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* Cavala, Goa: *Small is Beautiful Nayantara Patel Savour the simple bare necessities and a lot of charm at the Cavala, Goa
<http://www.outlooktraveller.com/aspscripts/mag_art.asp?magid=15&page=2>
I was looking for breakfast, and I found it at the Cavala. Classic, lovely breakfast: orange juice, Goa sausage-pau, filter coffee. We had sat in the wicker chairs in the bar-restaurant, watching two young women decide their day with the Lonely Planet (French edition), and three long-haired children haggle with their hippie mothers.
Photo Credit: Nayantara Patel
We were staying elsewhere, in south Goa at some five-star resort that writers for travel magazines must pretend they're having a good time at. Something made me uncharacteristically bold and decisive at that breakfast-heavy table -- the pretty stone walls, the unobsequious friendliness, the confident time-passing of old-timers, something. Were rooms available? Yes; I followed one gentleman up old-fashioned stairs and down a black-and-white checkered floor of a corridor, hoping against hope. It was going to be complicated, possibly embarrassing, to shift hotels, but I was beginning to sense this was the modern classic hotel I had never found.
He opened a door into a room. Simple, airy, white-covered twin beds, pretty ashtrays, plain dressing table, tiny balcony looking out onto open green fields, ceiling fan, little else. Perhaps the bathroom would reveal the fatal flaw, preserver of current hotel room and traveller’s cynicism? It didn’t. Simple, spotless, white tiles, clean towel, clean pot, little else.
Perhaps this was trendy simple, boutique understatement; perhaps it'll cost Rs 2,300 a night, taxes extra? Single room, occupancy is low -- will Rs 500 be okay? I experience happiness in a tight corner.The highest tariff is Rs 1,100
The Cavala was set up in the late seventies. Since then visitors have come and gone, and usually come back. (One guest retired from his Bombay job, moved to Goa, and now helps out at the Cavala in between fenis.)
Marius the owner is friendly in a reticent sort of way. A couple of drinks at the bar, and he's telling me stories. Or maybe it was the whiskey talking. An elderly English gent strides in, familiar and welcome. He booms flirtatiously at a pretty girl. Charming tales and engaging opinions fly around; I feel like I'm on holiday even though I'm not. I learn many things: something of Goan history, contemporary Goan attitudes, where to buy home-made sausage, where to find a pretty beach.
The hotel is an attractive ivy-covered building, two minutes from the ever-popular Baga beach. It manages to be all things to everyone: the bustling restaurant-bar is a haunt for both regulars and the lucky; the hotel itself is a simple oasis of calm in a tourist wasteland. The rooms have neither television nor telephone.
I liked the hotel a lot.
