20 years ago today – Day 344

View Larger Map

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