Goa: Haven of the Hippies

Well we arrived in Goa after nearly 48 hours of travel by way of plane, train and automobile. Mumbai seemed interesting, but it was 3 in the morning upon arrival so we caught a 10 hour train straight to Goa- god what a long trip, but we met some interesting people.

Goa is a beautiful paradise that reminds me of Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book.’ There are strange animal sounds all over the place, monkeys, coconuts, but where is Baloo? Goa is also a hippy-haven, where everyone comes to spend their days relaxing at the beach and their nights dancing to trance music. It’s amazing the group of people here: hardened travelers of all kinds, hippies, Israeli’s and many, many Russians on extended holiday. People stay for a long time, months on average.

Upon arrival, Johan and I immediately felt out of place. Everyone here has crazy tattoos, piercings, dreads, etc. There is a much older crowd here, many more experienced/hardened travelers. Well, we wanted to go to a hindu temple in the north and sacrifice our hair, but the whole process of getting there was too out of the way. So instead, I shaved Johan’s head and then he helped shape mine into a mohawk. Awww yeah.

The first 3 days all we did was party, but after that we mellowed out for a bit. Last night was our first encounter with the infamous ‘Delhi Belly,’ though I’d be more inclined to call it food poisoning. We ate at a Tibetan restaurant and that night I spent about 8 hours erupting from both ends (often at the same time). It didn’t hit Johan ‘til a few hours later and not as bad (he only had a bite of my food, so we think it was my dish). It was hell, but I am alive and now paranoid as hell.

We spent the majority of our days on the beach getting our tan on. I finished a fantastic book I want to recommend to anyone who likes the Chili Peppers: ‘Scar Tissue’ by Anthony Kiedis. Amazing story.

Anyhow, it’s cheap as hell here. Our room is only 400 Ghandi’s (actually rupees, but Gandhi is on all the bills so we just call them Gandhi’s), which is only about 5 euros each. A Red Bull is like 80 ruppees. So yeah, food is cheap, drink is cheap; the weather is hot and there’s plenty to do, so we don’t know how long we’ll hang about. More to come~