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Thursday, January 30th – arrive in Panaji (Panjim), Goa
In spite of having to brace myself against the rough driving, I manage to curl up in a ball in a way that stops me from falling off the seat. The speed bumps on the highway disappear a few hours before we arrive in Goa and I manage to get a couple hours of sleep. So does Frank.
As soon as there is light in the sky, about an hour before we cross the Mandovi River into Panaji, the capital of Goa, I am awake again and taking in the scenery. But it isn’t until we disembark, load up the bikes and take in the warm sea air that I feel awake. The bus depot is right off the bridge at the eastern edge of town. Like most bus depots, it is inherently devoid of charm, as though the city found the only ugly place in town to put it. But like everything in Panaji, the depot is small and a couple hundred metres towards the centre of town it is quickly forgotten.
The first hotel, the Tourist Office & Home, is that close. It is the cheapest in town but it only offers dorm accommodation. Frank and I are willing to pay a little more to get a decent night’s sleep. We cross a short bridge over the Ourem River and we are in the town proper. Within another 100 m we are the Venite Hotel, the most highly recommended of the cheap hotels in town. It is a two-floor red building, quite unimpressive from the outside, but it has balconies with rod iron railings, a left over from Goa’s Portuguese era.
There will be rooms, the cheery hotel desk tells us, but none of them have been cleaned yet. Not surprising since it is barely 8 am. We are both hungry so we decide to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which is already half full. The residents are mostly Westerners and some of them look a little ragged, like they have been partying hard. The Australian couple, both long-haired, dressed in tie-dyed T-shirts, he in beach pants and she in a flowered skirt, are seated next to us. They are very chatty. Everything about Goa is “cool” they say, which doesn’t tell us much. The breakfast, with eggs and curried rice, is fantastic – certainly more than “cool”.
After breakfast, we sit in the lounge area on the second floor, which has a window overlooking the street. It has mismatched wooden chairs and tables instead of sofas. The walls are adorned with all kinds of graffiti, obviously encouraged by the management, who have left a box a crayons on the main table for that use. It’s definitely “cool”.
Our rooms are ready by 10. After my shower I feel refreshed. Frank joins me in a walk along the riverside promenade which leads to the main part of town half a kilometre away. Panaji, also called Panjim in some of the literature, is supposedly the smallest state capital in India, and Goa is the smallest state with just over a million people. It was owned by Portugal until 1961, when India invaded. It has retained a lot of its Portuguese charm with narrow, winding streets, old houses with overhanging balconies, white washed Catholic churches and numerous cafes and bars. Many of the streets and buildings still have Portuguese names. The town’s atmosphere is relaxed and permissive compared to what I have seen of India so far. I am quite swept up in its charm.
Frank is less so, though I put a lot of that down to his fatigue. He isn’t up to walking as much as I am so he leaves me after a few minutes to return to the Venite to take a nap. Before he leaves, he complains that there are too many hippies in town and that overall it is too Western. Personally, given that I am about to return home, I don’t mind that, though it is certainly nothing like Toronto. It might be compared to Key West though, which I thoroughly enjoyed visiting 10 years ago.
I too am tired by now. I stop at a street café for lunch and coffee and take in the gentle action around me for an hour. Clouds are moving in and a breeze is picking up. I return to the hotel. I have let Frank sleep undisturbed for two hours but now I need a nap. When I wake he has gone out. I find him reading in the lounge. As I am telling him about my walk other guests join us, including Marcia and Craig, the Aussies we met at breakfast.
They invite us to join them at the hotel restaurant for dinner. Frank would like to try one of the many other restaurants in town but they insist that this is the best, especially for the seafood which is caught fresh each day. We both like seafood so we agree to join them. It is a good choice too. I have the curried shrimp on coconut rice and every spoonful makes love to my mouth.
When dinner is over they lead us down to a pub in the Aroma Hotel in the centre of town. Craig is obviously stoned. He invites Frank and I out for a puff in the alley. Marcia isn’t into pot. I detect in her a mild irritation to his smoking. Perhaps Frank does too, for at the last moment he decides to stay with her. Craig stares at me with the indiscretion of a man who is stoned while I’m inhaling a puff. I am not into long haired men, but he has beautiful eyes, made more desirous by the pot. “Are you gay?” he suddenly asks me. “Yes, I suppose so,” I say, not wanting to be dishonest. “That’s cool” he responds. I am not sure if he wants me to say more, or if he is interested. He says nothing more until the joint is finished, and then suggests we should go back. For a while I am nervous that he will say something to Frank, expecting that he is gay too, but that doesn’t happen.
Craig invites us to go to them with to the beach after bar, but Frank wants to get a good night sleep because we will be leaving Panaji tomorrow morning. I could have gone with them but I know he is right. “Well come join us at Miramar Beach tomorrow,” Marcia suggests. Miramar is the closest beach to Panaji, and it is known for its Western hedonism, including some nudity. “We’re cycling out of town tomorrow,” Frank tells them. “Oh you have to go up north to Anjuna Beach,” both Craig and Marcia exclaim. They tell us it is a constant party. “We’ll look into it,” Frank tells them, but on the way back to the hotel he reconfirms that he wants to head south, as far form the partying hippie set as we can get.
PHOTO 1: crossing the Ourem River
PHOTO 2: the Venite Hotel
PHOTO 3: the lounge of the Venite Hotel
PHOTO 4: by the Panaji waterfront
PHOTO 5: colourful house in Panaji
PHOTO 6: street scene in Panaji
PHOTO 7: green house front
PHOTO 8: Our Lady of Immaculate Conception
PHOTO 9: back of the same church
PHOTO 10: Francis Xavier Church
PHOTO 11: another Panaji street scene
PHOTO 12: Portuguese architecture in Panaji
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