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 Asian Continent |
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 GOA: There's Good News and Bad |
By TOM THUMB
| Located on the southwest coast of the Indian subcontinent, Goa is a former Portuguese colony that became famous as a hippie hang out in the 60's and 70's and has recently become one of the largest charter tourist destinations in the world. With a more relaxed and tolerant pace than the rest of India, Goa is a magnet for travelers in the area who come to enjoy the ambience of the jungle, roar around the dirt red roads on motorbikes and hang out with an international crowd all set on partying the night away. But for all talk of rave parties and palm tree beaches, precious little attention is ever focused on the local Goan culture that changes alongside the tourist economy. |
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Few Goans regard themselves as 'Indians', and while there's much in their culture that resembles the rest of the sub-continent, the years of Portuguese rule have left their mark. Many people still speak Portuguese, there are stunning white churches everywhere and there's a laid-back, tolerant atmosphere here that has traditionally held a strong appeal for visitors. |
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| The Goan day usually begins with the head member of the household jumping on a scooter or a bus to head to town and haggle for produce in the market place. Foodstuffs and fabrics are bought loose here, and no one ever pays full price for anything except pre-packaged goods. Negotiating over their purchases allows for the kind of human interchange so much missing in the supermarkets of the West. Walking through the marketplace, the Goans catch up on all the latest gossip, check the cricket scores in the newspaper and enjoy a quick cup of tea and a cigarette at a dim café with only plastic tables and chairs for furniture. They may buy a lottery ticket or two, buy a sticker of their favorite saint or god (depending on their religion) and then head back home before the sun climbs too high in the sky. |
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| Although it's commonly claimed that Goa is a Christian state, the majority of the state is now Hindu as other Indians have arrived to enjoy Goa's economic boom, and the result is that the calendar year now hosts the numerous holidays of both religions. The wealth tends to be consolidated around Christian households and businesses. So, you will see Portuguese names like D'Souza, Fernandez, Lopez, or Carvalho displayed above shops or in the local politics section of the newspaper. |
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| The ambience is truly found around the Goan houses, which have a strong Portuguese feel with sloping, tile roofs and sweeping long verandahs almost always cast entirely in shade. So harmonious are these old houses that you can almost walk past them in the jungle without seeing them. Yet after a while, you get a sixth sense when approaching a Goan residence. The outhouse comes into view together with a bamboo shelter where fallen palm leaves are stored, and very likely you will see a few scattered pigs or cows, reposing in the heat |
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| In addition, Goans share many Indian traditions including eating food too spicy for most Westerners, conservative moral values and arranged marriages. The latter make reading the local newspapers quite entertaining as the classifieds section is full of spinsters "with wheatish complexion seeking bachelors with good job and respectable family". The requirements often then extend to religion, caste and age, though a foreign residency visa will often smooth over any other issues. Personality and looks are largely irrelevant criteria when it comes to making a good match. Large gaggles of men prevail, and it's not uncommon to see them leaning upon each other's shoulders or walking down the street hand in hand. This has nothing to do with homosexuality, however, and is just a product of a conservative society where young men and women are rarely given the opportunity to spend time together. Hence young Goans tend to become comfortable with members of their own sex and socialize in this way both before and after marriage. Perhaps as a post script to this state of conservative courting practices, Goans are utterly in love with babies. Go to any café, and within minutes the owner will be taking the baby on a tour of the kitchen, giving it more attention than its had all day. |
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Transport in the towns also appears typically Indian with the three-wheeled auto-rickshaws in common use for carrying goods or families, but the scooter or motorbike is the preferred vehicle. No one wears helmets in this heat, which makes a bike ride in Goa one of the most pleasurable (and risky) in the world. Coasting around on two wheels is the only way to really get the feel of these narrow, ambient roads dappled with shade cast from palms and mango trees. |
| As late as 2001 to even take a mobile phone out of your pocket anywhere in Goa was to invite ridicule and derision from all and sundry. These days, no one younger than about 20 can imagine life without one. Never mind that you can drive between beaches in about ten minutes, everyone tends to haunt the same cafes and bars, and that part of the fun in Goa before 2001was wandering about, seeing who's at home. Now, it's apparently more fun to get mobile electronically. |
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| Tourist season lasts from October until April. After that, the heat finally drives almost all the foreigners away, and only the Goans are left to deal with the merciless temperatures until the monsoon rains arrive in June. Then the dusty, red earth landscape is revitalized in days of heavy rainfall. Dormant plants suddenly shoot up inches over night, flowers burst into full bloom as do snakes, rodents and birds made homeless by the torrential downpours. Monsoon is the season when the locals can relax, play cards and try in vain to get their washing dry. Many have to use charcoal burners inside the houses to burn off some of the humidity. The main significance of monsoon for the average Goan though is fishing. The waters become rough and murky which make optimal conditions for snagging a red snapper or kingfish to take home for the family. Making money becomes less of an issue with fresh fish on the table each evening, and it's a chance for the locals to catch up in the early hours of the morning, sharing stories of the past year while they wait for the fish to bite. |
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| Goa is famed for its beaches, but it's rare for the locals to go to the beach. When they do, it's normally to gather the nets on their boats or else to gape at the foreign tourists parading around in what Goans consider to be scandalous swimwear. This latter phenomenon also attracts Indian tourists to the beach who usually make no concessions whatsoever to the weather or setting and enter the sea fully clothed, if they enter at all. A spate of higher than average drownings prompted the authorities to hire lifeguards. To do so, applicants had to go through the usual swimming tests. Perhaps it was asking a bit much of a race of people who live by the sea but hardly ever go anywhere near it to swim 400 meters in 9 minutes. The issue wasn't only that applicants took 20 or 30 minutes to swim the distance, but rather that several of the would-be lifeguards began to flounder half way and had to call for help. It seems that too many of the applicants for the lifeguard jobs had been keen Baywatch fans and assumed the main part of the job was looking manly in beachwear and chatting up blondes in bikinis. While on the beach, as well as in many places where people gather, a scam of which both Goans and tourists must be aware begins, "Hello, my friend, you have something in your ear!" This pitch often comes from men in white shirts (presumably to make them look a little more medical) with black eyes and exuding an altogether evil vibe. Withdrawing a small case of unsterilized metal instruments, they nab ingenuous tourists on beaches and markets and, right in the middle of a flow of people, they proceed to stick tweezers and scrapers into the victim's ear and then withdraw something absurd like a stone or an insect. "Look! You see? I clean ear for you!" Amazingly, many fall for this, pressured to pay baksheesh for this 'valuable service' and risking serious infection. |
| The start of the tourist season means a time of wealth and hard work for the locals. The first foreigners to arrive in Goa after the Portuguese left in 1961 were the hippies. Wearing next to nothing and worn out from the overland trail, groups of Europeans and Americans occupied the beaches of Goa, making themselves totally at home and adding to the night scene by staging full moon parties with nothing more than a few bongo drums and a guitar. The arrival of the Russians in Goa really changed the scene for the better and worse. With a booming economy in Moscow, cheap flights opened up to Goa, and hundreds of thousands of Russians started coming, outnumbering even the English package tourists. Yet some of the Russian arrivals brought with them a whole new energy and youth to an aging scene. Unfortunately, not having experienced the parties of the old days in Goa, they patronized the raucous new disco scene and brought a lot of first world vices with them. |
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| Goa looks set to be invaded more and more by property developers, but in the meantime there are plenty of quiet beaches where you'd hardly know that Goa was on the tourist map at all. Beaches like Morjim and Asvem offer long, sweeping white sands where you can see the old style Goan life in full swing. The fishing boats come in at sunset, and the gulls grow crazy over the nets as all the young men from the village pour out to help pull in the fish. Bamboo cabins can be rented here, and the only remaining problem is paying off your bar tab at the occasional beach shack. |
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For locals and foreigners alike, in a tropical climate where night follows day in a matter of minutes, the highlight of the day is the sunset. When work is done, and a few minutes are needed to reflect on the events of the day and make plans for tomorrow, locals and tourists climb a hill or find a quiet spot on the beach to watch the sun melt into the waters of the Arabian Sea. |
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For More Information: Tom Thumb is the editor of The Goa Guide (www.goaguide.org)
and also editor of the Road Junky Goa Travel Info (http://www.roadjunky.com/guide/323/goa-travel-guide-online) |
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PHOTO CREDITS: Tom Thumb, ROMAR TRAVELER . Contributed
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