HOLY COW! A Postcard from Palolem Beach, Goa, India
March 2012
First stop was the beach; India being a unique and hectic experience, we got straight out of the (noisy / polluted) city to the palm trees and sandy beach. Also, being in India, on day 2 we came down with a dose of the old food poisoning… Bear said ‘Lets get a tandoori fish, all the locals are eating it…’ famous last words, anyway, our first week in India was spent between the bathroom, the deck chairs and eating baked potatoes.
The second week was much better, we were both looking browner and thinner and on a strict diet of fruit and water. Now we could explore the area; first thing was to climb the island off shore, which we could wade to at low tide. I think it’s official name is Butterfly Island, but it’s now called Monkey Island as we saw a couple of little silver monkeys with black faces in the bushes.
The climb was steep and dusty up the higgledy-piggledy sandstone steps to the summit, where there was a curious feature carved into the stone; a bowl with the inscription around the rim; ‘GIVE IF YOU CAN, TAKE IF YOU HAVE TO’, and inside were some coins, a leaf and a white feather.
Our trip had coincided with Holy; a dry (no alcohol) week celebrating ‘Holy Holy’, a Hindu high-holiday with much throwing of coloured powder and shouting the exclamation ‘HAPPY HOLY!’ at everyone.
Our time at Palolem also saw the great conjunction between Jupiter and Venus, which we watched every night from our little hut under the palm trees once the Sun had set behind Monkey Island.
As Bear has some interesting comments to make about my hippy ways…. he seems to be fitting in well as he has purchased a bongo drum (it’s real name is a Jambe drum, but he affectionately calls it Bongo).
This happened because we were living next to a Jambe maker, player, and of course, seller, called Atlaf. Every morning he would play a rhythm and as soon as we came out of the hut, well you can guess the rest…. after a week of ‘Hello my friend, come and play, no buy, it’s ok…’ Bear had all the drums lined up asking ‘How much?’. He opted for a beautifully carved mango wood and buffallo skin Jambe in orange for the princely sum of 2000 rupees, ‘Good price, good price my friend’…..
Bongo now accounts for Bears hand luggage on planes, trains and tuk tuks.
We knew it was time to move on once a fight started on the beach between some very drunk boys and girls from Birmingham. Now, being from the Midlands, it’s this kind of thing that I moved to get away from, but no, seems the Brummie love of a pint and a punch up is alive and well on the edge of the Arabian Sea.
We de-camped and headed up the cliff between Palolem and Patnam beaches to a jungle eco village called Bhakti Kutir, with a wonderful outside, open air bathroom! Does a bear poo in the woods..? Yes, especially when there are birds singing and the sun is shining. It was alot of fun!
After all the wonderful beach times, it was time to saddle up, and catch a 15 hour train down to Kerala state… The reality of purchasing a drum one week into a year long trip was starting to dawn on Bear…
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