Falling in love with Goa

“Yes, Calangute and Baga are crowded, choking you with vehicle pollution and cacophony of city life you intend to escape from. Anjuna? Come on, everybody who comes to Goa goes to Anjuna. It’s for wannabes. Let’s be a little different. The truth is its expensive. How about Arambol? Well isn’t that for penny picking travelers, drug addicts and hippies. Anyways, lets give Arambol a chance. Let’s go to Goa.”

And that’s how we arrived in Goa and in Aramabol in Goa. The start wasn’t good. But by ten in the night, we had a room we sort of liked. Next morning we were ready to check out and head to Hampi, Kerala, anywhere but here. That is when things began to get better.

We started the day with beautiful walk along the beach that quietened the soul. Where else in the world will you find people hitting the beach to do yoga independently in such large numbers? Well, some of them were looking away from the sun therefore aiming the surya namaskar wrongly, but what the hell, its okay, they had a pursuit of the higher in mind. A bunch of people seated in the sand singing bhajans, some practicing Tai-chi, some walking their dogs and about a hundred others simply running along the beach. None of them was Goan but they all looked like they belonged to Goa. A lot of them looked they may be walking here but are present somewhere else. Most were in deep introspection. What is it about Goa that makes you question life? Is it the new age pilgrimage of the industrialized world?

And hey I realized that those people with dreadlocks, no they are not here to smoke up and drink till wee hours. People with no dreadlocks and corporate jobs are more likely to do that. And those other people in cotton pajamas walking bare feet, they realize how ephemeral life is. And they are here, in Goa, to add a yet more beautiful chapter in their lives for life will wither away anyways.

We spent the day watching people having fun in the water and drinking tea after tea. In the evening, more people gathered along the Arambol beach to watch the sunset. At a distance people huddled around each other, forming a group, playing drums and dancing. Your body and soul follow the music moving with the slow breeze, with the beat of the drum. Oh! its beautiful you say. The good thing is you are still in your cotton pajamas and its okay.

There is a small beach market of long time expats living around Arambol. The artsy jewelry, the leather bracelets, organic soups – they bring along their wares and display them in the glow of florescent lamp shades. They all believe in a dream: a dream that a world without job is possible. That is why we have discovered so many cafes, restaurants, guest houses run by non-locals because Goa makes everything looks rosy again. It makes ‘your own cafes overlooking the sea’ possible. Goa makes you think that a life on your own terms can happen. Of course, that is just why the hippies came here from so far. Because Goa is one of those few places that allow you to dream.

Next day, we returned to the same shack. The food is horrible, we agree. But where else in the world is it acceptable to sit all day at the same spot watching the sun go up in the sky and come down? No matter how horrible the food, I can do this again because that sun looks just amazing when it flickers last time before it evaporates out of sight.

Sometimes you long for food. You realize that there are a million shacks and they all serve awful food. Its time to hire a motorbike and look food searching. Go to Baga, Calungute, Anjuna. What! You want a quiet beach you don’t go Baga and Calungute. So, honey, you don”t go to Baga and Calungute. Don’t go anywhere near them. You just go around them to find that great cafe where the baguettes are to die for, to that great pizza place you found on your way to Anjuna. Yes, Arambol has more bad food places than good ones but even there we eventually found some good food when we looking.

We are so grateful that we gave Goa time. We realized that Goa can’t be your two day whore to pacify your life worn heart but it can be your lover that makes your dreams come alive.

Goa, we love you – not for your beach parties, not for the other illegal substances, not for the dreadlocked hippies and the pot bellied uncles and aunties plunging fully clad into the sea but because you embrace it all and become everything they want you to be, like a true lover.

We spend the loafing around on the bike. In the evening the humming breeze, the beating drums and the sinking sun calls us back to the beach in Arambol. And we return like spell bound lovers. Its been 12 days today but who is counting. We are going to be here for a while it seems.

Read the first part of this article here: https://www.emptyrucksack.com/love-to-hate-goa-12/