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!

Varanasi

Varanasi is a truly magical city, but a very strange, mix up of a place. The World’s most continuously occupied city (over 4000 years), it’s located on a wide, Western sweep of the Ganges, facing sandbanks and then jungle beyond. It is a combination of Holy City, faded (almost seemingly derelict at points) family seaside resort, Venice and a large dust bin, where Holy Men lead twice daily Hindu services along the Ghats, people come to wash themselves and their clothes and drink the holy water, where wild dogs fight each other periodically, ranging in warring packs across the marble steps, bodies are cremated on large wooden pyres and where people casually dump rubbish on the muddy banks that remain between the steps that lead down to the greasy water surface. There is life, death and almost everything in between here and it is fascinating.

I agreed to go on a boat ride one evening. It was really weird. There is a big daily Hindu ritual at about 7.30 each evening on the flat section at the top of one of the main Ghats, but it was more like a religious rock concert. There were hundreds of boats in the water in front of the steps, full of people, most of them Hindus, all come to watch the show and pray. Given that I'm not Hindu and I have no idea what it was all about, it was a bit surreal. There was lots of singing and drumming and sitar playing and lots of things with fire, which the worshippers responded to by lighting candles in thin metallic trays, like cake trays but dressed with orange flowers. It was like people holding lighters aloft at a rock concert. There was a big finale, with the music getting faster and faster and five religious men dressed in shiny yellow and orange waving a golden pyramid of fire with one hand and incense sticks with the other. The people in the boats were clapping now and making sweeping gestures with open palms and then bringing their hands together in prayer. I felt an imposter and like I shouldn't be there. I couldn't help notice the large cockroaches scuttling across the inside of the boat. I felt like someone who has just walked into a room full of people watching a soap, where intricate plottings over several months are coming to a dramatic and surprising conclusion, but for me, who has missed every episode of the build-up, it seems to hold no meaning, or indeed, to appear vaguely funny, that contrast between the intensity of the audience and my indifference. For some reason I thought of those brightly coloured, Lycra clad Disco bands of the late seventies and had to supress my laughter. Irreverent, I know, but I just couldn't help it. At the end, unlike a rock concert, there were no shouts for more, no clapping, just the waving of open palms to the sky and then the sound of boatmen talking to each other as they tried to disentangle their boats and then we headed back to the calm, peaceful darkness of the river.

The following day I spend walking along each of the Ghats, which in total must extend for at least a couple of miles. People were really friendly, until I came across the central area where the concert had been the night before. A few people asked me if I wanted a haircut, shave, massage. One guy stood in front of me, impeding my way and proceeded to dig his fingers into my scalp and then my arms. I can handle verbal banter and playfulness, but physically grabbing me really is not good. I proceed to look the guy in the eyes and to reel off the list of things I didn’t want but had been offered that morning: no shave, no haircut, no massage, no opium, no hash, no women, no men, no boat ride, no prayers etc., Sensing my annoyance, hard fingers stopped kneading my shoulders. You have dangerous eyes, he said, but at that particular point in time my eyes were the least dangerous thing about me. I walked over to the shade and sat down. The guy followed and sat down next to me, still asking about the haircut. I had to laugh, admiring his persistence. No, I really do not need a haircut. After a few moments he wandered off after a European couple and I was left to ponder if in fact I did. Probably.

On my way back, in the early evening, I watched a body being prepared for cremation. It was a lady, completely wrapped and tied in a sari, who was laid on a bed of wood. She can’t have been dead for long, as her feet and ankles were still flexible. Then a few layers, perhaps 3 or 4, of wood were placed on top of her and then a very large chunk of wood, a slice of tree trunk about two feet long was placed on top of that, to keep everything in place. There were a few onlookers, but it didn’t seem like there were any relatives. There was no one mourning that I could see. It was squalid rather than romantic or noble. The place was dirty and the ashes of previous fires that had burnt out were scattering across the Ghat by the breeze. A dog scavenged from the rubbish at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t take any photos (they are strictly forbidden from the Ghat itself) and I didn’t watch the burning. I didn’t want to smell the body. It takes about 3 hours to burn a body and the cost is about 5000 rupees. To be cremated electrically, in the run down, concrete cremation building immediately to the left, with cows and chickens outside the entrance, takes about 20 minutes and costs about 500 rupees.

One for you, Pavey. There always has to be one fucking T shirt that has to be different!

That's a person, going up in smoke

Kite Flying. That one's for you. You know who you are! :-)

The Dooleys, Live

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself
Well...How did I get here?