Asia 2006: Random Bozo goes to back to Goa

update (original blog entry)

In Calangute, north Goa, with Ajeesh from Kerala. Surprisingly, it isn't pissing down.

Will be here for a few days more, then will head north-east...

Later I wrote the following:

We'd originally come to Calangute so that I could meet up with a former colleague who was visiting India. I hadn't heard from her after she arrived in India and was beginning to get concerned but this morning she sent me a text: it turns out she got sick and escaped Calangute the day before we arrived. Hope you're fine now, Ms F!

This was also a very tense day. Ajeesh and I hired a bike from our guest-house owner so we could go further without being at the mercy of Goa's bus company (Kadamba Road Transport Company). We didn't sign a hire agreement and Ajeesh (who did the negotiations in Konkani or Tamil) assumed that the Rs150 per day he was quoted for a 100cc bike would also apply to the 150cc bike he eventually got from the guest-house owner. Both lead to trouble later and not checking the bike immediately led to extra expense. I'm annoyed with myself for not insisting we take the bike half a kilometre or so to check it. If we had checked it, we might have noticed that the fuel gauge wasn't working and so not have bought a lot of petrol which we didn't then use. Also, I'm sure I would have seen that the speedometer wasn't working and insisted on another bike so that I could just tell Ajeesh 'keep below 40kpmh and I'll not leave a brown vapour trail or scream at you to SLOW DOWN!'. Finally, I'd have insisted that the helmet rack be removed from the passenger hand-grip so I could hold on properly!

Ahem. So we went on our merry way to Anjuna and had a look for the famed flea market. H'mm - something wrong here. My diary says Thursday but the market's on a Wednesday. Perhaps that (and not it being off-season) explains why the market ground was empty. We biked through Anjuna's back paths and over a rocky headland, then came back via the sea front, passing some paragliders on the wat. We also amazed a Californian who's now resident in Anjuna that we arrived where he was from this direction.

He recommended we head up the coast to Arambol. With no other thoughts as to what to do and a whopping three litres of petrol in the tank (ooh!), off we went. The beach was deserted apart from Ajeesh and I and two para-surfers, the sand was scorching hot and the surf was fun and warm. I know this mightn't amaze you but after 20 years of living in a seaside town but only once braving the sea, it's brilliant to me.

On the way back (a journey punctuated by Ajeesh's search for paan), I persuaded him to keep slow but he asked me to hold his shoulders rather than reach back. I'm not sure I felt any safer. However, just outside Baga, our luck ran out. We, along with others, were signalled to stop by a police-person. Their fun for the day was checking that motorists passing this spot weren't driving stolen vehicles or committing other offences. The papers proving that the bike belonged to the hotel owner were locked in a side compartment we couldn't open. With hindsight, this was probably a good thing: the papers would have shown for sure that the bike wasn't ours and we had nothing to prove we hadn't stolen it! The police-person dealing with us didn't seem to hear or understand my suggestion that he phone the owner and get him to confirm we'd got the bike from him legally.

As we were struggling with the compartment door, a bloke in an orange shirt came over and asked me what the problem was. Ajeesh and I replied, mentioning that we couldn't get at the papers we needed and that we didn't have any hire documents. The bloke replied 'you shouldn't say this: that's illegal too and you'll get a bigger fine.' Ajeesh replied to him but I wasn't sure we should carry on the conversation: who was this bloke in the orange shirt? I asked the uniformed officer who beckoned us back to him whether the Orangeman was a police-person. I received a mouthful of abuse for this: apparently I shouldn't have talked to him if I had doubts. Pointing out that I didn't start the conversation led to more tongue-lashing. Ajeesh tried to intervene, mentioning his social work in the hope that we'd get off because of his good character. This may have helped - we were fined Rs100 while a couple of Mumbaikars were fined Rs500 for exactly the same offences.

The police weren't very thorough: to start with, the bike wouldn't have passed a UK MOT. Nor did they check our ID or luggage. I'm sure Indian law says you should wear a helmet and I'm sure I never want a run-in with foreign police ever again.

Later Ajeesh got on the wrong side of my tension from this event and from breaking British (telephonic) social conventions he couldn't have known about. I'm embarrassed to say I went on about it for some time. I've apologised profusely since and I think that what I said was true but I'm still embarrassed by this.