Monday, April 20, 2009

Goa, first time round--last batch

Taking a break after accepting the fact that we weren't in the market for sarongs
Why yes I did take this, thank you very much. :)
An Indian sunset of a different hue
Colors on the coast captivated me.

Getting ready to scoot back to Baga before the sun set--the headdress was a present from Jens--a classy peice of work depicting an eagle, wrapped in the american flag...yes...

Goa 6

The way we came up!

One of Hakon's glamour-shots

Andi, Banks and I

A Parasailor over tibetan flags

Goa 5

The cliffs of Arambol beach--and Hakon in the corner
A view of the beach itself--and the water was like a bath. A really, really salty bath.

The tops of the cliffs were littered with little tibetan, hindu and Christian shrines

Fishing boats on the beach--just having returned from catching our dinner!





Goa 4

A Portugeuse Church in a little town on the way to Arambol
Standard local houses around rural Goa

Fire dancers at the Saturday Night Baazar

Above the baazar--looking down on the sea of vendors

One of the spice vendors who let us sample every single spice before picking out a couple to mercilessly haggle down...

Goa 3

Wandered by my morning coffee (with the Dutchman) one morning!
Just outside our guesthouse door in Baga so we could say our prayers before hitting the beach!

An old tanker and some (nude?) admirers

I got about 30 pictures of THIS...and had a hard time picking the best one

behind banks (behind Jens, behind Hakon and Andi) on our way to Arambol. (See how empty those roads are, mom?) :)

Goa 2

Fort Aguada-built by the Portuguese
Another view of the fort (see notes)

Dinner on the beach--fresh seafood and fireworks and enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away!
I thought this sign was funny

Our guesthouse in Vagator--our first morning before heading to the beach

nine days and counting...

until I take my last exam as an undergraduate!
Sam and I arrived back at Tagore late Saturday night, and something I ate (I blame the inconspicuous jag-fruit from the roadside stand in Kerala) kept me in bed--when I wasn't running to the restroom--all day yesterday. Today though, you'll be glad to know I'm in the clear. Heheh. Anyway.

My friend Sam and I spent the last two weeks traveling around Hyderabad, Bombay, Goa and Kerala, meeting up with Banks, Hakon and his Norweigan friends and Andi and her friend Hanna from back in the States. I think Sam had every Indian experience one could cram into two weeks, and for that, I pat myself on the back. Hopefully his stomach is back to normal by now.

I plan on posting pics from that trip sometime over the next ten days--because on the 28th, I fly up to Dehli with Banks and Charlie for a couple weeks.

But as you may have noticed, I never finished posting from my first trip to Goa...let's see how far I get today.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Goa Pics begin

The beach at Little Vagator
On the way to the beach...

Andi laughing at the boys being owned by the massive waves


Friday, April 3, 2009

Looking ahead

As I mentioned before, I’ll be leaving for Goa again in the next couple days! This next trip is second-to-last and will be the longest one yet…my friend Sam from the UK will be arriving tomorrow, and the itinerary I’ve put together includes two days in Hyderabad, a day in Bombay, a trip on the Konkan Express down the coast to Northern Goa, three days in Goa and then on to Kerala, where we’ll meet up with Hakon and his Norweigan friends visiting and Andi and her friend who’s studying abroad in Italy for the semester. After five days in Kerala, we’ll fly back to Hyderabad and he’s out on the 19th.

Then I have ten days of wrapping up my studies and final exams before I take off on my final trek; Banks and Charlie have been scheming up a two-week tour for the three of us, traveling to Agra-Khujaharo-Varanasi-and then into Nepal for a week.

And then it’s home…

This last week has been full of term papers, guest lecturers and a student theater piece...an impressive small-scale production--best described as an Indian “Revolutionary Road”

There was also an interesting protest/strike the last two days (involving some inadequacy of the health centre?) which caused all classes to be cancelled and all gates to be locked—preventing anyone from leaving or entering. Sounds great—kind of like a snow day, right? But not when you’re trying to access e-journals through the library which booted you out and locked its doors.

Anyway, enjoy the coming of Spring! It's excruciatingly hot here. But just when you've accepted you're about to die on your umpteenth trip up the hill, some sprightly young indian pedals past in jeans and a sweatshirt...and you suck it up.

For now, with love, Alison

GOA! (Pics to come)

I figured it’d smart to write down my memories of our long weekend in Goa before I leave on my second visit there, so the memories don’t bleed together in the haze of Goa’s infamous, all-night beachside raves. J Just kidding. It’s actually off-season for Goa, meaning the most risqué action I’ll be seeing are the old Russian women spread out on the sand with their tops off.

Now that you’ve got that nice visual burned into your brain, let me tell you about Goa.

Flying with Kingfisher to and from Goa was definitely the most lavish part of the trip. Candy and pens and juiceboxes and newspapers and a full meal at 2pm…?? I heard somewhere that their overwhelming hospitality has something to do with an intense competition between them and another Indian airline. Whatever the reason—it was excellent.

We stepped out of the airport and into the HUMID sea air, found a taxi with delightful pink tiger-striped, floor-to-ceiling carpeting, and bumped our way through crowded and colorful villages to a seaside town called Little Vagator. After bargain-shopping for a hostel, (which involved a classic “it’s because I’m white, isn’t it!?” display by Banks) J we dumped our stuff and headed for a rooftop restaurant and our first taste of fenny, a local liquor made form cashews and coconuts. Terrible. Later that night, after dinner and a swim, we met another restaurant owner who had us try some of his homemade fenny. Better.

After the fenny foray and a night with the bed bugs, (not a joke—they keep you up all night, furiously scratching your palms and feet and then disappear as the sun rises) we took off for Baga—another seaside town a bit bigger and more tourist-y. As you can see from the photos, the beaches in Goa really are spectacular. Blazing hot though. The best thing about Baga beach, in my opinion, is the line of restaurant shacks, all with fresh seafood, so you can sit next to the ocean as you have your dinner by candlelight. There were even fireworks one night! We spent all day Friday on the beach, and then tried to tour the (off-season, remember) nightlife. I’m sure we would have had a much crazier night if we spoke Russian; as it was, we had a nice walk around the city.

Saturday we rented scooters and made our way to Aguada Fort, a massive stone structure with a lighthouse, which was built by the Portuguese as a lookout post and a place to store ships. On the way back, we found some local food and Candolin Beach—smaller, more local, and filled with jetskis offering 10 minute rides for hundreds of rupees.

Holi was still being celebrated in Goa, so people would still chuck colors at you as you scooted by.

Later that night, Banks and I found the “Saturday Nite Baazar” which was perhaps the most surreal [“Am I really in India?”] experience I’ve had thus far. It was an enormous bazaar selling every antique, kurta and art piece you can imagine, but the crowds of (estimated 200 000) people were almost entirely European, Russian and British. They had a long line of food stalls of every ethnicity, beer gardens, and evening entertainment featuring a trio of fire dancers. The shopping, my dinner and the atmosphere were so much fun. And Banks even managed to locate our scooter among the thousands when it was time to leave.

Arambol had by far the best beach in Northern Goa; we scooted there after breakfast on Sunday. (Check out the pictures).

We climbed the cliffs to a lookout point (check the pictures!) and later, I even ended up pitching for a cricket game between some local little boys while on a walk on the beach.

Goa was colonized by the Portuguese and the houses are so distinctly by them. I didn’t get many house pictures, but they all have that stucco look with that curvy/funhouse Portuguese architecture. And I’m pretty sure they come in absolutely every color! Beautiful. I’ll try to get more house pictures on my second trip. We stopped briefly at a Portuguese (Catholic) church as well.

I also had some of the most pleasant conversations of my semester with an older Dutch man over some highly sugared coffee in a shop near our guesthouse. This man had been a school principal in Holland for the past 30-odd years, but before that had adopted two Indian children with his wife. After the adoption, he was inspired to start an organization to develop adequate schools in the really rural areas. So he elicited the help of a nuns’ outreach organization, which set him up with a number of communities needing assistance. Since then, he’s made it his second job and devoted all of his spare time to traveling around the Netherlands, giving presentations and raising money to build and support these schools. Every year, he visits them all, and he had albums of photos to share with me, of him and all of his “children”. I forget the amount, but his organization has managed to raise millions of euros, and he was even award the highest Medal of Honor by the Dutch royalty. They also support a battered women’s community, where women can live peacefully and learn practical skills while they rebuild themselves. The man’s energy and drive to work as hard as he could for these children was mind-blowing. I considered our first meeting to be extremely fortunate happenstance; but when I ran into him again, in the early morning hours, again over coffee, before any of my friends were up and I had time to sit and listen—I decided it was a gift. It’s easy to convince oneself that as single person, one is only capable of making small contributions. But when I meet people like the Dutchman, I reaffirm my suspicion that all it takes to do something extraordinary for others is a little bit more energy.