Goa with the boys

After my organized trip through South India I had about 5 days gap until I had to leave India. During the trip I met Amin, an Aussie with Indian roots. Together with him and his friend Sandeep, an Indian living in Australia I bumbled my days away in Goa. Is there a better to learn about a country but by hanging out with the locals? Luckily, the boys had a car and a holiday house in a resort with pool. Also luckily the rain stopped, so we worked on our jumping skills by the pool...

 We caught up for beach party:

But we also appreciated the culture in Old Goa (where you could see the big influence the Christian Portuguese had on a mainly Hindu country back in the days)

And we didn't forget about enjoying nature's beauty at Miramar Beach in Panjim.

 My expectations of Goa were totally different to what I experienced. I thought in this world-famous party place I could easily get lost amongst many travelers even without getting high on some drugs. However, the truth is firstly, that it was off-season, which was good as the western tourists were still outnumbered by the locals. Secondly, Goa is a small state with villages and resorts and restaurants and shops scattered around, there is no real center and a private transport is essential to get around. The place where I first stayed was Baga Beach, which is known as the party beach. But party beach also means, that accomodation is only for budget travelers available and budget travelers are mainly younger people. Yes, even though, I am the backpacker, I still feel too old to mingle with the 20years-old hippies and wannabe-dropouts. And thirdly, Baga Beach was full of young Indian men on stag parties. from what I've learnt about Indian society and their separation of men and women, a country where even for lunch break amongst colleagues the genders are strictly separated, where they need to have separate women's carriages on the train and where women can't get to local festivals out of fear to get raped, I figured it is not such a good idea to hang out at a beach where young Indian men get drunk... The one time I tried walking along the beach I was hustled every few meters by someone asking to take a picture of me or by someone just taking a video of me or by someone with some other questions which I didn't even listen to... it was simply no fun! 

But I couldn't resist going out in one of the most famous night clubs. So I gathered Amin & Sandeep around me, made sure they didn't leave my side and so I could enjoy a little bit of dancing and looking around in "Tito's". About 1/4 of the guests were female but never alone, never in a group of girls but always, always with male company. There were special ladies corners and floors where ladies could only get access when they weren't accompanied by more than 1 man, so I couldn't go. The majority of the men was left to getting overly drunk (free alcohol included in entrance fee) and dance to their favourite Bollywood-music.

So I decided Baga Beach is not the right place for me and found a new hotel centrally located in Panjim, Goa's capital. This was heaps more relaxing! I could walk around freely, I could organize a few things (laundry, malaria tablets etc.) and I could benefit from the boys' car with which we took rides to Old Goa, where they have lots of old churches, monuments and museums, to Miramar, the posh hang-out place for Goans, or another beach in the North where they have famous sunset trance parties (but only in high season) and tried Goan food in as many places as possible.

And so my last days in India flew by and I had to say goodbye to an astonishing country aspiring to be a world leader but still stuck in their very special traditions, a country with a problem of the differences between men and women, but also a country so rich in resources, so divers in landscape and so full of life... and I have only seen the south part so far...!