[JPM Travel Journals] INDIA and NEPAL 01 Intro to India Holi Holy Vrindaban The Sadhu in Taj's Shadow Pushkar's Respite A Sitar & a Vespa in Udaipur The Clean-Bombing of Mumbai Goa Beach Hippie Sighting Tours Unequal Vision in Benares Everest, Out the Window Into Their Thin Air Anna Purr Now Within You Without You Rishikesh Part 2 Amritsar: Bold, Gold His Holiness of Dangerous Liasons Delhi Visit #5 New Delhi Turns to New York [ PHOTO ARCHIVE ]

Goa Beach Hippie Sighting Tours 06 April 01 Mumbai (Visit #2.) Took the night train back from Goa / Anjuna last night, and am in Mumbai again. It's sweltering here, just trying to stay out of the heat as I got plenty of sun enough in Goa (though I'm surely not 'tan' per se!) Goa was interesting, for sure, but nothing like I expected. Thailand's beaches were so much more beautiful, relaxing, and friendly. Oddly, the food in Goa was mostly terrible, expensive; as was the lodging-- I guess I'm just too fondly remembering the beach huts, beautiful water, and excellent food on Ko Chang in Thailand's gulf. Goa tries its best. There were some good moments in Goa-- renting a motorbike and driving around with Glen, a young Australian photographer I met on the train south, as well as with Oonagh, a young woman from Ireland who also is traveling solo. So we cruised around to some of the other towns, sights, and beaches. Calangute, the mecca of the late 60's - 70's expat/hippie migration was particularly interesting, more lively than Anjuna, where we stayed. There were some nice hikes about, but probably the two most amusing aspects of the Goa experience were watching the 10+ year Goa-expats that clearly lacked the ability/ facility/ brainpower/ drive to ever leave Goa or to survive anywhere else. Rollerskate skinny and decked out in lost fabrics, always unshaven or frail or both and with eyes that looked like hell. Amusing point #2 would have to be the tourist-tourists: Indians that take buses all the way to Goa just to see all the hippies, nudists, and freaks. I'm not kidding, the number of times I was sitting on the beach or even walking down the beach and you see an entire Indian family looking like they would fit in better on Indian metropolitan streets, and here they are gawking at the breasts, bellies, blonde, and dreadlocked. Several times I was approached so one family member could take a photo of the rest of the family with me and whatever other non-Indians happened to be around. The suspicion that there are actually organized tours for Indians to go tourist-gawking was confirmed when I heard from someone that in Delhi they do in fact market a 'Goa Beach Hippie Sighting Tour.' Hilarious. Strangely, whenever there is someone sunbathing, particularly if at all intimately revealed, the Indians strolling down the beach make a beeline for the tourists, walking within inches, directly in front of them, and having no shame staring at the aforementioned's privates; even extending a hand or a camera and saying H E L L O ! ! Anjuna is the site of the weekly popular flea markets, and thousands of people converge there for all the vendors that set up just off the beach there. Asides from the ten dozen times you are approached with the intent to buy some silly drums, its a pretty good time. Snake charmers and the whole nine yards. That night there was the flea market beach party, and there was a total carnival a bit ways down the beach from where I stayed-- hundreds of people listening to music I'm not particularly fond of and doing much drugs I have little tangible interest in. So that didn't last too long before I went back 'home' - but it was nice to at least see what it was all about. Anjuna Flea Market. Hello, Sir, You buy Drums? So now. I do a bit more sight-seeing in Mumbai and then plan to take a sucession of night trains to Varansi, and get there in a few days. I was going to fly, from Goa, but the flights were too expensive. So overland adventure it is. Couldn't see going south any more because of the increasing oppressive heat, so I took the sleeper car back north to Mumbai and plan to be cutting a north-eastern diagonal to Varanasi. Probably two nights on the trains; might as well splash out with the nicer sleeper cars, last night's ride in general sleeper was obnoxious and unrestful. Unequal Vision in Benares >> ©2001 JPM. All photography and writing copyrighted.