Doing Nothing and Dolphins, I think.

I have spent the last week here in a very quiet part of Goa. I am in a place called Dona Paula and it is a small fishing village, facing the Arabian Sea. There is nothing here, apart from the sea, two small hotels, one general store (more like someone’s front room than a store), two bars and a jetty, which sticks out like a spur into the sea and accommodates a few market stalls and a couple of low key tourist shops. There are no Europeans, apart from a French couple I spoke to at the local bar. Mostly the people are from India, either on holiday for a few days, or working or attending a gruelling interview over 3 days. There are a few houses that are quite substantial by Indian standards, but all seem half finished. The house opposite, sitting under coconut laden palms, has a roof of sorts, an amateurish combination of tiles and corrugated iron, put together unevenly, outside walls and windows, but no eaves, so you can see into the building itself. It has inside walls, but no ceilings. The hotel top floor is a work in progress (although no work is in progress), all concrete and steel struts and workers tools, but no workers. Facing the sea, just on the sea wall, are a few dilapidated corrugated roofed cottages, with white or pink washed walls and, just the other side of the dusty track which is the main through road, clothes lines full of clothes hanging above the wayside rubbish. There are lots of stray dogs, as per the norm and also pigs, routing around for whatever they can find. I get the impression that this small, peaceful place may not stay like this forever.

The atmosphere is really chilled and laid back and when I walk through the village to the end of the jetty, passing the market stalls, people say hello, but no-one tries to sell me anything. The hotel is immaculate and fantastic value, the staff are very friendly, the food is great (I’ve had amazingly rich and spicy egg masalas, with chapattis and lovely sweet lassis, or chilli squid or mackerel with banana fritters and the beer is the cheapest I have come across). The sandy beach here is only a 1 minute walk away and very small, perhaps 100 metres long and there are lots of small boats in the bay. It is clean, but it is not cleaned, so there is comforting flotsam to pick through; coconuts, a plastic holdall, half buried in the sand, white polystyrene, shells, something medical, with liquid and a syringe, still tightly packaged in its plastic container, broken crabs, a dead fish, dried brown palm leaves. I have spent my time eating and swimming, mainly doing circuits between the boats whose names attest to the predominantly Christian religion in these parts (St Anthony, Friar Agnelo, Infant Jesus). I swim with a hat on, to the bemusement of some. I have no idea where the days have gone, they have simply melted into each other.

Yesterday I went by bus to the state capital of Goa, Panjim (a strange combination of new Indian tall glass offices, lots of banking and run down, Portuguese colonial architecture) and stopped off at a couple of other, bigger beaches on the way back, but I easily prefer the quiet solitude of the local beach, where in the main the only other people are the local boat owners who launch and then land their boats in a daily, sea-driven cadence. It was refreshing to be able to slide back into the familiar warm water yesterday evening. The sea is heavy with salt, so much so that it is difficult to breast-stroke; legs are not deep enough in the water to propel you properly, and you get back ache after a while. Instead, it is easier to lie on your back and just skull with outstretched arms, turtle like, enjoying the warm water at the surface, or descending legs into the deeper, cooler water below. I have seen two dolphins. The one today, in the middle distance, as I was swimming close to shore, occasionally breaking the water with its glistening black back, running in swift circles from left to right. At least I think it was a dolphin. It seemed to lack the angularity of a shark; a smooth, deft, slippery shadow of darkness against the rippling waves. My first instinct was to swim like mad to join it. My second, to stop and return to the shore. As it turned towards me I could only see the fin. Dolphin or shark? Not quite sure, so I swam back to land, watching constantly. It broke water once to my far right and then disappeared.

I suspect Bangkok may be a bit busier.

My beach

Dona Paula Early Morning

The road into Town

Panjim, Church of The Immaculate Conception

Ex-Portuguese Government Buildings - Today's Law Courts. Goa was only liberated from Portugese rule in 1975.

Miramar, Just up the road

 

I prefer my beach, though. Clean, but not cleaned. Perfect!