and we gave our thanks. Perhaps it's a bit more personal than what I planned to write here but I wanted to try and capture just a little of what the night meant to me and Maren.

Happy new year and love to you all.