Gonna Go to Goa

Having failed to find the magical charm of India, especially in Rajasthan, which people outside India talk so warmly about, but having only found what people actually travelling India berate about endlessly, I had low expectations for Goa.

I had another long night's travel on a bus between Mumbai and Panjim. Due to my ticket being unreserved, I was shifted seat three times with the quality of seat deteriorating each time I moved. I got an hour's rest by curling up into a ball over the seat next me...until it was filled...then I was to sleep upright for 12 hours. The young guy who sat next to me spoke excellent English and even used vocabulary I would only expect of someone who lived in an English family like "shady" and "doze off" using it describe some riff raff at the back of the bus playing incessant music on their mobiles.

I arrived in Panjim around lunchtime. I found the usual shady looking canteen, but being conspicuously full of locals, always delivers fresh food. After a brief stint on the internet, I had found some local numbers of PADI courses (the scuba diving course) in the local area. After a few short calls and a few minutes of my usual fun-sucking indecisiveness, I decided to take the course starting the next day from a local dive shop.

A gentle older man greeted me at the resort and after a quick discussion, I was signed up. Since I didn't have the cash on me or a place to stay, he said he would give me a ride down to the ATM and to a local hostel that was cheap, but very decent, in his opinion.

We walked out to a large range rover. I thought "finally, some comfort travel". Then we kept walking...to the scooter stand. I willingly jumped on the back; my travel bag strapped to my back, I gripped my day pack with one hand and the other around his waist. Whizzing around Panjim couldn't have been more fun. Traffic was the lightest I've seen in India, well paved roads, overhanging palm trees, slow moving water in the distance and small houses zipping by in the foreground.  There could definitely be some charm in Goa, I thought. Though not a holiday hotspot, Panjim's charm comes from the mix of its overtly Portuguese inheritance and tropical flora. It's what I would call tropical suburban (or tropurban for fun).

The hostel he took me to was basic and had more rules than useful staff, but with a student discount, I got a bed in 10 person dorm for just over a pound a night. It had quite a high turnover, with buses of Indians rolling in late at night and gone the next day, obviously on a break to somewhere nicer.

When I arrived, the bed next to mine was occupied by a young Mediterranean looking chap fast asleep. I figured he'd been partying hard in North Goa and was resting a day or two before moving on. I couldn't be more wrong. He was a 30 year old New Yorker...with the hilariously aggressive and nasal NY accent...who had been horrible ill for a few days and was resting up before exploring Goa. Born and bred in Brooklyn, he got into the clubbing scene way to young, but nonetheless would dance from midnight to midday. After being a successful plumber, he gave it up to go to dance school. He was accepted at one of the best in NY and went to perform with Cirque du Soleil. But the dance world is cutthroat, and this began to wear him down. So he settled into a more relaxed life as a yoga teacher, lifeguard, waiter and DJ. He was in India travelling, but also hoping to do a course in Ayurverdic massage. We ate most meals together while I listened to his great stories and shared a not dissimilar view of India.

The PADI course was overly underwhelming. Having dived a lot before, but never having managed to fit in the PADI, I found all the exercises and theory straight forward. The others, though unexperienced and sometimes a little slow, managed easily as well. The first day was spent in class with one pool dive. The second we went out to Grande Island to perform the same exercises in the Arabian Sea.

Quite excitingly, we got to see two cuttlefish mating, with a third that approached to intervene. Though it wasn't quite a private party with four scuba divers watching them mate, I'm not sure what the third cuttlefish expected to get out of his intrusion into the couple's private moment. The male cuttlefish suddenly turned a bright white from a brownish red - a sign of aggression and a warning to the third cuttlefish to back the hell away. It was a sight I'd expect to see only on a well edited David Attenborough tv series.

The third day was back in the classroom and the fourth back at sea where we got to swim around a shipwreck. It was incredibly eerie as the water was very murky, the viz (visibility in the scuba world - I use the term with a pinch of pretentious salt) was only a few metres at best. I almost accidentally touched a scorpion fish, not lethal but incredibly painful; it would have complemented my already badly sunburned shoulders. A lion fish, a sea snail and a few exercises later, I was a certified diver.



The other students included a girl who looked and acted 15, but was 25 (even the dive instructor remarked). Apparently she was a primary school teacher, but she desperately required to babied around...asking annoying unnecessary questions constantly and at a volume only attention seeking children speak at. Remarkably hairy for a girl, her boyfriend, who was her singer teacher from Texas, was over 70 years old. It was a little odd, but hey, as long as it doesn't harm me or anyone else, I'm happy for them.

The third student was a very pleasant Indian guy who worked in the cruise business. We had a good chat about the Maritime Labour Convention and what the cruise industry's reaction to it is. He lived in South Goa and drove everyday, so on the last day of the course, he gave me a lift down to Benaulim where I found a small room...that would eventually fill with very fast moving ants. I thought I had had my fair share of ants in Africa, apparently not.

Tonight I head to Mangalore in Karnataka by train. I've been wait listed, but being the second in line, I hope to get on without too much trouble.