GoArge

I meant to make this post a gigantic yet coherent, doggedly adjective-free narrative relating everything that Goa was and wasn't, all that it did and stopped short of, in exasperatingly neat, chronological order, but I'm decidedly going to lapse into disorder and disarray, not in the least because Blogger doesn't make it fantastically easy to move pictures around. Far from. And I'm exhausted. And terribly afraid that if I don't write soon, it'll all just evaporate. The words, the events, the memory of it all. Heck, even last night (which has now become the night before last), as I tossed and turned in a half-hearted attempt to surrender to sleep and stop obsessing about the cockroaches tramping about happily over my sleeper-class train berth, the words just kept flowing in my head. Madly, they gushed, poured, screamed out of every pore, until I thought I'd explode. How much I ached to write! It didn't matter that barely any of it made sense, even in my head. Just random phrases, colours, and music, blinding light, little scraps and twinges of emotion, vast expanses of nothingness exploding with haphazard, scurrying words. Scrabbling about, without purpose or direction, vehemently pointless. Like this entire paragraph. And those goats.

Round 2: Let me try again.

After a thoroughly eventful/unnerving/boggling first day in Goa, encompassing, among other things, our first glimpse into the soggy, squelchy, disarmingly green days that lay ahead, we finally relocated to the prettiest little 'hotel' in Calangute. Raman's, at six-hundred rupees a night for a modest double with stubbornly sickly yellow lights, isn't your standard, shoestring Arambol-esque hovel. Still, shameless laziness, weariness, and a general reluctance to have to shovel a day's worth of sand into a thoroughly disagreeable, insect-infested, and gloomy abode entailed that we handed out the green to the caretakers of this quaint lodge without much mental anguish. An undeniable bonus was the fact that the orange beach is the tiniest hop away from Raman's. A visit to Tito's is slightly more... ahem... strenuous at about five hundred metres, and a trek to Infantaria (more about that later) takes about twenty minutes at a geriatric pace, just the right distance to whet a most obliging appetite.

(Okay, I'm going to do this backwards. Or randomly. I simply cannot be bothered with moving around hellknowshowmany pictures, which are starting to look so similar I can barely tell one from the other. Green, beige, grey. Red. Some blue and black. Lots of votr, rain and sea. And so many dogs!)

Thivim station, like nearly every Goan beach, is amazingly clean by Indian standards. Five days, and yet I remained befuddled. It's inexplicable how the entire state has managed to keep from plunging to the depths of filth that a city like Bombay seems to embrace so mindlessly. Somehow, most Goans and the gazillion tourists that visit each year continue to steer clear of that uncomfortably-familiar trait that is public apathy, particularly in matters relating to basic civic sense and a sense of ownership of anything lying beyond the four walls that encompass 'home'. At Fort Aguada, I actually counted the trash tossed over the bastion and onto the rocks below -- five banana peels, one plastic bottle. One non-biodegradable piece of trash. I'm embarrassingly impressed.

Fort Aguada is absolutely, manically gorgeous, without question. Entirely inept on two-wheelers (alright, four-wheelers too) and not proud of it, we walked. Everywhere. Plodded on sand, dredged through squishy mud, huffed over little hills, waded between poky plants, killed countless insects and other benign lifeforms, and emerged, stunningly filthy and chuckling stupidly. I'd nearly forgotten how much fun it is to undertake unquestionably foolish activities like hiking in hippie skirts and sandals. But it's always worth it. Always, always. Pristinely opulent stretches of beaches, uncluttered by roasted firangs, leery yuppies, pimpy female masseuses, and shack-touts with wild, crazy glints in their eyes. Vast kingdoms of heaven ruled by sanded dogs and scuttling crabs.

En route to Fort Aguada, we stumbled upon this River Princess. The Goa Lonely Planet guidebook helpfully instructs that this ship ran aground over two years ago and has ever since been entirely neglected. Unwanted, inconvenient, useless and therefore just there. Like some people, it merely exists, and that's all. A mildly interesting blot on the landscape, adding scale and aesthetic value to eagerly captured photographs. It didn't even appear haunted, unless those brightly dressed people waving and hollering at us from the deck were restless, otherworldly spirits. Actually, what were they doing there? Who were they? Strange.

Another 'trek' we undertook the following day was northwards, from Calangute to Anjuna. 'Trek', I say, because what at first appeared to be a moderately uncomplicated seven-kilometre gambol turned into an entirely boggling project, given that the gently undulating beach slowly morphed into weedy rocks, forcing us to look upwards -- at a startlingly green cliff that we figured we would have to clamber over. The initially encouraging trail that snaked deliciously up the cliff started to play truant after a while, with large chunks disappearing without warning, only to emerge cleanly an aggravating fifty metres away, again, positively out of nowhere. A bunch of locals, scaling and descending the cliff with effortless, goatesque skill, watched us, thoroughly entertained. And we obliged, grunting, puffing, wobblily, noisily, with as much grace as elephants on ice skates.

Nearly two hours on, and just before the rain engulfed everything all over again, we arrived. At Curlie's. And to this.

We spent the next several hours at the famous Curlie's, much beyond a cloud-shrouded, invisible sunset, vacantly staring at the leaden sea, the delightfully kooky hippies all around, through wisps and rings of bong effuse, reading, eating, drinking, and wallowing in wordless contentment. Mushroom Jack will have to wait for another cloud-soaked day.

Now about Infantaria, as promised. Located in Central Calangute, this 'Restaurant & Dessert Bar' is undeniably quaint and Irani-hotel-like, rather much like the Sassanian's and Kyani's in Bombay. But there's definitely more attention to interior decoration at this strangely named bakery, even if the odd, mosaic-tiled bench just outside is a puzzling piece of furniture. More impressive, however, is the separate coffee counter within the bakery. (Admittedly, the barista manning that counter really looked like that was his own personal prison... the counter was considerably cubicle-like.) More specifically, the coffee that it produces; I (finally!) had the most perfectly brewed coffee since I've been back... a strong, steamy latte spiked with hazelnut. Add to that a garlicky side of mushrooms with toast, and I was chubbily, insanely, instantly gratified.

The pouring rain followed us everywhere. Chased us off beaches and into rickety shacks, off the road and into squeaking taxis, off the road again and scurrying under oozing tin roofs, forced us to pick at a thoroughly unappetising breakfast near at a nameless shack within Raman's, and spend several hours reading, curled up in chairs like lumpy balls of wool.

And I wouldn't trade that weather for the world. Rain and Goa. Near perfection.