Wednesday, February 15, 2012
20 years ago today - Days 349 to 362 - Vancouver
completion of my trip - epilogue
As I suspected, there are no comments after yesterday's blog, but every story deserves its conclusion and epilogue, even if it is not being read....
I spent the last two weeks of my time away from home (Toronto) in Vancouver. I kept no daily records but I still remember both some of the events and the delight of being back in Canada. I expected a shock, returning from India to the middle of a Canadian winter, but the difference was much smaller than I expected. February is one of Vancouver's wettest months but not today. This year it was mild, sunny and bright. Winter was clearly over. The crocuses and daffodils were just coming out, heralding in spring. Birds were singing and celebrating my arrival home. Although it was cooler than India, it was not that much cooler - a delightful surprise.
Bill made me breakfast the next morning and he took me out for a drive. Gawd, it felt good to be back in this city. The ships in the harbour, the snow on the mountains, the green lawns - it is wonderful place to be when the weather is fine, especially when the rest of the country is still under a blanket of snow. After lunch I pumped up my tires and rode downtown and back, then around Marine Drive to UBC and along Jericho Beach. The air was fresh and clean and scented with flowers. I don't remember Vancouver winter being this lovely but it certainly was this year.
Later, when I returned to Bill's, we headed out for the evening for the Wreck Beach Naked Swim, held at a local pool on the west side of Vancouver. There were about forty people at the swim, about half of them gay and the others straight with children. The women hung out in the whirlpool, the straight men talked sports in the sauna and the gay men played with the children, swinging on ropes to drop into the swimming pool or going down the water slide with them. Everyone seemed to know we were gay and no one minded. They left us with their children gratefully. I was swept up by the beauty of one handsome straight man, and although I tried to be discreet about it, he noticed and was amused. I was horribly embarrassed when he joked with his wife about me.
Over the next few days the weather remained fine. I went for a walk with Bill on Wreck Beach. It was too cool to sunbathe but it was excellent weather for a hike along the beach over fallen logs. I feinted a couple times, unexpectedly, dropping to the sand briefly. I had low blood pressure it seemed, but it turned out that I was anaemic. I found out that I had started and stopped my malaria medicine too often, causing my red blood cells to break down and die. It wasn't too serious. By the time I got home two weeks later the feinting had already stopped, although my blood tests showed that my red blood cells were still down to 75%. It must have been considerably lower when I arrived in Vancouver.
My sister and Bill took me to the Love Affair, a popular gay disco on Howe St, on the second night after my arrival. Linda said she is comfortable with me being gay, but she was not really used to it. One butch guy was rubbing his friend's crotch with his beer playfully. Maybe his beer is too warm, she joked. In reality, I think she found it disconcerting that so many handsome men had no interest in her. It had been months since I have been in a gay bar around so many gay men. They didn't show any interest in me either, in my emaciated shape. The Love Affair was having a fund-raiser, raising money for AIDS-related benefits but selling brush cuts for a cheap price. I had my head shaved close, finally getting rid of the dyed hair I have detested for the past four weeks.
I met my nephew Ritchie for the first time. He was a cute kid who, a two years old, had been only walking for a few months. He took a shine to me. My sister told me he looks a lot like me. He was my first and only nephew
I had a wonderful, playful, gentle time for the full two weeks I was in Vancouver. Even when it was cloudy and grey, it felt sunny. I loved this place, and still do. It was very clear that I should move back to Vancouver to live, but I had no transferable credentials from my current job as an uncertified library technician, no nest egg to live off of if I did quit and the value of my home was dropping annually as Toronto was going through a prolonged recession after the introduction of the GST and free trade with the US. I was going to be stuck in Toronto for some time to come.
I returned to Toronto on February 29, three days before I returned to work with the City of Toronto Planning Department. I was 128 lbs (58 kg) with a shaved head. I must have looked like I had just been released from a concentration camp. Some of my Toronto friends gasped when they saw me and said, "Oh my Gawd, not you too!", thinking that I was sick from AIDS. My doctor was quite upset with my state of 'malnutrition' and for my blood anemia. For some strange reason, I wasn't able to regain a single pound while in India or Vancouver, in spite of all I was eating, but once I was back in Toronto my body must have realized I was home and the traveling was over. I gained two pounds a week for the next three months and everyone was relieved.
David, my housemate and business partner who co-owned my home, was on best behaviour towards me for the months that followed. He eventually decided to move to Trinidad to be with a 19-year-old lover from there who ran up a phone bill of $900/mo until then. He made a good chunk of money off selling his half to me, but squandered it in the attempted move to Trinidad, moving all his belongings there and then back again three months later after learning that local officials rejected his residency application and could not be bribed. We never spoke again after he left.
I did renew my friendship with Mike Silk, the man I cycled the first three months with from Portugal to Amsterdam. He doesn't use Facebook or e-mail much but we spent a day together in August 2004 when I last visited Toronto.
Coen and Vincent, my cycling partners from Istanbul to Rawalpindi, Pakistan, kept in touch for a short while, in part because I needed to share photos and such, but they too proved to be unreliable pen pals. Frank Markus, my cycling partner from Rawalpindi to Goa, came to Toronto to visit me in 1995 with his girlfriend Petra. He was greatly relieved that I had regained my weight and kept commenting on how much better I looked. Shortly after returning to Germany, he accepted a medical internship in Australia and I lost touch with him.
Jochen, who cycled with me through the Austrian and Italian Alps, sent me photos of our time together that he and Matthias had taken. We exchanged a few letters and then he stopped writing sometime in 1992.
Philippe and Marcel in Cotignac, France, kept in touch for about five years. Gerard and Thierry of Roches-sur-Foron, in the Haute Savoie, France, came to visit me in 1993. They had a terrible experience in Quebec because the Quebecois they met resented that they did not understanding their accent and they were treated with contempt. Jean-Marie and Patrick of Dijon kept in touch for a couple years. Pierre Lamy in Paris came to visit me in 1995 and we kept in touch for a few more years as we were both members of Lesbian & Gay Hospitality Exchange International (LGHEI).
I did not keep in touch with anyone from the Lowlands, but Wai Sing Li, the Chinese-Canadian from Montreal who was on crutches in Lille when I met him is still a friend and is my web master for my stained glass art website. He is now married and living in Singapore.
JP, the 19 year old American I met in Heidelberg, Germany, is now an educator in Illinois. The only person I met in Berlin who kept in touch with me was Andres Seifart, who came to visit me in 1994. He was unimpressed with Canada, except for seeing a refrigerator that produced ice cubes. I suppose he thought we chipped them out of the lake when we needed them.
Kersten, the kind gay man in Copenhagen who put me up twice, went to India in the winter of 1992, as he had done for several years. He fell ill in southern India and caught a train back to Delhi where he knew a western doctor. He survived the train ride and caught a rickshaw taxi to the hospital where he died an hour and a half later, according to his brother.
Leif Villars-Dahl is still a lawyer in Oslo. We only stayed in touch for a year after the trip.
I did not hear from Frenk, Irena or Bojan for a full year after our time together in Split during the outbreak of the war in Croatia. Bojan eventually wrote to me to tell me that they all made back to Slovenia safely. Here I had been worries sick all this time, fearing that they had been killed or something worse.
I have learned recently that Charles Trico is still operating Charles' Hole In The Wall in Gibraltar, but neither he nor anyone else in my blog not mentioned above contacted me after I wrote to them.
In 1995, my position in the City of Toronto was deemed redundant in a downsizing and I was offered a generous severance. I left Toronto in July 1996 to move back to Vancouver, where I have lived ever since. I learned in late1997, after being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in June of the same year, that the disease took off during my year of travel n bicycle. It may have been caused by the prolonged exertion, launched that year earlier than it might have otherwise started or it began that year by pure coincidence. I guess I will never find out.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 348
Friday, February 14th – Mumbai, Hong Kong, Taipei ….Vancouver
NOTE: Out of curiosity, I would like to know if anyone is following my blog at this point. If you are reading this, please leave me a message below. The purpose of the blog was to help me develop a habit of writing daily, to help me return to completing a novel I have been working on for years, but I would be interested in getting feedback if you have been reading it. Thanks.
I can't really sleep in a moving vehicle, be it a train, a car or a plane. The Swiss Air flight only goes as far as Hong Kong. The staff are nice and efficient. They serve us breakfast in flight and a light lunch before we land in Hong Kong. I have to change flights here to Canadian Pacific Airlines and that flight doesn't leave for 12 hours. I collect my luggage and go to the waiting lounge to kill time until my flight.
Through the floor to ceiling windows, Hong Kong glistens in silver across the water to the airport, its massive bank towers set against the backdrop of its green mountains. I have never been here before, and I can see clearly why Vancouver is often referred to as Hongcouver. They look quite similar. It is maybe 20 kilometres away, far enough that I cannot see any of the images I have gleaned from television over the years: the crowded streets in the shadows of the state of the art bank towers, the pushy shoppers, the glittering signs, the corruption and faux democracy, the long escalators that carry servants up and down the hills to and from their shopping and the homes of the rich on top of the hills.
It is a grey day but it isn't raining. I have enough time to leave the airport, spend several hours in the city and return to the airport in time for my CP Air flight, but I have no money for shopping. I don't even have enough money to pay the airport entrance fee on return. I will be able to take an extract on my Visa card once I am in Vancouver, but until them I have ten dollars to my name. So I sit in the lounge and observe the city and the boats in the harbour from afar. There are no single travelers to talk to, no one who looks like they want to talk. I decide not to waste any money on another airport paperback novel, which are either formula spy or romance stories, most of which are quite tedious. So I sit here and wait as the hours pass.
We leave late in the evening for Taiwan. Three hours later, we are sitting on the tarmac in Taipei. This time we are not allowed to disembark, though the plane sits here for more than two hours. More passengers board and the plane is refueled for crossing the Pacific. There is enough commotion to prevent me from sleeping.
This is the longest continuous time I have spent in the air on a flight in my life. Eventually I manage to drift off but sleeping on a seat is difficult and I wake up with a kink in my neck. I am seated by the window, having booked so far in advance, but the chill from the window and the vibration from the jet makes leaning against the outer wall a bad choice if I want to sleep. Darkness is replaced by daylight soon enough, but there is nothing to see but water. We cross the International Date Line and February 15 becomes February 14 again. The TV monitor shows our position over the Pacific, but without any land references it never seems to change. In my tired stupor, it all feels surreal.
We arrive at Vancouver International Airport in the evening of February 14. All in all, by the time I collect my luggage and bike and leave the terminal, I have spend 42 consecutive hours in airports and on planes. I started and ended on February 14.
My sister Linda and my best friend in Vancouver, Bill, are waiting for me when I arrive. They don't know each other but somehow they ended up standing beside each other while waiting, and they got to talking and realized they were both waiting for me. I had written to both of them, telling them about my emaciated condition and my strange hair colour. They react as though there is nothing unusual when they see me, but weeks later I learn that they suppressed their shock. They help carry my bags back to Linda's car. Bill is hosting me so I stay with her to guide her back to his house in Kerrisdale. Then the three of us go out for dinner with Bill's boyfriend Lee so they can grill me about my trip. Should be more tired than I am but the excitement of being back in Canada, in my former home, and seeing Linda, Bill and Lee has me running on adrenalin.
After dinner, when I have returned to Bill and Lee's, I start to fade. Linda says goodbye and returns to her home in Surrey to relieve her babysitter - she has a 2 year old son I have never seen. She will meet me again in a couple days. I stay up with Bill and Lee and talk for another couple hours, playing with Bill's dog Mila (named after PM Brian Mulroney's wife). Their guest bed is so welcome when I get to it, but I find it hard to get to sleep. Everything has been changing so fast and for so long. I am happy that I will be here for two weeks before returning to my home in Toronto.
NOTE: Out of curiosity, I would like to know if anyone is following my blog at this point. If you are reading this, please leave me a message below. The purpose of the blog was to help me develop a habit of writing daily, to help me return to completing a novel I have been working on for years, but I would be interested in getting feedback if you have been reading it. Thanks.
I can't really sleep in a moving vehicle, be it a train, a car or a plane. The Swiss Air flight only goes as far as Hong Kong. The staff are nice and efficient. They serve us breakfast in flight and a light lunch before we land in Hong Kong. I have to change flights here to Canadian Pacific Airlines and that flight doesn't leave for 12 hours. I collect my luggage and go to the waiting lounge to kill time until my flight.
Through the floor to ceiling windows, Hong Kong glistens in silver across the water to the airport, its massive bank towers set against the backdrop of its green mountains. I have never been here before, and I can see clearly why Vancouver is often referred to as Hongcouver. They look quite similar. It is maybe 20 kilometres away, far enough that I cannot see any of the images I have gleaned from television over the years: the crowded streets in the shadows of the state of the art bank towers, the pushy shoppers, the glittering signs, the corruption and faux democracy, the long escalators that carry servants up and down the hills to and from their shopping and the homes of the rich on top of the hills.
It is a grey day but it isn't raining. I have enough time to leave the airport, spend several hours in the city and return to the airport in time for my CP Air flight, but I have no money for shopping. I don't even have enough money to pay the airport entrance fee on return. I will be able to take an extract on my Visa card once I am in Vancouver, but until them I have ten dollars to my name. So I sit in the lounge and observe the city and the boats in the harbour from afar. There are no single travelers to talk to, no one who looks like they want to talk. I decide not to waste any money on another airport paperback novel, which are either formula spy or romance stories, most of which are quite tedious. So I sit here and wait as the hours pass.
We leave late in the evening for Taiwan. Three hours later, we are sitting on the tarmac in Taipei. This time we are not allowed to disembark, though the plane sits here for more than two hours. More passengers board and the plane is refueled for crossing the Pacific. There is enough commotion to prevent me from sleeping.
This is the longest continuous time I have spent in the air on a flight in my life. Eventually I manage to drift off but sleeping on a seat is difficult and I wake up with a kink in my neck. I am seated by the window, having booked so far in advance, but the chill from the window and the vibration from the jet makes leaning against the outer wall a bad choice if I want to sleep. Darkness is replaced by daylight soon enough, but there is nothing to see but water. We cross the International Date Line and February 15 becomes February 14 again. The TV monitor shows our position over the Pacific, but without any land references it never seems to change. In my tired stupor, it all feels surreal.
We arrive at Vancouver International Airport in the evening of February 14. All in all, by the time I collect my luggage and bike and leave the terminal, I have spend 42 consecutive hours in airports and on planes. I started and ended on February 14.
My sister Linda and my best friend in Vancouver, Bill, are waiting for me when I arrive. They don't know each other but somehow they ended up standing beside each other while waiting, and they got to talking and realized they were both waiting for me. I had written to both of them, telling them about my emaciated condition and my strange hair colour. They react as though there is nothing unusual when they see me, but weeks later I learn that they suppressed their shock. They help carry my bags back to Linda's car. Bill is hosting me so I stay with her to guide her back to his house in Kerrisdale. Then the three of us go out for dinner with Bill's boyfriend Lee so they can grill me about my trip. Should be more tired than I am but the excitement of being back in Canada, in my former home, and seeing Linda, Bill and Lee has me running on adrenalin.
After dinner, when I have returned to Bill and Lee's, I start to fade. Linda says goodbye and returns to her home in Surrey to relieve her babysitter - she has a 2 year old son I have never seen. She will meet me again in a couple days. I stay up with Bill and Lee and talk for another couple hours, playing with Bill's dog Mila (named after PM Brian Mulroney's wife). Their guest bed is so welcome when I get to it, but I find it hard to get to sleep. Everything has been changing so fast and for so long. I am happy that I will be here for two weeks before returning to my home in Toronto.
Monday, February 13, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 347
Thursday, February 13th – Mumbai airport
Sam and I are woken in our slum quarters by the noise of Mrs. Khalsa’s family getting ready for school and work. Sam wastes no time in leaving to look for a better place to stay tonight, even before he considers breakfast. I pack up too, but tonight I am flying out of Mumbai International Airport at midnight. I don’t want to get there before the end of the day. I ask Mrs. Khalsa if I can stay until noon or late morning, or if I can at least leave my loaded bike at her place until she come home at three so I don’t have to leave for the airport too early. She will have none of that. She wants me out the door before I can even shower or finish using the bathroom. She isn’t even a bit polite about it. There is no offer of coffee or anything. She has my money, which is all she wanted. Now she wants me to get the fuck out.
I do without a fight, only because I find her despicable. She asked me if I was a good Christian before asking me to stay with her. I should have asked her the same, though I am beginning to think that combinations of words is an oxymoron. I stew about her meanness, deceit (stealing business from her Christian workplace) and greed for a couple hours after I leave. I even contemplate reporting her actions to her workplace, but that would require me making a scene since she is the receptionist. I am best to distance myself from her and her Christian pettiness.
There are no places I can enter with a loaded bike and I need to stay right with it to avoid having things stolen from it. I pick up breakfast at an outdoor café, but in this city one wants to avoid patios because of the filth and noise, and the ever-present beggars. I wheel my bike over to the Gateway of India and try to hang out there, but today there are too many people trying to crowd in around my bike to get their hands of something so I have to move on. I return to the Prince of Wales Museum for a reprieve from the hassles of the city street life.
I am too restless to remain, and decide that I want out of this city. It would have been better to have found a place last night where I could leave my bike for a few hours today, but that’s a mute point now. I throw my leg over my bike for the last time in Asia and make my way across the peninsula to Back Bay. I follow its shore north and west to the top of the bay, then head north past the Long Distance Bus Depot and continue on towards to the airport.
Less than half an hour north of the bus depot, I pass through Dharavi, the worst urban slum I have encountered anywhere on my trip. It is a slimy, stinky wasteland of pollution and overcrowding. It holds me spellbound while I crawl by it, keeping one eye on it and the other on the traffic congestion. Pools of contaminated with sewage and other human-related waste lie between the flimsy buildings. At one point a pass a young boy, nine or ten years old, squatting with his pants down not more than six metres from the road. He is in the process of passing a large tape worm, a metre of which is hanging out of his asshole. I am not feeling too well.
I keep going. The airport is only 5 km further. It is larger than Lisbon’s but almost as accessible. It is definitely smaller and less congested than Toronto’s Lester B Pearson International Airport. I welcome its comparative order and cleanliness, after surviving the traffic and the slums. It is even less congested and at least here I am left alone with my bike as I sit with my back to the wall off to the side.
It is only 2 pm when I arrive, a full ten hours before my flight. It is a waste of time but at least I am here and in easy range of my transportation back home. I remind myself there are worse places to be while I try to read and keep myself awake. I know it will be a long haul to get home, perhaps the longest of my life in airports and on planes in one go, but I know I can endure it this once. It can’t be worse than that train ride from Quetta to Rawalpindi, and at least for this trip I am in good health. Frank should be arriving in Mumbai today and Kersten, my host in Copenhagen, will have arrived in India three weeks ago. I have no way of contacting either.
The rest of the afternoon eventually passes and at 10 pm I prepare my bike for the trip by removing the pedals and reattaching them inside the pedal arms, half-deflating the tires, taping the pump to the frame with duct tape, turning the handlebars sideways and curling them under and removing the odometer, water bottle and any unnecessary add-ons. I have brought with a new duffel bag I bought yesterday and I load all my bags into it except for one pannier, half-emptied, into which I stuff my handlebar bag. I check my duffel bag and take the bike to the special baggage counter. By 11:45pm I am seated on my Swiss Air jet bound for Hong Kong. At 12:15 am, Valentine’s Day, the flight coasts down the runway on time and takes off.
PHOTO: Dharavi slums
Sam and I are woken in our slum quarters by the noise of Mrs. Khalsa’s family getting ready for school and work. Sam wastes no time in leaving to look for a better place to stay tonight, even before he considers breakfast. I pack up too, but tonight I am flying out of Mumbai International Airport at midnight. I don’t want to get there before the end of the day. I ask Mrs. Khalsa if I can stay until noon or late morning, or if I can at least leave my loaded bike at her place until she come home at three so I don’t have to leave for the airport too early. She will have none of that. She wants me out the door before I can even shower or finish using the bathroom. She isn’t even a bit polite about it. There is no offer of coffee or anything. She has my money, which is all she wanted. Now she wants me to get the fuck out.
I do without a fight, only because I find her despicable. She asked me if I was a good Christian before asking me to stay with her. I should have asked her the same, though I am beginning to think that combinations of words is an oxymoron. I stew about her meanness, deceit (stealing business from her Christian workplace) and greed for a couple hours after I leave. I even contemplate reporting her actions to her workplace, but that would require me making a scene since she is the receptionist. I am best to distance myself from her and her Christian pettiness.
There are no places I can enter with a loaded bike and I need to stay right with it to avoid having things stolen from it. I pick up breakfast at an outdoor café, but in this city one wants to avoid patios because of the filth and noise, and the ever-present beggars. I wheel my bike over to the Gateway of India and try to hang out there, but today there are too many people trying to crowd in around my bike to get their hands of something so I have to move on. I return to the Prince of Wales Museum for a reprieve from the hassles of the city street life.
I am too restless to remain, and decide that I want out of this city. It would have been better to have found a place last night where I could leave my bike for a few hours today, but that’s a mute point now. I throw my leg over my bike for the last time in Asia and make my way across the peninsula to Back Bay. I follow its shore north and west to the top of the bay, then head north past the Long Distance Bus Depot and continue on towards to the airport.
Less than half an hour north of the bus depot, I pass through Dharavi, the worst urban slum I have encountered anywhere on my trip. It is a slimy, stinky wasteland of pollution and overcrowding. It holds me spellbound while I crawl by it, keeping one eye on it and the other on the traffic congestion. Pools of contaminated with sewage and other human-related waste lie between the flimsy buildings. At one point a pass a young boy, nine or ten years old, squatting with his pants down not more than six metres from the road. He is in the process of passing a large tape worm, a metre of which is hanging out of his asshole. I am not feeling too well.
I keep going. The airport is only 5 km further. It is larger than Lisbon’s but almost as accessible. It is definitely smaller and less congested than Toronto’s Lester B Pearson International Airport. I welcome its comparative order and cleanliness, after surviving the traffic and the slums. It is even less congested and at least here I am left alone with my bike as I sit with my back to the wall off to the side.
It is only 2 pm when I arrive, a full ten hours before my flight. It is a waste of time but at least I am here and in easy range of my transportation back home. I remind myself there are worse places to be while I try to read and keep myself awake. I know it will be a long haul to get home, perhaps the longest of my life in airports and on planes in one go, but I know I can endure it this once. It can’t be worse than that train ride from Quetta to Rawalpindi, and at least for this trip I am in good health. Frank should be arriving in Mumbai today and Kersten, my host in Copenhagen, will have arrived in India three weeks ago. I have no way of contacting either.
The rest of the afternoon eventually passes and at 10 pm I prepare my bike for the trip by removing the pedals and reattaching them inside the pedal arms, half-deflating the tires, taping the pump to the frame with duct tape, turning the handlebars sideways and curling them under and removing the odometer, water bottle and any unnecessary add-ons. I have brought with a new duffel bag I bought yesterday and I load all my bags into it except for one pannier, half-emptied, into which I stuff my handlebar bag. I check my duffel bag and take the bike to the special baggage counter. By 11:45pm I am seated on my Swiss Air jet bound for Hong Kong. At 12:15 am, Valentine’s Day, the flight coasts down the runway on time and takes off.
PHOTO: Dharavi slums
Sunday, February 12, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 346
Wednesday, February 12th – arriving in Mumbai, 17,394 km
The bus rolls into the Long Distance Bus Terminal at 7 am. It has been a rough night, as rough as the ride to Panaji, only two hours longer. The morning is grey and uncertain. I just want to get to bed but I have no place to sleep yet. I collect my bike and bags, make my way south to Back Bay and I follow the boulevard around to Colaba Causeway. The Carlton Hotel Frank I used two weeks ago has no rooms available. I walk my bike along the street until I get to the Salvation Army Hostel, which says it has space available.
The woman at the reception desk is a mousey little middle-aged woman. She asks me to wait when I ask about a room. She looks around nervously, waiting for others to leave the reception area. She turns to me, speaking in a whisper, asking if I am a good Christian. I avoid a direct answer by saying I was born a Christian. That seems to satisfy her. She smiles at me warmly and tells me, still in a whisper, that she rents rooms in her building for half the price. If I can wait until she is off at 3 pm she would take me there. It is four blocks away. The prices at this hostel are considerably higher than the Carlton's, which is probably why there are available rooms. I am sure Sally Ann is using the extra monies to campaign against human rights for gay people around the world. Sure, I tell her, I will come back at three.
There aren't many places I can go to pass the time. I sit for a while in the mull of peoples stirring around the Gateway of India, but my fatigue makes dealing with commotion more difficult. I remember the beautiful gardens in front of the Prince of Wales Museum two blocks away and I relocate. Here there is no one to bother me and the cool shaded grass is refreshing. The distant sounds of horns and traffic seem to melt away while I lie with my head on one of my bike bags.
Three o'clock finally arrives and I return to the Salvation Army to meet Mrs. Khalsa, the receptionist. She wears a guilty, triumphant smile as she leads me to her building. She doesn't speak to me when we walk and is not receptive to my polite questions. My 'room' turns out to be a cordoned off area of her family's living space with four mattresses tossed in the corners and no other furniture. The living space has 12 foot high ceilings but the walls of the rental room are only eight feet high. The space is grungy and there are no windows, only the light that comes over the top of the walls, along with the noises from her family on the other side. No licensing office would ever approve this space but it is cheap and I am almost out of money. I am dead tired too. I just hope I don't get fleas or bed bug bites.
I wake two hours later. There is another man in the room, another traveler who nods at me when I sit up. His name is Sam. He's an American. We are whispering so not to disturb the family that is in their kitchen a few feet away. He asks if I want to go for dinner somewhere and we slip out the door and down to the street. He has just arrived in Mumbai and has found that most hotels in the area, except for the more expensive ones, are full. It's best to look first thing in the morning, I tell him. He says he will, as he is not comfortable in this slum-like accommodation. I agree. I'd never stay here a second night.
We grab sandwiches from a street kiosk and hang around the mall inside the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel until it closes. We return to our room and retire to our sleeping bags and mattresses, since there is no lamp in the room.
The bus rolls into the Long Distance Bus Terminal at 7 am. It has been a rough night, as rough as the ride to Panaji, only two hours longer. The morning is grey and uncertain. I just want to get to bed but I have no place to sleep yet. I collect my bike and bags, make my way south to Back Bay and I follow the boulevard around to Colaba Causeway. The Carlton Hotel Frank I used two weeks ago has no rooms available. I walk my bike along the street until I get to the Salvation Army Hostel, which says it has space available.
The woman at the reception desk is a mousey little middle-aged woman. She asks me to wait when I ask about a room. She looks around nervously, waiting for others to leave the reception area. She turns to me, speaking in a whisper, asking if I am a good Christian. I avoid a direct answer by saying I was born a Christian. That seems to satisfy her. She smiles at me warmly and tells me, still in a whisper, that she rents rooms in her building for half the price. If I can wait until she is off at 3 pm she would take me there. It is four blocks away. The prices at this hostel are considerably higher than the Carlton's, which is probably why there are available rooms. I am sure Sally Ann is using the extra monies to campaign against human rights for gay people around the world. Sure, I tell her, I will come back at three.
There aren't many places I can go to pass the time. I sit for a while in the mull of peoples stirring around the Gateway of India, but my fatigue makes dealing with commotion more difficult. I remember the beautiful gardens in front of the Prince of Wales Museum two blocks away and I relocate. Here there is no one to bother me and the cool shaded grass is refreshing. The distant sounds of horns and traffic seem to melt away while I lie with my head on one of my bike bags.
Three o'clock finally arrives and I return to the Salvation Army to meet Mrs. Khalsa, the receptionist. She wears a guilty, triumphant smile as she leads me to her building. She doesn't speak to me when we walk and is not receptive to my polite questions. My 'room' turns out to be a cordoned off area of her family's living space with four mattresses tossed in the corners and no other furniture. The living space has 12 foot high ceilings but the walls of the rental room are only eight feet high. The space is grungy and there are no windows, only the light that comes over the top of the walls, along with the noises from her family on the other side. No licensing office would ever approve this space but it is cheap and I am almost out of money. I am dead tired too. I just hope I don't get fleas or bed bug bites.
I wake two hours later. There is another man in the room, another traveler who nods at me when I sit up. His name is Sam. He's an American. We are whispering so not to disturb the family that is in their kitchen a few feet away. He asks if I want to go for dinner somewhere and we slip out the door and down to the street. He has just arrived in Mumbai and has found that most hotels in the area, except for the more expensive ones, are full. It's best to look first thing in the morning, I tell him. He says he will, as he is not comfortable in this slum-like accommodation. I agree. I'd never stay here a second night.
We grab sandwiches from a street kiosk and hang around the mall inside the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel until it closes. We return to our room and retire to our sleeping bags and mattresses, since there is no lamp in the room.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 345
Tuesday, February 11th – leaving Panaji for Mumbai (bus), 17,389 km
It's a sunny day, pleasant and warm again. I am packed and dressed for my trip to Mumbai. From now until I leave it is a time of limbo, a waiting time, a time of anticipation. I have breakfast in the hotel restaurant for the last time. I chat with a couple in a neighbouring table, two British guys. They are cute and friendly but I am not much interested in making new friends at this point, just before I leave. I feel like being on my own, because I suppose I am in a different space than others I talk to.
The rest of the town is in a state of anticipation too, but for a different reason. They are waiting for President Soares's visit, but I will be gone before he arrives. I am waiting for another horrendous bus trip, my last here fortunately. I enjoy the day as best I can. I leave my bags at the hotel and ride to the beach three kilometres away where I relax for a couple hours. I don't want to do anything strenuous since I won't be sleeping tonight. I return to Panaji for lunch and stroll along the promenade by the river before collecting my bags and going to the bus depot.
The bus I am on is a modern one with comfortable seats - by Indian standards - but grit my teeth for the long ride and try to play stoic. The bus is packed and stale with the smells of warm crowds. It may be an ordeal, but it is better than the train ride from Quetta to Rawalpindi in Pakistan last December. I will survive it. It is dark three hours after we leave Panaji and the bus still hits the speed bumps at full speed.
Somewhere around 10 pm (I don't know for sure because I have lost my watch) the bus stops across from a local attraction, for lack of a better word. Everyone seems excited to get off and visit the site. We are in front a gaudy, over-lit Hindu establishment that seems to be a cross between a temple, adorned with statues of Ganesh, Shiva and other Hindu gods, a dance hall and a casino. It looks and sounds like a nightmare come to life.
The fellow who has been sitting beside me cannot understand why I don't want to get off and experience the party. "There are dancing girls, you know," he tries to entice me. It seems especially important to him for a Westerner like me to join in to validate his idea of fun. But it's just a lot of noise and lights, an annoying and unnecessary stop that will delay our arrival in Mumbai by two hours. Indians think a public kiss is a scandal so I can't imagine finding anything inside to be erotic. This is my only chance to catch a bit a shut eye tonight, even if the blaring, screechy music prevents me from sleeping.
I almost fall asleep, even with the noise outside, but it is hard to get comfortable curled up on a bus seat. Eventually, the other passengers return and pile inside, still chattering excitedly over seeing the bare arms and navels of dancing women. Whatever. I sit up and try to pretend I am thinking about something important while the man seated beside me tries to describe how much fun it was. I am not feeling very well, I tell him. That is not totally a lie. The rolls on through the darkness and the passengers descend into silence again.
It's a sunny day, pleasant and warm again. I am packed and dressed for my trip to Mumbai. From now until I leave it is a time of limbo, a waiting time, a time of anticipation. I have breakfast in the hotel restaurant for the last time. I chat with a couple in a neighbouring table, two British guys. They are cute and friendly but I am not much interested in making new friends at this point, just before I leave. I feel like being on my own, because I suppose I am in a different space than others I talk to.
The rest of the town is in a state of anticipation too, but for a different reason. They are waiting for President Soares's visit, but I will be gone before he arrives. I am waiting for another horrendous bus trip, my last here fortunately. I enjoy the day as best I can. I leave my bags at the hotel and ride to the beach three kilometres away where I relax for a couple hours. I don't want to do anything strenuous since I won't be sleeping tonight. I return to Panaji for lunch and stroll along the promenade by the river before collecting my bags and going to the bus depot.
The bus I am on is a modern one with comfortable seats - by Indian standards - but grit my teeth for the long ride and try to play stoic. The bus is packed and stale with the smells of warm crowds. It may be an ordeal, but it is better than the train ride from Quetta to Rawalpindi in Pakistan last December. I will survive it. It is dark three hours after we leave Panaji and the bus still hits the speed bumps at full speed.
Somewhere around 10 pm (I don't know for sure because I have lost my watch) the bus stops across from a local attraction, for lack of a better word. Everyone seems excited to get off and visit the site. We are in front a gaudy, over-lit Hindu establishment that seems to be a cross between a temple, adorned with statues of Ganesh, Shiva and other Hindu gods, a dance hall and a casino. It looks and sounds like a nightmare come to life.
The fellow who has been sitting beside me cannot understand why I don't want to get off and experience the party. "There are dancing girls, you know," he tries to entice me. It seems especially important to him for a Westerner like me to join in to validate his idea of fun. But it's just a lot of noise and lights, an annoying and unnecessary stop that will delay our arrival in Mumbai by two hours. Indians think a public kiss is a scandal so I can't imagine finding anything inside to be erotic. This is my only chance to catch a bit a shut eye tonight, even if the blaring, screechy music prevents me from sleeping.
I almost fall asleep, even with the noise outside, but it is hard to get comfortable curled up on a bus seat. Eventually, the other passengers return and pile inside, still chattering excitedly over seeing the bare arms and navels of dancing women. Whatever. I sit up and try to pretend I am thinking about something important while the man seated beside me tries to describe how much fun it was. I am not feeling very well, I tell him. That is not totally a lie. The rolls on through the darkness and the passengers descend into silence again.
Friday, February 10, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 344
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Monday, February 10th – Colva Beach to Panaji, 17,382 km
I feel rested and more relaxed this morning, my emotions more balanced after a good night's sleep, even though it took me an hour to fall asleep. Both Frank and I are carrying too many groceries so we make our breakfast in our room to use some of them up. I am dressed in my cycling gear but today he is in his street clothes. He comments on how weird it feels not to be dressed like me.So I am leaving Margao now. This is the first time I have cycled a whole day on my own since October, when I was in central Turkey and the Dutch boys, Coen and Vincent, made a side trip to Ankara. It seems incredible that it could be that long! It is also the last full day of cycling before I return to Canada. So this is it. I enjoy it while I can.
I am riding north along Hwy 66, which runs along a coastal plain about three kilometres inland from the broad beach that Frank I cycled along for hours from Velsao Beach. I'd love to be cycling on it again but I am anxious to get to Panaji and to buy my bus ticket for Mumbai.
For the first hour it is flat, and then I climb through the low, rolling hills south of the Mandovi River. By the end of the second hour I am waiting at the ferry dock on the south shore of the river. Once over the river, I choose a new route, one that is more direct than the one Frank and I used to get here, to take me into Panaji. That takes slightly more than an hour.
I remember walking into Panaji two weeks ago from the bus depot. I am expecting and looking forward to the same look and feel, but the town has been tarted up for Portuguese President Soares's historic visit to Goa, the first visit by a Portuguese official in thirty years, since the Portuguese were driven out of India in 1961. Lamp standards have been draped from the street lights and brightly coloured banners have been stretched over the street in preparation for his visit tomorrow evening. I can see there is a lot of excitement about the visit amongst the Portuguese still living here, and for the local Indians who rarely have foreign dignitaries, let alone heads of state, visiting Goa.
I return to the Venite Hotel and take the same room Frank and I shared 10 days ago. I miss even more when I end up paying the full price of the room by myself. Once I am settled in, I walk to the bus depot and buy a ticket for tomorrow’s trip to Mumbai. It will leave at 3 pm, two hours before Soares is scheduled to tour through town. So again my year long trip is ending with a symmetry. Soares had just been re-elected before I arrived in Portugal 48 weeks ago and now I am just missing him as I leave Goa. Interesting.
I eat dinner in the restaurant downstairs in the hotel. I don’t recognize any of the residents from the time I was here before. They seem harder to meet this time, being in self-contained groups and couples. There is one handsome man in his late 20s sitting by himself two tables over. He looks around restlessly and I make eye contact with him once. He smiles. I am debating with myself whether or not to go over to introduce myself when a young woman comes in to join him.
After dinner I cruise down to the centre of town and check out some of the bars I visited previously. They are mostly dead. Monday night is the slowest night of the week, one bartender tells me. The bartender is cute enough but clearly not showing any interest, perhaps because I am a traveler but probably because I am a man. I move onto a couple other bars, having one drink in each before returning to the hotel room empty-handed. No one is hanging out in the lounge at the hotel either. My opportunity having a room to myself is wasted. I suppose this trip really is coming to an end.
PHOTO: goodbye Frank
Thursday, February 9, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 343
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Sunday, February 9th – Palolem Beach to Colva Beach, 17,337 km
Frank and I are up early, psyched for the ride ahead of us. We have our showers and head to the restaurant in our cycling gear with our loaded bikes to share our last breakfast with Jesse, Karen and a couple others from the campfire circle. We are the first to arrive. We order anyway, not being sure if and when they will show up. They arrive before our breakfast arrives.
We leave half an hour later, so we can have the day behind us by mid-afternoon. There are hugs all around. The goodbyes that have become complacent for me in recent weeks seem particularly sad today, in part because I know I am also saying goodbye to this incredible and incredibly long trip.
We cycle out of Palolem to the main coast road and south half of a kilometre to Hwy 66, a larger route that runs further inland. It is known locally as the Kanyakumari-Panavel Road. It is busier but more direct. The hills that comprise the Western Ghats run in east-west ridges. There is a higher ridge inland from Agonda that Hwy 66 skirts the western end of. The climb is only 170 m and from that point out route is flatter and straighter. It follows a valley that is east of the hills that include the Cabo de Rama. This is a rural area without any significant towns, though there are farms and small villages near the highway. Because the route is over rolling terrain, it is scenic and green, but fewer palm trees than on the coast. It is warm day with broken cloud cover. I am sweating from the humidity.
As we get beyond the Cabo de Rama ridge of hills, we pass the Shree Shantadurga Hindu Temple. Its pink colour stands out dramatically from the green fields and hillsides around it. We pause to stretch and eat our sandwiches we prepared for lunch this morning.
It is shortly after 2 pm as we enter Margao. We stop to check our guide book map of the town to look for places to stay. We push off to cross the road. Frank's foot
slips off his pedal and he loses momentum. An approaching motorcycle with a driver and passenger has not anticipated Frank's pause and, as typical here, is driving with no room for error. It broadsides him, slamming into his rear wheel and knocking him on the street. The driver and his passenger are uninjured, but they are mad that Frank paused. The driver takes no responsibility for leaving no room for error. Frank has been knocked over onto the street. His helmet protected his head but there is a serious cut beneath his eye that will need stitches. His bike's rear wheel is bent and his bike is unridable.
I leave him at the side of the road with a handkerchief on his cut while I find the directions to a local medical clinic in Margao. It is less than a kilometre away. I flag down a cab and tie his bike to the rear, then ride my bike to the clinic behind the cab. It is a small clinic with just one doctor. We wait in the waiting room for several minutes. I wait while he is stitched up.
When Frank emerges he is quite upset. The clinic has no proper sutures and has used a thick black thread that Frank fears will leave a permanent scar. They also do not have any soap so the doctor did not clean the wound before stitching it up. Frank is a medical student himself so he is furious at the service. One can see poverty and accept it as the normal life in this part of the world, but it is harder to accept the consequences of poverty when they become personal. I hope he doesn't scar, but I am relieved it wasn't too serious of an injury and it happened near a clinic. Also, his bike being broken isn't that serious because it is the end of the trip. He was planning to ride with me to Panaji and catch the bus back to Mumbai with me, but he can catch a train from Margao instead.
His bike still rolls though there is a serious wobble in the back wheel. He will work on it tomorrow to see if he can straighten it himself, but he can push it as we walk along, looking for a place to stay for tonight. We find a small hotel only a block from the clinic and quite near the market we visited a week ago. It is quite reasonable.
I feel especially close to him after the accident, which is heightened by the fact that this is our last night together. In spite of being straight and 15 years younger than me, he has been the best cycle touring partner I have ever had. If he was more seriously injured I would be really distraught over needing to leave him at this point in time. I insist on us going out for dinner together. We find a local restaurant that looks quite nice but the food is mediocre. I order wine for the both of us but he doesn't want me to treat him.
I wanted us to have a great dinner but it is the company that matters most. He tells me I me that I am the best touring partner he has had. Given that he has such a long-standing best friendship with his childhood buddy Eric who has toured with him much longer, this is a real compliment. I know it is not very butch, but I blushed and my eyes watered a bit. He sees that but he seems OK with that.
Tonight I lie in bed in a whirl of conflicted emotions about the past, present and future - feelings of love, loss, gratitude, fear and anticipation. If I had my druthers I'd be lying in the same bed as Frank and cuddling with him. Why can't men do this when no sex is involved?
PHOTO 1: temple at Shree Shantadurga
PHOTO 2: Frank and I entering Margao
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 342
Saturday, February 8th – Palolem Beach
Frank is concerned that I won't make it back to Mumbai in time to catch my flight. He says if we stay here tomorrow the time is too tight to allow for any accident or interruption in the schedule. That means we should leave tomorrow morning instead of waiting until Monday. I don't want to leave that early but he is right. I would never be able to afford to buy another flight home if I miss the one I have booked. But that means I will miss connecting with Rajeev tomorrow as we had planned, which I have been excited about since last night. But I think I will have to let Rajeev down.
After a leisurely breakfast, I stroll up to the north end of the beach letting the waves wash over my feet. I miss the sea in Vancouver where I used to live. Toronto is on Lake Ontario, but it has no tides and the beaches have too high of a fecal count to risk swimming or wading in. I enjoy my walk as long as I can.
I reach the north end of the beach in half an hour. Here the ridge of hills we crossed to reach Palolem comes down to the sea. A river that flows along the base of this ridge empties into the sea. A small rocky jetty juts into the bay, separating the stream from the beach. I climb out onto the rocks and find another colony of thick-bodied, short legged purple crabs crawling slowly between the boulders. I watch them for a while before I climb into the outflow of the stream on the far side.
Frank had mentioned the stream and that I should check it out. Now I see why. This is paradise. The water is crystal clear and slightly turquoise in colour. The deepest part of the water is up to my upper chest and the current is just strong enough to be playful. The bottom is comprised of smooth white sand, like the sand on the beach but a bit coarser. The water is so clean and fresh, emerging right out of the jungle. I would never drink water in Canada, where all the fresh water systems are contaminated with Giardia parasites, but this water feels pristine. I play in it like a dolphin, jumping, ducking under and summer-saulting. I let the current carry towards the sea and swim back again.
All this activity has stirred up my insides and I have a sudden compulsion for a bowel movement. I would never make it back to the village in time and I certainly don't want to do it in this lovely stream, so I climb up the bank to a flat patch of open space, covered in waist-high yellow grass. There is a straight path that leads from the river into for forest. I don't want to go into the jungle, not knowing what I might find there. It would be best to leave my dump somewhere in the tall grass where it cannot be seen, but I realized at the last moment that tall grass is the perfect habitat for cobras and other jungle snakes that might be hunting for mice.
My options are limited and my insides are insistent, so I reluctantly squat and do my duty on the path. At least it is out in the open so anyone who happens to use this path can see it. I wipe myself as best I can with nearby leaves and walk back tot eh river to finish the clean up. I have not gone more than a few paces when I here a rustle in the bushes at the edge of the forest. I spin around not knowing what animal to expect. All I see the back end of a pig going back into the forest. The shit I left on the trail is gone.
I swim a while longer in the stream and then slowing make my way back to Palolem, to the beach restaurant where I find Frank enjoying a fruit smoothie on the patio. I tell him about my trip up the beach and the pig in charge on sanitation patrol. ‘Well, I guess I won’t be hungry for a while longer,’ he laughs.
We have our final evening meal in the restaurant with Jesse and Karen. We watch an incredible purple sunset. When it fades, we tell them we are leaving tomorrow, a day earlier than planned, and they take this in stride. There is a river of changing faces looking for a sea and one takes in the changes like passing clouds after a time. They ask us what we plan to do as soon as we get back. Frank will be preparing for medical school and I plan to do something about my hair as soon as possible.
There is another gathering around the campfire tonight. I look around for Rajeev in case he has been able to make it, but he doesn’t show up. Jesse asks me to sing some Canadian songs. I know some of the words and the tune to ‘Four Strong Winds’, some Gordon Lightfoot songs and ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell. He only knows the cording for ‘Four Strong Winds’ but since I only know one verse he returns to singing what songs others know. A stiff breeze comes up, bringing with it sprinkles of rain. The blowing smoke and ash changes direction again and again and eventually drives us back to our rooms for the night.
I pack before bed so I won’t have to do it in the morning. I lay out my cycling clothes. Frank does the same. “I guess this is it,” he says with a resigned grin. “Tomorrow we will start our journey home.” As much as I want to get back to a normal life and routine, earn money to repay my debts and regain my weight, I feel a sinking anxiety in my gut. I hate the uncertainty of making travel connections and the possibility of something going wrong.
PHOTO 1: Palolem Village in the morning
PHOTO 2: sunset at the beach
PHOTO 3: Jesse and Karen's van
Frank is concerned that I won't make it back to Mumbai in time to catch my flight. He says if we stay here tomorrow the time is too tight to allow for any accident or interruption in the schedule. That means we should leave tomorrow morning instead of waiting until Monday. I don't want to leave that early but he is right. I would never be able to afford to buy another flight home if I miss the one I have booked. But that means I will miss connecting with Rajeev tomorrow as we had planned, which I have been excited about since last night. But I think I will have to let Rajeev down. After a leisurely breakfast, I stroll up to the north end of the beach letting the waves wash over my feet. I miss the sea in Vancouver where I used to live. Toronto is on Lake Ontario, but it has no tides and the beaches have too high of a fecal count to risk swimming or wading in. I enjoy my walk as long as I can.
I reach the north end of the beach in half an hour. Here the ridge of hills we crossed to reach Palolem comes down to the sea. A river that flows along the base of this ridge empties into the sea. A small rocky jetty juts into the bay, separating the stream from the beach. I climb out onto the rocks and find another colony of thick-bodied, short legged purple crabs crawling slowly between the boulders. I watch them for a while before I climb into the outflow of the stream on the far side.
Frank had mentioned the stream and that I should check it out. Now I see why. This is paradise. The water is crystal clear and slightly turquoise in colour. The deepest part of the water is up to my upper chest and the current is just strong enough to be playful. The bottom is comprised of smooth white sand, like the sand on the beach but a bit coarser. The water is so clean and fresh, emerging right out of the jungle. I would never drink water in Canada, where all the fresh water systems are contaminated with Giardia parasites, but this water feels pristine. I play in it like a dolphin, jumping, ducking under and summer-saulting. I let the current carry towards the sea and swim back again.
All this activity has stirred up my insides and I have a sudden compulsion for a bowel movement. I would never make it back to the village in time and I certainly don't want to do it in this lovely stream, so I climb up the bank to a flat patch of open space, covered in waist-high yellow grass. There is a straight path that leads from the river into for forest. I don't want to go into the jungle, not knowing what I might find there. It would be best to leave my dump somewhere in the tall grass where it cannot be seen, but I realized at the last moment that tall grass is the perfect habitat for cobras and other jungle snakes that might be hunting for mice.
My options are limited and my insides are insistent, so I reluctantly squat and do my duty on the path. At least it is out in the open so anyone who happens to use this path can see it. I wipe myself as best I can with nearby leaves and walk back tot eh river to finish the clean up. I have not gone more than a few paces when I here a rustle in the bushes at the edge of the forest. I spin around not knowing what animal to expect. All I see the back end of a pig going back into the forest. The shit I left on the trail is gone.
I swim a while longer in the stream and then slowing make my way back to Palolem, to the beach restaurant where I find Frank enjoying a fruit smoothie on the patio. I tell him about my trip up the beach and the pig in charge on sanitation patrol. ‘Well, I guess I won’t be hungry for a while longer,’ he laughs.
We have our final evening meal in the restaurant with Jesse and Karen. We watch an incredible purple sunset. When it fades, we tell them we are leaving tomorrow, a day earlier than planned, and they take this in stride. There is a river of changing faces looking for a sea and one takes in the changes like passing clouds after a time. They ask us what we plan to do as soon as we get back. Frank will be preparing for medical school and I plan to do something about my hair as soon as possible.
There is another gathering around the campfire tonight. I look around for Rajeev in case he has been able to make it, but he doesn’t show up. Jesse asks me to sing some Canadian songs. I know some of the words and the tune to ‘Four Strong Winds’, some Gordon Lightfoot songs and ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell. He only knows the cording for ‘Four Strong Winds’ but since I only know one verse he returns to singing what songs others know. A stiff breeze comes up, bringing with it sprinkles of rain. The blowing smoke and ash changes direction again and again and eventually drives us back to our rooms for the night.
I pack before bed so I won’t have to do it in the morning. I lay out my cycling clothes. Frank does the same. “I guess this is it,” he says with a resigned grin. “Tomorrow we will start our journey home.” As much as I want to get back to a normal life and routine, earn money to repay my debts and regain my weight, I feel a sinking anxiety in my gut. I hate the uncertainty of making travel connections and the possibility of something going wrong.
PHOTO 1: Palolem Village in the morning
PHOTO 2: sunset at the beach
PHOTO 3: Jesse and Karen's van
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 341
Friday, February 7th – Palolem Beach
The weather remains perfect here, warm and sunny but not too hot or humid. There are very few clouds so I am happy that the cabins and street leading to the beach are shaded by the tall palm forest. My digestion is still a bit sensitive from the spicy food so I have only yogurt and a banana for breakfast while Frank heads to the restaurant with some of the others we were drinking and smoking with last night.
I walk into the village half a kilometre away, just for something different to do. At least there is some activity here, a change from the beach where the only activity is in the form of gentle waves and breezes. I poke around a couple stores to buy some fruit for later and then stroll back to the beach. A couple travelers are passed out on the sand, perhaps still recuperating from last night, but otherwise the beach is empty. I place my towel on the sand not too far from them and read my book.
I pass the rest of the morning here, until Frank comes to ask if I will join him for lunch. I do. Afterwards I feel the need to rest and return to our room for a nap. I sleep for most of the afternoon. I am not sure why I am tired all the time here. Perhaps I am not used to the drugs or letting go of stresses from my travels. Maybe I am resting up before the shock of returning to my mundane life in the work-a-day world.
I usually go crazy when I have nothing for do for any prolonged period of time, but I still love the inactivity here. I have only two more days here and then my life will be active again. The thought of returning to Mumbai isn't appealing, with all its noise and commotion, but I am looking forward to seeing Vancouver again for the first time in almost two years. I was there for the Gay Games III in July 1990.
But at the moment I think I could live here, eating and living simply and comfortably. The problem with traveling is that a traveler never 'belongs' wherever he is. Home is always somewhere else, so I cannot imagine living anywhere that is not home, where I would not belong and have some sort of purpose. I don't have a purpose here and I do not belong, but I could endure a longer stay here more comfortably than anywhere I have been on this trip to date. It is ironic that I found this place just before returning to Canada.
I saunter back to the vicinity of the restaurant to see what is happening. I stroll down to the south end of the beach again to watch the purple crabs crawling slowly through the rock pools, and then return to read my book for half an hour before dinner. Jesse and Karen are there and invite me to join them for dinner. Frank joins us after we have ordered. He tells me he has been to the north end of the beach where a small river comes out of the jungle. He says it is beautiful and that I should check it out tomorrow.
There is a good sunset tonight. We sit on the patio and watch it. Afterwards we join the others we were with last night and help them to build another campfire. Jesse sits beside me and chats me up. He is friendly guy, with a slight build and a tad insecure. He seems drawn to me, as a friend I assume since he has a girlfriend. At one point, when others around us are engaged in other conversations and not listening to us, he asks me if I am gay. It catches me a bit off-guard as I don't feel sexual anymore by this point of the trip. Usually only women pick out that I am not emanating the normal gamma rays that straight men do, and straight guys are usually only comfortable with gay men with their girlfriends nearby.
I suppose there some visible aspects of being gay that have nothing to do with lifestyles or horniness. I am not sure what they are, not anymore. Jesse is glad that he is right. It seems to reassure him and he seems to feel a stronger connection with me now. At least that is how he acts, like there is a secret between us. I guess it is though I no longer have a vested interest in keeping it a secret. He could be gay too, or bi. Perhaps he has had several good gay friends before and feels comfortable around us. He doesn't pursue it any further and he returns to Karen before it occurs to me to ask him why he thought I am gay. Anyway, he did say he likes the purple streaks in my hair. I blushed.
A young Indian man, about 25 years old named Rajeev, sits down beside me after Randy leaves. He is a local guy who likes foreigners. He particularly likes me it seems. He is full of questions about my travel and my life in Canada and then boldly asks me if I like men. I am beginning to think I combed my hair differently tonight to end up with all this attention. I wish I knew what it is so I can do it again later. Rajeev is sweet and cute and definitely coming on to me as he sidles up close to me. I’d love to do something with him, but he has arrived right at the end of the night when my energy is fading. I talk with him for about half an hour, letting him know I find him attractive too. He understands it is too late tonight to do anything. He too has to get home right away, but he asks if I will meet him here Sunday night, the night after tomorrow. I am not sure what we can do but I give it lots of thought and return to our room and lie in bed in the dark. Sunday will be our last night in Palolem.
PHOTO 1: Palolem Beach
PHOTO 2: Palolem Beach Bar & Grill
The weather remains perfect here, warm and sunny but not too hot or humid. There are very few clouds so I am happy that the cabins and street leading to the beach are shaded by the tall palm forest. My digestion is still a bit sensitive from the spicy food so I have only yogurt and a banana for breakfast while Frank heads to the restaurant with some of the others we were drinking and smoking with last night.
I walk into the village half a kilometre away, just for something different to do. At least there is some activity here, a change from the beach where the only activity is in the form of gentle waves and breezes. I poke around a couple stores to buy some fruit for later and then stroll back to the beach. A couple travelers are passed out on the sand, perhaps still recuperating from last night, but otherwise the beach is empty. I place my towel on the sand not too far from them and read my book.
I pass the rest of the morning here, until Frank comes to ask if I will join him for lunch. I do. Afterwards I feel the need to rest and return to our room for a nap. I sleep for most of the afternoon. I am not sure why I am tired all the time here. Perhaps I am not used to the drugs or letting go of stresses from my travels. Maybe I am resting up before the shock of returning to my mundane life in the work-a-day world.
I usually go crazy when I have nothing for do for any prolonged period of time, but I still love the inactivity here. I have only two more days here and then my life will be active again. The thought of returning to Mumbai isn't appealing, with all its noise and commotion, but I am looking forward to seeing Vancouver again for the first time in almost two years. I was there for the Gay Games III in July 1990.
But at the moment I think I could live here, eating and living simply and comfortably. The problem with traveling is that a traveler never 'belongs' wherever he is. Home is always somewhere else, so I cannot imagine living anywhere that is not home, where I would not belong and have some sort of purpose. I don't have a purpose here and I do not belong, but I could endure a longer stay here more comfortably than anywhere I have been on this trip to date. It is ironic that I found this place just before returning to Canada.
I saunter back to the vicinity of the restaurant to see what is happening. I stroll down to the south end of the beach again to watch the purple crabs crawling slowly through the rock pools, and then return to read my book for half an hour before dinner. Jesse and Karen are there and invite me to join them for dinner. Frank joins us after we have ordered. He tells me he has been to the north end of the beach where a small river comes out of the jungle. He says it is beautiful and that I should check it out tomorrow.
There is a good sunset tonight. We sit on the patio and watch it. Afterwards we join the others we were with last night and help them to build another campfire. Jesse sits beside me and chats me up. He is friendly guy, with a slight build and a tad insecure. He seems drawn to me, as a friend I assume since he has a girlfriend. At one point, when others around us are engaged in other conversations and not listening to us, he asks me if I am gay. It catches me a bit off-guard as I don't feel sexual anymore by this point of the trip. Usually only women pick out that I am not emanating the normal gamma rays that straight men do, and straight guys are usually only comfortable with gay men with their girlfriends nearby.
I suppose there some visible aspects of being gay that have nothing to do with lifestyles or horniness. I am not sure what they are, not anymore. Jesse is glad that he is right. It seems to reassure him and he seems to feel a stronger connection with me now. At least that is how he acts, like there is a secret between us. I guess it is though I no longer have a vested interest in keeping it a secret. He could be gay too, or bi. Perhaps he has had several good gay friends before and feels comfortable around us. He doesn't pursue it any further and he returns to Karen before it occurs to me to ask him why he thought I am gay. Anyway, he did say he likes the purple streaks in my hair. I blushed.
A young Indian man, about 25 years old named Rajeev, sits down beside me after Randy leaves. He is a local guy who likes foreigners. He particularly likes me it seems. He is full of questions about my travel and my life in Canada and then boldly asks me if I like men. I am beginning to think I combed my hair differently tonight to end up with all this attention. I wish I knew what it is so I can do it again later. Rajeev is sweet and cute and definitely coming on to me as he sidles up close to me. I’d love to do something with him, but he has arrived right at the end of the night when my energy is fading. I talk with him for about half an hour, letting him know I find him attractive too. He understands it is too late tonight to do anything. He too has to get home right away, but he asks if I will meet him here Sunday night, the night after tomorrow. I am not sure what we can do but I give it lots of thought and return to our room and lie in bed in the dark. Sunday will be our last night in Palolem.
PHOTO 1: Palolem Beach
PHOTO 2: Palolem Beach Bar & Grill
Monday, February 6, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 340
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Thursday, February 6th – Palolem Beach
I had a great sleep last night, my first night in paradise, but my system is struggling with spicy food and maybe new bacteria. There's a certain urgency to making it to the toilet this morning. The toilet is an outhouse at the back of our modest hotel. It has three steps to climb to get into it, which I feel is a bit unusual but at this point I am grateful for any type of toilet. When I get inside I see that there is no pit underneath the toilet seat, only a chute the carries the shit out of the outhouse onto the ground behind. I am flabbergasted, but at this point there is no turning back. I turn around and start undoing my pants so I can sit down. Suddenly, I hear an impatient grunt. I turn around to see a pig's large, fuzzy, pink snout shoved up the hole and waiting for breakfast. Gross! It's big tongue is close enough to lick my ass. I shoo it away so that it takes a step back before I sit down. In ten seconds the chute is as clean as before - faster than a flush toilet!
I have to admit that was quite funny. I share the story with Frank, who is as grossed out as I was. We walk to the restaurant and have breakfast. For the rest of the morning I sit on the sand and read. I take a swim and walk to the south end of the beach where it ends at a rocky point of land. I climb up the rocks and follow them out to their end jutting out into the sea. There are rock pools along the sides of the point. I find a new species of crab here, a type that lives underwater. It is a slow moving, heavy set purple crab 20 to 30 cm wide. Unlike the skittish white wave chasers, they seem unbothered in my presence, although they see me.
I watch them for half an hour and then return to the restaurant for a fruit drink. Frank is there, talking to other travelers. He introduces me to Tanya from Australia and Ilona from Denmark. Ilona is a punky-looking girl in her early 20s. Her hair has green and blue streaks in it. She looks at my hair and scrunches up her nose. "Your hair has purple in it," she sneers disapprovingly. "Yes, I know," I reply. You're a great one to talk I think to myself. Frank is grinning foolishly, but deliberately not looking at me. I am resenting my foolishness at having my hair dyed again. I need a drink so I order one.
This begins an evening of drinking that continues through dinner and later watching the sunset from the patio. I never let myself get too loaded. Later Jesse and Karen invite me back to a campfire by the place where their van is parked. There are eight of us seated on logs and stones around the fire singing songs that we know. An American fellow named Bernie has a guitar. Jesse passes around a joint, and then I am finally feeling baked. Half an hour later I beg off and go to bed.
PHOTO 1: morning beach, Palolem
PHOTO 2: the beach from the palm forest
PHOTO 3: the Palolem Beach Restaurant
PHOTO 4: main street, Palolem village
Sunday, February 5, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 339
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Wednesday, February 5th – Cabo de Rama to Palolem Beach, 17,294
We wake with the sun kissing the top of our tent inside the broken walls of the fortress at Cabo de Rama. When we exit, there is a gaggle of curious monkey watching us from the tops of the walls. They scatter as we climb out. It is a warm, sunny day with striations of cloud on a blue sky. Frank lights the stove for tea and we eat fruit and yogurt for breakfast.
It will be a short ride today, about 20 km, so we want to spend the morning hiking out to the end of the cape and exploring the area around the fort. We load our bags onto our bikes and hide them in bushes near to fort in case other visitors arrive.
We make sure they are tightly sealed so the monkeys cannot dig through them, before we set out. We follow the top of the bluff where the vegetation is light until we are near the end of the caper. There is no clear path leading down to the rocks but we hack our way through the palms and undergrowth until we are standing on the western tip. There is no safe way to reach the beaches below the bluff from the rocks so we climb back up. We find the semblance of a trail a few hundred metres back and follow it to an isolated beach, where we bathe naked for a couple hours before climbing back up to the fort.
Our bikes are untouched where we left them and there is no sign of any other visitors. There are no tire tracks on the dirt road as we make our way back to the highway. The highway climbs to a crest as we continue south. From the top it drops
steadily for a kilometre, aiming right at the sea and turning at a switchback at the top of a cliff. A kilometre later, still on the downhill, we stop to take a picture of an ornate Hindu temple with an incredibly long name. 
South of Cabo de Rama the road winds through rolling landscapes for a few kilometres. We take a brief side trip to Agonda Beach but it is quite undeveloped, some of the ground where we would camp is muddy and there are many mosquitoes. We have heard suggestions that Palolem Beach, a few kilometres further, is a good place to visit. It is not mentioned in the guide book, just as Cabo de Rama wasn't, and that could be the kind of off-the-beaten-track place Frank and I are looking for.
The road leads us inland around the next headland to the coastal plain on which Palolem Beach is situated. We reach the access road that leads through the village of Palolem to the beach. It is a dirt road but better marked than Cabo de Rama was. The village is half kilometre in along the shady road, a small collection of stores, a hotel and a restaurant. Half a kilometre further along we reach the beach, which opens up into bright sunlight again, the afternoon sun beaming under the palm canopy into our eyes. It is as wide as the beaches further north, but it only extends about a kilometre north and south before being chopped off by rocky headlands. There is a small, relaxed bar and restaurant at the end of the access road, but no sign of any other development along the beach.
There are three collections of cabins along the shady access road between the village and the beach. The one we choose is called the Palolem Paradise Resort. It is the only one that advertises that is has toilets and ceiling fans. It is only 300 m from the restaurant and bar. It looks perfect.
I like this place. I have an affinity to it, an ease with being here more than with other places I have been in Goa or anywhere on this trip. Our host and hostess are gracious and respectful, the setting very restive and nurturing. Even the fact that the beach here is contained within two kilometres with headlands on either end seems to feel more protected, yet large enough. There are other travelers here, but not very many. The restaurant has seats for slightly more than twenty people, so it feels very homey. I don't feel like a tourist here. I feel like an appreciated guest.
I sit with Frank and watch the sunset with a few others staying here. Two of them, Jesse and Karen, are living in a van up the road. No one seems to mind that they are not staying in a hotel. They have been here for three weeks and they too feel it is the best place they have been in Goa. Frank is very happy here too. We chat comfortably with the others and the restaurant owner at times, but at other times we just sit quietly to watch the sunset without needing to talk. This place is like a warm bath. I want time here to pass as slowly as possible. There is nothing more I want to ask for.
PHOTO 1: fortress at Cabo de Rama
PHOTO 2: Cabo de Rama
PHOTO 3: from the hiking trail on the bluff
PHOTO 4: the beach below the bluff
PHOTO 5: back on the highway south
PHOTO 6: view south from top of Cabo de Rama
PHOTO 7: temple: Shri Laxminarayamgramdev
PHOTO 8: road to Palolem
PHOTO 9: near Agonda Beach
Saturday, February 4, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 338
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Tuesday, February 4th – Benaulim Beach to Cabo de Rama, 17,270 km
After a morning swim, shower and our last meal at Pedro’s, Frank and I set out south along the sandy beach. It is a short ride, about four kilometres, until we get to Varca Beach, which we can tell because it has a welcome sign by a beach bar. It is pretty quiet here, even quieter than Benaulim, but the bar doesn’t look as nice and there is only one set of cottages nearby.
There is a thicket of coconut trees at Varca, denser than I have seen before. From the beach there is a scenic, palm-lined country road that twists and winds through
the farms to reach Colva Road. Dogs are barking as we pass. Some run as far as the road towards us but none of them attack. I have my water bottle ready just in case, to squirt them up the nose when they get close. That’s a trick I learned from a friend when cycling around Lake Ontario three years ago. It certainly catches them off-guard without hurting them.
It occurs to me that no dogs have barked at us or chased us in India until now. After thinking about it for a bit, I realize that in India dogs must scavenge for their food and they know that they must survive by their wits and be nice to people to get what they need. In Goa, however, people feed their dogs like they do in Europe, a habit acquired from the Portuguese, and dogs will usually try to protect the home that provides for them.
We cross Colva Road when we get to it, aiming for the village of Orlim. It has the only bridge over the Sal River, which would block our way south on other routes. The village has a quaint, whitewashed Catholic Church in the Portuguese style. We stop here briefly for a break before crossing the short bridge.
I get the feeling, with the small, often ill-paved roads, overhanging trees, the quaint Christian churches and equally numerous roadside bars and restaurants, that I am riding on an island in the Caribbean. Frank says he has never been there, but he think Jamaica would look like this. I wonder if the Christians here are as evangelical and unquestioning as they are in the Caribbean.
In a couple kilometres, our tiny road joins a bigger road heading south. It leads us to a slightly longer crossing of another branch of the Sal, by a naval academy. It continues south, parallel to the coast, until it ends at a T-intersection. From here we head to the coast and the estuary of the Sal, where more than a dozen fishing boats are parked on a small beach beside the road.
From here, the road climbs into low hills, bending around forest hills that afford some views of the ocean nearby. Once we lose sight of it we know to watch for a road leading to Cabo de Rama, where the abandoned fortress is. We stop at two roads that prove to be very short and dead-end before we find the one we are looking for, marked by a small, weather-beaten sign in Portuguese and Hindi.
The road is dirt. It climbs, falls and changes direction a few times before it climbs onto an open plateau covered in low shrubs and grass, with palms on the sides
of the hills above the beaches below. The fort is only three kilometres from the road but it takes us fifteen minutes to reach it on the rough road. It is not large compared to other fortresses I have seen on my trip, except maybe the Fortress of Prince Henry the Navigator in Sagres Portugal. Yes, I have come full circle, from arriving at that fort on my second week into my trip to arriving in this Portuguese fort halfway around the world on the second last week of my trip almost eleven months later.
The fortress is just a shell, made of large, heavy-looking sandstone blocks. The walls are only about five metres high. Dead grasses cap the tops of its walls and small shrubs have taken root on its sides – even a couple trees in places – as nature sets about tearing apart what man has left behind.
Inside the walls it is mostly an empty courtyard, not very large, with a few shrubs and a rusted cannon barrel that probably weighs a couple hundred kilos. There are some blocks knocked off the walls that are lying at the base of the walls. We surprise a gang of local monkeys who live nearby. This is probably one of their playgrounds. They scamper away before I can get my camera out.
It’s dead quiet here. There are no other visitors and there were no vehicle tracks on the road in. There aren’t even any ships visible on the sea at the moment. The fortress is the only sign of human existence, and it looks like a remnant of an extinct civilization that has been forgotten.
The courtyard, being flat, is a perfect place to pitch our tent, and it gives us protection from the breezes that accelerate as they cross the top of the bluff. Frank sets up his stove and we make our dinner of dried noodles and soup which we bought in Margao. We have fruit for desert. There is no water here other than what we have brought with us. We don’t have enough to wash the dishes so we wipe them mostly clean with sand and tie them into a plastic bag to wash at our next stop.
After dinner has been cleaned up, we walk around the bluffs near the fort and then sit on the decaying walls to watch the sunset. “This is the life,” Frank says, and I agree with him, but I add silently to myself that I am grateful to have someone to share it with.
PHOTO 1: leaving Benaulim Beach, riding the sand again
PHOTO 2: the coconut grove
PHOTO 3: Colva Road
PHOTO 4: Orlim Church
PHOTO 5: headland of Cabo de Rama
PHOTO 6: fortress walls at Cabo de Rama
PHOTO 7: inside the fortress walls
PHOTO 8: sunset at the cape
Friday, February 3, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 337
Monday, February 3rd – Benaulim Beach
I had a great sleep. There are mosquito nets to drape over the bed at night but there aren’t many mosquitoes buy the beach. It is cool enough with the sea breezes to sleep without the fan on. I find the sound of waves very relaxing.
We head over to Pedro’s to have breakfast. He makes us pancakes with local fruit on the side. We chat briefly with the other guests but they keep most to themselves, which is fine with us. After breakfast is digested I go for a swim. There are other crabs in the water, large red ones that hold up their claws towards me menacingly as I swim over them. They are the only interesting sea life I see, except for a skate.
Most of the day I lie on the beach and read. Frank is beside me sometimes and at other times off taking a walk. We both like to explore by nature. A day or two of this is fine but I’d go crazy just lying around uselessly working on a tan. I like lying naked on beaches when I can find them. Marcia and Craig say there still are some secluded one in north Goa. Frank says he’s sunbathed naked on the dunes in Holland. I am thinking as I lie here what it would be like for me lying nude with him. I’ve seen his hunky body naked a few times after his shower. The scenery would certainly be good if he was there, but there is no point fantasizing about men I cannot have. It would seem disrespectful too, as he has been such a good friend.
I return to the cabin with him to make sandwiches for lunch, to save money and to eat our groceries before they spoil in this heat. Then it’s back to the beach for more bathing and a swim before I retreat to the shade on Pedro’s patio. The local fishermen return a bit earlier today so I walk down to meet them. They are relaxing and chatting. They had no catch today. Of course, they ask where I am from and I tell them I am traveling by bicycle. They think I live an idle life to be doing a trip like this, and compared to them perhaps I do. One of them sees my hands and he lifts one up to show the others how soft and smooth it is. He shows he his. It is so heavily calloused from working the ropes on the fishing boats that it looks like a foot.
I return to Pedro’s to look for Frank. I find him in the cabin showered. After I have my turn rinsing off the salt water we head back to Pedro’s for another delicious meal and a drink. It is lovely here but I am already restless. The quiet is pleasant but boring. We discuss where we want to go from here. There is an abandoned Portuguese fort at Cabo de Rama about 60 kilometres south of here according to our map, but I can find nothing in our guide book about it. “Perfect,” Frank declares. “We should definitely check it out before they put it in the guide book.” “It’s a plan,” I say. I love this guy’s attitude!
PHOTO 1: Benaulim Beach from Pedro's
PHOTO 2: local fishing boat on Benaulim Beach
I had a great sleep. There are mosquito nets to drape over the bed at night but there aren’t many mosquitoes buy the beach. It is cool enough with the sea breezes to sleep without the fan on. I find the sound of waves very relaxing.
We head over to Pedro’s to have breakfast. He makes us pancakes with local fruit on the side. We chat briefly with the other guests but they keep most to themselves, which is fine with us. After breakfast is digested I go for a swim. There are other crabs in the water, large red ones that hold up their claws towards me menacingly as I swim over them. They are the only interesting sea life I see, except for a skate.
Most of the day I lie on the beach and read. Frank is beside me sometimes and at other times off taking a walk. We both like to explore by nature. A day or two of this is fine but I’d go crazy just lying around uselessly working on a tan. I like lying naked on beaches when I can find them. Marcia and Craig say there still are some secluded one in north Goa. Frank says he’s sunbathed naked on the dunes in Holland. I am thinking as I lie here what it would be like for me lying nude with him. I’ve seen his hunky body naked a few times after his shower. The scenery would certainly be good if he was there, but there is no point fantasizing about men I cannot have. It would seem disrespectful too, as he has been such a good friend.
I return to the cabin with him to make sandwiches for lunch, to save money and to eat our groceries before they spoil in this heat. Then it’s back to the beach for more bathing and a swim before I retreat to the shade on Pedro’s patio. The local fishermen return a bit earlier today so I walk down to meet them. They are relaxing and chatting. They had no catch today. Of course, they ask where I am from and I tell them I am traveling by bicycle. They think I live an idle life to be doing a trip like this, and compared to them perhaps I do. One of them sees my hands and he lifts one up to show the others how soft and smooth it is. He shows he his. It is so heavily calloused from working the ropes on the fishing boats that it looks like a foot.
I return to Pedro’s to look for Frank. I find him in the cabin showered. After I have my turn rinsing off the salt water we head back to Pedro’s for another delicious meal and a drink. It is lovely here but I am already restless. The quiet is pleasant but boring. We discuss where we want to go from here. There is an abandoned Portuguese fort at Cabo de Rama about 60 kilometres south of here according to our map, but I can find nothing in our guide book about it. “Perfect,” Frank declares. “We should definitely check it out before they put it in the guide book.” “It’s a plan,” I say. I love this guy’s attitude!
PHOTO 1: Benaulim Beach from Pedro's
PHOTO 2: local fishing boat on Benaulim Beach
Thursday, February 2, 2012
20 years ago today – Day 336
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Sunday, February 2nd – Colva Beach to Benaulim Beach, 17,190 km
It is a cloudy morning though it looks like it might burn off. Our crummy room doesn’t have hot water this morning so my shower is very short. Frank doesn’t much like our place. His bed was rather lumpy and he did not sleep well. He suggests that instead of looking for another dump in this run down tourist town, we should move onto Benaulim Beach, away from the noise and commercialism of Colva. I agree, but I want breakfast first. We find a place by the beach with a patio that serves coffee and breakfast.
We pass by at Longuinhos before we go to say goodbye to anyone we might see from last night, but I suppose they are doing something else or still in bed. We ride on the service roads to get there, first riding into Margao to check out the covered market, which we have been told is very good. It is so close, only 7 km away, that is a way to pass part of the day.
Margo is the main commercial town of south Goa. It is pleasant enough with several Portuguese-styled buildings, but it’s got very little to offer a traveler in the way of sights. We poke around the market for an hour, buy fruit and sandwich supplies and then make our way through a maze of side roads to get to Benaulim Beach. By now the cloud cover has burned off and the sunshine is warm enough to make the shade inviting.
Benaulim is quiet compared to Colva. There are two sets of cottages at the end of the road, L’Amour Beach Resort and O Palmar Cottages, and beyond them there is Pedro’s Bar and Restaurant, right at the edge of the beach. The cottages are the same price at both resorts but L’Amour looks nicer and the staff are very friendly. The cottages with two beds are only 80 rupees per night (very affordable) and they have ceiling fans and full bathrooms. They seemed to be lined up to catch the cool sea breezes and Pedro’s is only 50 m away.
Pedro’s Bar and Restaurant seems to have the whole beach to itself. It isn’t that large, perhaps thirty chairs not counting the bar stools. Pedro tends the bar. He’s a Portuguese/ Indian mix, an attractive man made more attractive by his smile. He lives at the back of the restaurant with his wife and one daughter. I’d guess he’s about 40.
There are maybe a dozen others in the bar when we arrive, which is now mid-afternoon. Most are guests of the two sets of cottages, but there is at least one couple from the village of Benaulim about a kilometre from the beach. The bar has a very nice atmosphere, relaxed and quiet. There is no music blaring like there is in many bars in Colva. The patrons are a bit older too, more my age than Frank’s, but he seem to enjoy it much better than the ones in Colva. We have all the time in the world to hang around noisy establishments when we get home he tells me.
Eventually we move out to the patio, in the broken shade of a palm tree, to watch the fishermen pull onto the beach with their catch. It is a modest catch. Pedro leaves his wife Isabella in charge of the bar while he goes to pick out the best fish before they haul their catch off to market in Margao. He returns to the bar and Isabella goes of the restaurant to wait for them to unload the purchase.
We stay for dinner to enjoy the fresh catch. There are no other options unless we ride to the village a few minutes away, but it proves to be a delicious option. I have a pomfret stuffed with something spicy and Frank has the prawns in a curried coconut milk sauce.
The sunsets are incredible here. We watch today’s with rum and coconut drink, and then sit out on the sand after dark to watch the waves. We stay very still to see if the scampering white crabs will eventually emerge while we are there. They don’t.
PHOTO 1: Goan Catholic church
PHOTO 2: traffic in Margao
PHOTO 3: Margao's covered market
PHOTO 4: the way to Benaulim Beach
PHOTO 5: Pedro's Bar & Restaurant
PHOTO 6: sunset at Benaulim Beach
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