Day 98: Gone to Goa

I knew (and still mostly know) basically nothing about the geography of India. It was only in researching that I realised Delhi and New Delhi are, in fact, the same place. Furthermore, it was only because of the training centre locations that I knew that Goa existed, and that it was nice and had beaches. Based on this knowledge, and a desire to leave Delhi, Goa became my destination.

Outside the travel agent's office in Delhi were the most flies I've ever seen in one place. I don't know why that particular street attracted them so much, it was no more filled with filth and stray dogs than any other. The train ticket gave a departure time and date, and an arrival time, but no arrival date. I asked the travel agent guy if it was, as it appeared, a 16-hour journey. He assured me it was. Twice. This seemed unlikely for 2,100km, and factoring in a bonus 24 hours brought it nicely in line with the 40 that Wikipedia claimed it would take. Wishful thinking won out over logic and rational thought, I bought the ticket. It was the equivalent of ten Euro. Naturally, the journey turned out to be 35 hours long.

The night trains I had taken in China and Vietnam had been pretty OK. Far better than buses, anyway. I could survive this. I had a middle bunk booked. On boarding it turned out that they're folded into the wall until whenever the appointed bedtime is, so the choice was to sit on a crooked seat next to an old lady for 12 hours - bear in mind my lifelong fear of old ladies - or try trade someone for a top bunk (which are always in bed form). The latter was pretty easy to do, since top bunks are undesirable due to being awkward to climb onto, but I was of a mind to see if sleeping for 30 hours straight was a thing I could do. (Result: no, it was not).

On Indian trains, or in my experience of spending 47 hours on them so far, it seems that everyone is pretty oblivious or indifferent to their surroundings. If someone wants to listen to the same music from a crappy mobile phone speaker or laptop for three hours, then by god everyone within a ten seat radius will do the same. If your group happens to be the only one to have suddenly awoken at 4am, then turn on the light and shout so you'll be heard when all of you are talking at once.

They kept us fed well though. There were always guys walking up and down the aisles with samosas (delicious!) or crisps (weird flavours!) or the guy who repeated, Pokemon-like, “coffee, coffee... coffee” as he lugged a tank of it around. When the meals were finished, I couldn't figure out where to put the rubbish. I waited, and when a group just down from me finished, I saw them gathering the remains watched for the procedure. They threw the whole pile out the window. The doors are always open on the train, and on the time I spent dangling out, willing time to pass more quickly, I noticed that pretty much the entire 2,000km track had a consistent pile of rubbish alongside it.

My destination in Goa was Madgaon, which also comes under about six different, similar names. This was just a stopping-over point (there's nothing to do there), and I had the the name of a hostel to crash in for the night. The motorbike-taxi guys who hang around every transportation point and street corner in Asia said it was 6km away, and quoted 50 rupees (75c). About 1km later, we pulled up in front of the building where the hostel apparently no longer exists. Some wandering and more motorbiking later, I found myself in the dingiest place I had stayed on this trip. It was 300 rupees (4.10 Euro, more or less) for the night, the bathroom had dirty water tracked all over the floor, the bed had no sheets and what could only be very charitably called a mattress, and curtains that the ceiling fan prevented from ever closing.

I left the next morning, realising I didn't actually know where I was going. A taxi guy wandered on up and offered to take me the 40km to Palolem for a tenner. He said there was a beach there. I was under the impression that there was a beach everywhere in Goa, and I couldn't remember if this was a place I actually wanted to go (why do I not write these things down?), but it was somewhere, so I went with it.

It turned out to be what I was looking for, and as he dropped me off next to the beach I was besieged by guys with cards offering huts to stay in. I picked one kind of arbitrarily and lugged my stuff a couple of minutes down the beach. The hut is 500 rupees a night (7.10 Euro. I wonder if quickly dividing by 70 in my head is getting any more accurate. I wonder how many currency conversions I can remember. 50 Thai Baht to the Euro, 100 Myanmar Kyat to the USD), and contains a bed with mosquito net, attached bathroom and a ceiling fan.

The weather is perfect. Sunny as hell but without the humidity. I walk daily past the cows into the sea. I read. I skip breakfast and have two meals for lunch and nothing else for the rest of the day. I sometimes poach wireless from “default” when it appears. I grow bored out of my mind. Everyone else is in groups or couples, and I don't want to be the guy who ambles up and says “hey, I'm hanging out with you guys now”. With hostels and tours and the like, there's a communal room, or common ground, or a pool table next to the bar. In Delhi last week I was awake all of half an hour before finding a bunch of people to go look at forts with. Too much time inside my own head. I wonder if I should have spent more time rambling on this instead of taking the lazy route and posting pictures. Maybe more time disconnected from people and the internet and I'd be knocking out 1,100 word entries like this every other day, but becoming more crazy. Time for a break. Delhi Friday, Agra and the Taj Mahal Saturday, Kathmandu by Monday morning. Two weeks from now, I'll be in Canada. I really need to buy some winter clothes before then.

I can hear the sea from my hut. It's pretty nice. As I write that sentence, I can hear a gang of stray dogs freaking out over something. There's something walking on my roof. Time to see about sleeping.