Good to Goa Scotsman.com ALISON SMITH I had decided never to go to Goa again. My previous visit was as a wide-eyed teen in 1990 en route to a year travelling around Australia. I revelled in the impossibly exotic places and people I found in India's coastal paradise, and indulged in the decidedly un-Scottish pursuits of laziness and self-absorption, with the obligatory probe into Eastern spirituality. A five-day stopover stretched into three months. When I finally found my way from temple to phone to call home, my dad jolted me back to earth with the words: "I'm no' wantin' you comin' back wi' a shaved heid!"
My hair survived, but I couldn't imagine topping the time I had there, and stories of package tour companies colonising the coast put me off further - so I decided to leave the place untouched in my memory. But years later, the lure of cheap flights and the promise of a two-week sun-fest to escape the dark, freezing winter proved too much, and I found myself aboard a crammed charter flight to Goa airport at Dabolim. The difference from 16 years ago was already apparent. Where once the committed travelled overland from Bombay to find rarefied bliss, the age of rampant air miles had made the endeavour easier for everyone and much more inclusive. For every plummy accent there was a Welsh builder, a folk-singing Scouser or a Cockney complaining about "too many northerners - no offence, love, I mean the north of England". I headed north to revisit Anjuna, long-time hangout for hippies and eccentrics, and home to the huge, bustling Wednesday market where you can haggle over 50p here and there for silks, spices and trinkets. The few bars which punctuated the beach before had multiplied, but the place had the same character of wild and woolly Bohemia. A local superstition about the bad luck of building above two storeys nicely hampers any ambitious plans for development. Villas and cafés with a Portuguese flavour (the state was a colony until 1961) stretch out behind the beach, where you can lounge on day beds or in hanging chairs sipping fruit lassis while dopey dogs bake in the sun. Tourists zip around on rented mopeds, or hire a taxi for the whole day without breaking the bank. In the nearby town of Mapusa I saw a magician make a motorbike disappear and a lady levitate, and hypnotise a bloke from the audience to entertain us in the style of a female Bollywood dancer. And the Well of Death showed off the Indian relish for dangerous driving. Young thrill-seekers wound around an open-topped, rickety wooden bowl at mad speeds, sitting sidesaddle on motorbikes, or nonchalantly on the edge of car windows, plucking banknotes out of the hands of the audience assembled at the top. By night, I found the range of dining options in Anjuna had exploded. Xavier's restaurant is reputed to have the best seafood in an area renowned for it, and their fish curry is a must. A short hop away at Baga, J&A's offers fine Italian dining on the waterfront for silly prices. Elsewhere, organic cafés run by smiley, shaven-headed health nuts offer mung bean salads, tempeh and cashew nut curries and fresh juices. Fuelled by beansprouts, it seemed a shame not to pursue the health kick and I tried a couple of drop-in sessions at the Purple Valley Yoga centre, which also runs yoga holidays. Classes take place on white net-draped platforms in the lush gardens of the Hotel Bougainvillea, before the sun gets too high. At the end of a dynamic, satisfying run through the postures, I followed the lead of a bearded teacher with a plait and a Californian accent in using laughter as the best way to release tension. This started off not being funny at all, and ended up being so hilarious that I was still shaking with mirth well into the "deep relaxation" phase. Deep relaxation was in short supply on the beach at nearby Vagator. The days around New Year are the busiest in the season and I spent the afternoon shoo-ing away a persistent holy cow trying to eat my lunch, practising diplomacy with mean-looking Russians' girlfriends over the parasols, and trying not to have my heartstrings plucked by all the pretty beach-seller girls: "Hello, madam, where you from - Scotland? See you Jimmy, Och aye the noo!" The best course of action seemed to be to head north in search of a lower sunworshipper-to-beach ratio and we found it at Ashvem - a broad sweep of sand with a few low-key cafés which rent out basic bamboo beach shacks for around 400 rupees (£5). This is when you realise all you need is a bed, a fan, a mosquito net and a nearby shower, and the urge to renounce all your worldly goods takes hold. While nightlife on this stretch of coast generally winds down with the sun, we stumbled on a night festival honouring the local saint. Sari-ed women and children gathered in an open building for a re-enactment of stories from the Bhagavad Gita: Vishnu vanquished a scary-looking black demon with his cardboard sword, accompanied by a lone tabla player and finger bells. Meanwhile, the menfolk crouched outside on chai mats gambling on an unfathomable card game. North of Ashvem, the dunes resort at Mandrem offers more basic shack living along with yoga, and the village of Arambol is a draw for travellers looking to escape the "scene" in Anjuna. At the northernmost tip of the coast is one of Goa's heritage hotels, Fort Tiracol - a beautifully converted 16th-century fort offering rustic luxury and stunning views across the Tiracol river to the deserted Kevi beach. You can sip cocktails on the rooftop bar and keep an eye out for marauding pirates who might be threatening the coast. The only way from the fort is south, so we headed for the popular resort of Palolem, where the long crescent beach has for some years been attracting those in search of the ultimate chill-out experience. We made the journey on two wheels, stopping en route to check out two formerly sleepy idylls, Baga and Calangute. These are the resorts the package tour companies homed in on in the early 1990s, and the area that has diehard independent travellers stroking their beards and shaking their heads in despair. Anyone disturbed by the sight of rum-soaked Brits doing exactly what they do at home should avoid central Calangute's bars. But the Titos nightclub is worth a look - tourists from Bombay tear up the dancefloor, while blonde girls sip mojitos and ladyboys float around the edges. By the more sedate beach of Sinquerim to the south, those with a big budget will find five-star accommodation, including the Taj Holiday Village with its multicoloured cottages set in landscaped gardens, and the sumptuous Fort Aguada Beach Resort. A friend who has adopted India as his home warned me Palolem was overrated, and the guidebook's photographs of an idyllic, endless beach with a lone woman in a sari did nothing to prepare me for the massive frenzy of bamboo shacks several layers deep which had sprung up to service the sunseekers. My judgment clouded by the early grip of a 24-hour sickness, I ended up in a shack at the back of a restaurant close to a colony of rubbish-eating pigs, and I was too ill or flaky to move out for the next four days. Shack-living suddenly went from liberating to oppressive. Hours spent sweating and looking at the rotating fan, punctuated by visits to the corrugated iron toilet, made the experience a bit too Tenko for my liking. These things work themselves out, though, and I was impressed by a pal's choice of huts at the more upmarket Patnem - they even had a royal resident, in the shape of posh party boy Lord Freddie Windsor. And when I could finally face seafood, I found some of the best I tasted in Goa. It has to be said that, despite the peak season crush, it's not a bad life in Palolem. And if the visitor ever tires of sunbathing, Ayurvedic massage, swimming at sunset, feasting on tandoori kingfish and partying in bars with daft names like Dancing Shiva, a trip inland to Pepper Valley offers a hint of India's wild interior. Treks are organised into the nature reserve where water snakes weave upstream, and gangs of cheeky monkeys scramble through the trees. Cheap air travel has opened up something of the Goa experience to more people, and this has to be a good thing if you believe in democracy and meaningful cultural exchange. I mean, how did the Goans cope before the folk-singing Scousers? Come on, la - does anyone fancy a bit of Joni Mitchell? Factfile: Goa How to get there n Flights from Scotland to Goa start at £350 return from Aberdeen and from £371 from Edinburgh and Glasgow. Visit www.cheapflights.co.uk Monarch offers charter flights from London Gatwick to Goa from £321 return. Visit www.flymonarch.com Where to stay Fort Tiracol Heritage Hotel, Tiracol. Dinner, bed and breakfast costs from £69 per night. Tel: 0091 236 622 7631. Hotel Bougainvillea, Anjuna. Bed and breakfast costs from £15 to £34 per night. Tel: 0091 832 227 3270. And there's more The flea market at Anjuna is held each Wednesday, with stalls selling everything from spices to CDs. Xavier's (0091 832 2273402) is in South Anjuna near the beach. Purple Valley Yoga Centre, 142 Bairo Alto, Assagao, Mapusa, Bardez, Goa. Tel: 0091 832 2268 364 or visit www.yogagoa.net This article: http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=390002006 Last updated: 16-Mar-06 01:53 GMT ~(^^)~ Avelino
