We have to end our trip to India somewhere and wouldn’t it have been lovely if that somewhere could have been Goa.
We couldn’t, but we did decide that this was going to be our time to relax. Since the 14th of December we seem to have been rushing around trying to catch as much of India as we could. Now it was time to slow down.
I know that Goa has more to offer than the beach, but we settled for leaving whatever that more is, for another time perhaps. Only thing is we got so relaxed here it didn’t really go to plan. We were supposed to be ‘looking at’ South East Asia. With all that not looking, South East Asia will now have to take care of itself!
I started this post on our previous last day in Goa, but that was just plain stupid. In a beachside bar, in Goa - gathering your thoughts together.
Didn’t work for me.
I have never thought of us as beach people until we got here. It made us think just how much time we spend by the sea in Scotland, but it rarely feels like a beach holiday, not the way these six days in Goa felt. Of course, here we lie on a sun-bed and someone brings us our beer. To stay half civilised we do walk up to the bar to take our meals, but again unlike in Scotland someone cooks it for us. Goan fish curry, tandoori baked fish and tandoori naan that makes you promise yourself you’ll never buy another Sharwoods when you get back home. Then, I realise exactly why we never classified ourselves as beach people. In Scotland we go to the seashore - this is the beach.
And here we are, four days later back on the beach in Goa and me trying to prove to myself that I can be ‘a man for all seasons’. Of course I don’t think of this journal as work, but a place like Goa makes it hard work to even just gather your thoughts. And the Blue Corner between Sernabatim and Benaulim beaches was an added ‘burden’. The food was great, the beer plentiful and the staff treated us like… Well, like paying customers I suppose, but they did it better than most.
We’ve just had two days in Hampi which is one of the most amazing places we have been to in India. We had even thought of cancelling it and spending an extra few days in Goa. Thankfully we didn’t. I decided from the outset that my posts won’t be long descriptions of the places we visit. All I’m going to say is that this was a city that in the 15th Century was possibly the most populous city in the world at that time, aside perhaps from Peking. Then almost overnight it was abandoned. Our photos could never truly capture the scale and granduer of the place and the landscape it was built in. Watch for the photos anyway and google it if you are interested.
Our trip back here to Goa was through some wonderful jungle scenery which was some compensation for another long delay. Wait, whatever am I saying? Four hours delay in India? On another journey we spoke to a young man travelling to his parents hometown of Kolkota. For him, including the delays, the journey was over 60 hours. The trains are remarkable here, everything about them, but you do need the luxury of time and a different mindset to that we acquire in the UK.
So, another day in the sun (I’ll try to sort some photos), and tomorrow our last train journey in India. There’s a sigh of relief, but no hurrah. I would do it again. Some of our choices would be a little different, but not that much.
You start to miss India, even before you leave it.
