It was time to head south from Mumbai and Maharashtra State south to the State of Goa. The second class, air conditioned sleeper train turned up trumps. Comfortable with beds and a great night’s sleep, which helped us along the 16 hour journey. Some education on the train from 4 fellow backpackers, with an insight by the speedy travellers on how to travel the planet in 12 months, quite remarkable really and not how Kate and myself will look to tackle our time away from the small shores. One quick point, travel in India is not on time. It’s known as India time or just adds 20%
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| Leaving Mumbai for the Goa train,Heavy bag? |
Let’s start with a little about Goa. After Vasco de Gama landed on the Malabar Coast in 1498, the Portuguese invaded the area and seized Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1510. This colony was held for 451 years, until Nehru launched an attack and drove them out. Goa was a vital link for Portugal’s colonial trade links in the Indian Ocean. The traders have now gone, but the missionaries’ legacy lives on with 35% of the local population remaining Catholic, and the ancient churches in Old Goa still standing. The land of Goa apart from the superb beaches with white sands and palm trees you could wish for, also has a scenic contrast provided by the coastal lowlands, with paddy fields and orchids and the rugged Western Ghats with their gorges and waterfalls.
Our arrival in Madgaon was a chaotic, mad short period of time. A crazy man half naked was screaming before being lead away by police before I left Kate with the luggage to tackle the ticket office as a local. Queuing does not exist. You have to fight your way to the counter with elbows at the ready. I obviously struggled with this being English and all. Oh well a new skill to learn everyman for him-self from now on.
Managing to actually get the right ticket with my perfect Hindi dialect, we packed onto the local train to Cancona. One hour for people to take sneaky photographs of Kate, oh what a great invention the mobile phone turned out to be.
Not much forward planning for Goa, here was me thinking Goa was a beach resort where people went on holiday. This is true to some extent apart from Goa is made up of maybe 50 beaches spanning 3701 sq km. Still out of season we head to the southern district and Agonda beach which was a ghost town. What a shame we were looking forward to staying where our regular Indian visitor friends Sheila and Tony had recommended. Maybe another time. The Lonely Planet Bible was pushed into gear and after bouncing down some more country roads seeing breath taking scenery not to mention dodging the many sacred cows (Yes that’s right big groups of cows just strolling around) we arrive tired, dirty and alive in Palolem Beach.
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| The green landscape of South Goa from the Rickshaw |
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| Dodging the sacred cows chilling in the road |
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| More cows!!! |
Palolem is the most southerly of Goa’s developed beaches, and I had heard that it was like a tropical Glastonbury, a claustrophobic paradise. Maybe in season it is and after 4 days we had the feeling that out of season was the right time to visit. Very chilled out and the sort of beach paradise that you wish for, the complete opposite to the Mumbai culture shock.
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| Our first Beach View over Palolem |
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| Local children practising there skills |
The sun was setting as we walked to see the beach and ocean for the first time, and we entered the back of the beach through a long line of palm trees, that looked to reach out into the surf. Paradise is the only word I can use to describe the view. We had arrived, and sunset was watched from a beach restaurant on the sand with a curry and cold Kingfisher beer. There must be more beers for the 1.2 billion population? Fingers crossed.
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| Curry, Rice, Naan, Beer & Beach |
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| Flavours to die for, what a combo |
The streets were full of commotion that night with the Ganesh festival in full swing. Families were driving to the beach in a precession with music, dancing and bangers being set alight at every turn. Amazing ambience, even if the kids with bangers were lethal.
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| Ganesh Festival Ceremony on the beach |
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| Street festival carnage in full swing |
Moved to the Seagull Hotel in the centre of town on day 2, which was great. Communal areas where we managed to meet some great fellow travellers. There were the Brighton Girls Leo, Hannah and Bex. John and Steve, the Frisbee fanatics from London, Fleur from Holland near Amsterdam who was kind enough to let me know that Grolsch was pronounced Grolss? Not Grolscccch. Nice to know especially when I was working with the superb iconic Grolsch Swing-top in the UK. Finally there was Oz from Bath, and what a small world because Oz was meeting our friend from Mumbai Jenny, so surreal. After talking for hours without introductions it clicked that Oz was that Oz. Big hi to Oz for when he reads this Blog. For those of you who like following travel blogs check out his at The Corner Shop. There you go a little free advertising and promotion for you. It might even include some more beer and food pictures with it being his new hobby. People still don’t believe that I got paid to work with beer in the UK and once they see me taking crazy pictures of bottles before peeling off the labels for my journal, it seems to become a craze. People automatically start taking their own pictures of beer. Brilliant and my new goal is to brain wash the world to become beer fanatics. Just imagine the photo albums. Rather than this is me next to the Taj Mahal! This is a Kingfisher next to the Taj Mahal. Well we can dream!!!
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| The Palolem Posse!!! |
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| Monsoon Rain, Umbrella anyone? |
Even though India was at the back end of the Monsoon season our time in Palolem was hanging out at the beach during the day with the territorial wild dogs, cows at sunset, swimming in the bath warm waters and going on adventure walks to explore places like Colomb Bay.
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| Cows enjoying sunset with their mates |
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| Views from Colomb Bay |
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| Yoga anyone? |
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| Who moved those walls? |
The evenings were all food and drink, while watching amazing Monsoon downpours. Kingfisher Premium Lager was still the beer of choice and advertised everywhere including fishing boats but at last India dealt its hand and new beers appeared like an epiphany.
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| The Kingfisher Beer Marketing Machine |
All curried out after one week, pizza was calling and Little Italy didn’t disappoint with wood fired ovens and imported Italian meats. At last meat, I was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms. It was a taste sensation on cushioned floors with lanterns, a beach oasis made even more memorable with the introduction of Belo Lager Beer.
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| Woodfired Pizza time at Little Italy |
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| Belo Lager Beer, Oh YES !!! |
At last at last at last!!! Belo export quality beer. The excitement I felt was overwhelming and I became an instant fan. The label was old school but gave you an immediate sense of exotic. Brewed by the Impala Distillery and Brewery Ltd, Goa is the liquids own back yard and with an Abv below 5% it turned out to be a pleasant surprise when it came to taste. Again served in a 650ml bottle the light golden colour prepared me for a mellow taste, and I was right. Belo had a lovely malty sweetness with little hoppy bitterness. Well balanced with a citrus aroma of lemons, limes and grapefruit. The perfect partner for the truly authentic Italian pizza. The high carbonation cut through the oils in the meats and mozzarella cheese, with the fruit flavours helping to balance the herbs and spices. It reminded me of Italian beers like Peroni or Menabreia in Italian restaurants back home. Light beer with Italian pizza just seems to work for me, especially on a wood fired thin base. Loving my beer bottle labels Belo’s sums it up perfectly. ‘Belo’s exquisite blend of beer complements the vibrant, friendly and hospitable lifestyle of Goa’s people and her natural heritage. Taste the experience’. Thinking about it maybe I get carried away trying to explain what beer went well with what dish. Sometimes a beer doesn’t need food. Just a hammock and a beautiful beach will do.
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| Belo 650ml, Goa's very own |
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| Exotic label now where's that Hammock? |
Even out of season you could still imagine Goa being the party place of the Indian subcontinent. Limbo on the beach just because you can, followed by bars called Cocktails and Dreams sponsored by Red Bull with shirtless hippies raving at the bar. You get the picture. I think people found Goa in the 60’s and just forgot to leave.
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| Cocktails & Dreams very original! |
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| A winning pot & spot who forgot to leave from the 60's |
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| Rave on...Goa being India's party central |
But before moving on as all travellers need to do Goa has shown us that one place in India is completely different to the next. Kingfishers the same but we were introduced to Belo and there was even another beer called Black Label. Out of stock but l will come back to that one at a later date.
For the gourmets out there Goa was a former Portuguese colony, with a large Christian community and this helps it to hold a unique position on the country’s gastronomic map. Happy to use pork and beef in its very spicy curries Goa also makes splendid use of the abundant seafood available off its Malabar Coast. This I can verify having tried amazing Sword Fisk and Squid (Calamari). Goa’s most celebrated dish, the ‘Goan Curry’, is a thick sauce of tamarind, coconut, onions and tomatoes, served over a variety of local seafood such as clams, prawns, crab and anything else the fishermen have caught that day, all of it spiced to the grills. Known in English simply as ‘fish curry’ it’s eaten twice daily by working Goans. You probably won’t have room but if you do there is an alebele, a sweet and spicy crepe stuffed with coconut. This should be eaten with the drink feni, a potent spirit distilled from either cashew fruit juice or partly fermented palm sap.
This brings us to the conclusion of our time in Palolem Goa and talking of potent spirits on our final evening we left the gang in a somewhat happy state thanks to the help of a bottle of India’s finest Old Monk Rum. A pretty decent tipple for 120 Rs. That’s about £1.80 to you and me. Why not have a Google search because I could go on forever.
So to conclude we had one more thing to accomplish and that was to leave Goa from Cancona Train Station for our overnight trip to the state of Kerala.
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| Watching the clock at Canacona Station. Midnight not realising we had 3.5 hrs to go, Argggh... |
Nothing is easy in India as you will by now be very aware. Our train was due to leave at 11pm. Plus 20%. We managed to climb aboard our 3AC Sleeper train at 3.30am after spending 4 hours on what could be described as a platform in the middle of nowhere with the occupants being drunken sleeping men and cockroaches with a little monsoon rain thrown in for good measure. Obviously not having a clue of what was happening. How Kate sleeps through this stuff I will never know. I don’t think this train will be a dream. Our bedding and pillows were stolen with nowhere to lock up our rucksacks. Sleeping on my bag is a new experience. See you all in Kerala. Next stop Fort Kochi.
