11/08/2008 - 16/08/2008
Cherai Beach, Kerala to Margao, Southern Goa.
The auto drivers were offering to take me to Cherai beach for Rs.500, but of course that's not my way.. And, I knew from my conversations with locals that there was an easy and cheaper way to get there. Of course there was - 500 is ridiculous! The room i spent my last night in only cost me 200. A 3 rupee ferry to Vipin island, and 11 for the bus and i was in Cherai within an hour - about 35c as opposed to $12.50! I found a cheap little room, across from the beach, with a cool owner and a restaraunt attached.
The mad Christian had said "Quiet, not many tourists, and a nice beach for swimming." He was right about everything but the swimming. There were NO tourists, which suited me, and it was deathly quiet. About 3 auto drivers sitting around, 1 little shop open, and my restaraunt. Quiet alright! I walked to the beach, and realised swimming was out of the question - it was as rough as hell, and you could see the rip from the beach. Oh well. The heat wasn't that bad anyway, as the monsoonal rains had really started to hit. I then worked out that there was of course no ATM, and i was out of money. My last 20 got me into town, where i found out that there wasn't one there either. Shit. A lot of asking around, and i found out the nearest was in North Purur, 5 kms away. I eventually made it there and back, and with a pocketful of cash and almost nothing to spend it on, i spent 2 very quiet and uneventful nights there. Yet it was just what i needed. I ate extremely well, slept well, meditated on the beach, and read almost everything i own.
My plans after Cherai were to head up into the Kerala hills to Munnar, and the tea plantations. But with a taste of the beach again, i brashly decided to leave Kerala altogether, bound for Goa. Didi was destined to return before september and her birthday, and i wanted to find a nice place on the beach where we could celebrate it. I found the only public computer in Cherai, and started the arduous task of finding a train. Indian Railways now has an internet booking system, which is fantastic, as long as you can get to the site. Of course a few things had to be invented to create a login and make the booking (Indian mobile number, Indian address etc.), but in the space of 2 hours (yes, 2 hours!) i had all the posible trains to Madgao (Margao) in Goa's south on my screen. With a quick look at the details, i somehow believed it to be a 5 or 6 hour journey. My first mistake. Alarm bells should have rung then, since this threw my mental map of India into question. But hey, my mental map as opposed to Indian Railways info? After 2 hours on that slow pc, i was willing to take their word for it, rather than checking Google Maps... Mistake #2. Stupid. I figured 6 hrs in a seat to read my book would be fine, so i booked a seat instead of a sleeper, for less than half the price. Mistake #3. Really stupid. The next day, after a hellish mission to get to the train on time (i ended up at the WRONG station - long story..), and a very long walk to the very front of the platform (where i was told carriage J3 would be), i saw another section on my ticket. There was no arrival time written, but there was a distance - 862kms. Now unless Indian trains and infrastructure have had a major upgrade, there was no way i would be in Margao in 6 hrs. In fact, i'd be lucky to get there in 15 by my reckoning. While pondering over distances, likely average speed of Indian trains and of course my stupidity, the train pulled in. Right at the front, where i was told to be, was carraiges J1, J2, then G1, G2, G3...... Where was J3?! A very nice man, with a big grin and a bit of a chuckle, told me it was the LAST carriage. Of course it was.
The seemingly endless 15 hours were filled with awful food, uncomfortable seats and bad music through mobile phones, yet surprisingly good company. There were 6 guys from Kochi on their way to Goa for a 2 week bachelor holiday. All of them keen to talk about anything and everything - Kerala, Goa, Australia, cricket, football, Indian women, Australian women, 'love' marriages - let's just say i was never bored! Luckily, the carriage was rather empty - empty enough for me to lie down across 3 seats to get some sleep. Not very good sleep, but sleep nonetheless. Then at 4 am, we pulled into Madgao station. My carriage mates had decided to get an auto into town. All 6 in a rickshaw. No chance of sharing! After deciding against sleeping on the platform (with the hundreds of Indians) for the 2 hours till sunrise, i got my own auto to a nearby motel. "Goa's Pride", it was called. If it was, i'd painted a picture in my mind of Goa that fell far from the truth. It was cockroach infested, filthy, smelly; it was on a main road, so very noisy; it smelt of wet sheets and mildew... But it had a bed and a shower. And that's all i really needed.
The closest beach to Margao was Colva according to my hosts - a few kms out of Margao. I squeezed myself and my pack onto the doorless and overflowing bus for the 15 min into town. It was just my luck that it was a holiday, and everything was closed. I wandered around searching for an internet place, asking whoever i could. Some vague directions took me close, until i sat down with a legless beggar (literally legless, not drunk..) to rest and have a chat. His english was impeccable, and he told me where the internet would be available. How he would know about an unsigned and dodgy computer joint on the 4th floor of a backstreet building, i don't know... I had enough trouble getting up those stairs, so i'm sure he'd probably never been there! I felt scungy leaving him only Rs.10, but there's only so much you can give to each needy person - one man can't feed India. But, he was so grateful even for that. In fact, every beggar i have given to in Goa has been much more grateful than elsewhere. In Pondy, some would look at you as if you had seriously offended them by only giving 5 or 10. My legless friend wished me a great trip, and i stumbled up the stairs to probably the worst internet cafe i had seen in years. I'd forgotten what a 486 running Windows 95 was like. I remember now. It was also an incredible feat of space utilisation - human tetris, really. Getting to my PC required everybody in the room (it was full - about 12 people) to inhale and shuffle a bit. Once on, i had to be careful not to hit the keys of my neighbours; the keyboards almost butted up to eachother....
I did a bit of searching on the net for the best beaches in Goa, and where they were in relation to Margao. I read that Colva was certainly not one of these, but it was one of the busiest, and therefore somewhere i could hire a motorbike to explore. Palolem looked like where i wanted to be, but was about 50 km south. It was already afternoon, so i wasn't about to brave a 2hr bus, if there even was one considering the holiday. Still exhausted from the train, and really wanting to put down my pack, i decided to spend the night at Colva. I ended up hitching a lift with local on his motorbike, and gave him half the price of a taxi bike, which meant we were both happy. The cheapest place i could find in Colva turned out to be similar to 'Goa's Pride' - the only difference being it's proximity to the Arabian Sea. The smell of damp was overpowering and the mildew visible, but it was half the price of anything else - i was coming to the realisation that Goa is the Gold Caost of India. And Colva was the Burleigh Heads of Goa. But, there was plenty of good food and beyond the thousands of Indian tourists was a reasonably nice beach. Again, unswimmable due to the monsoonal currrents (over 70 people die each year off Goan beaches - usually alcohol related i am sure, but it looked pretty nasty), but nice nonetheless. There was also a "Cafe Coffee Day" (India's only franchise cafe), and for the extreme price of Rs.50, i had a bloody good Latte - my first since Thailand.
After exploring the beach and town a bit, it was already dark. And exhaustion was tapping me on the shoulder again. Time for some dinner, and tomorrow would be the day to hire a bike and see if i could reach Pololem. I found the cheapest and best food in Colva (a great masala dosa for Rs.30), watched the bustle for a bit, then went home to crash. With the fan on full, i managed to ward off the smell of damp enough to fall into a fitful slumber...
