Tally ho! Throw the weight and bring that darn sail down. I see a port.
To all of you under the snow and chill spell, here’s some warmth, a beach full of sweet Adirondacks, bamboo shacks, live music, lovely beach people and 30 bucks a glass of wine from the west coast of India- Goa to be precise, to stir summer within.
Right after our wedding, me and husband left for our 2-week-long beach honeymoon, to one of our favorite destination- Arambol, Goa. We drove down about 1200 kms (we also wanted to squeeze in a road trip :P) and had the best times of our life. But beware, this is not the kind of honeymoon for little girls in pink dreams but the kind your teenage son would be really proud of! ;P The kind that’ll make you “the man” at 60.
Situated in North Goa, Arambol is not or rather was not the hottest tourist destination. South Goa has always been the pricey tourist’s best spot with plush living, sky high rates and hoo haa. But baby, that’s not where Goa is. If you must experience Goa for what it really is and what it really has been, North Goa is your friend. 95% Russians 2%Indians and about 3% other constitute the crowd of this secluded beach- a place where you can be absolutely at one with the Sun, sand and sea. Best part is its almost “Typical Indian Tourist Free”. I fear this state is not going to be for long and soon we’ll need to search for another beach to hide our devil self.
I am so sorry to have caught her in a bad posture but the colors were too good to miss.
For 2 long weeks, we did absolutely nothing but sit in our balcony that overlooked the sea and have Gin and Tonic. Our everyday routine was to wake up to the sound of the sea at mid-day, walk out to the beach and have a heavy breakfast/brunch, come home and sit by the balcony and drink till the sun sets. Sundown- we used to get ready in our best dresses, walk out to the beach and have a long walk or chat followed by candlelight dinners (everyday) and wine. We might look very boring to most people our age but that’s our idea of “the ideal life”. We both are old souls!
A friend of ours has a shack in Goa called “Maya”. Once in 2 days we used to go there and paint with the hippies. I used to. And have a cup of filter coffee or raw mango juice. This was what I started. Couldn’t finish!
Over the first week, a couple of friends joined our honeymoon and turned it into a big , fat ‘joint’ musical honeymoon. We took our guitars, tambourine, melodica and Djembe, and performed live at the same shack. I was very skeptical as to how my voice would sound but looks like people really liked it. A very talented musician joined our jam with morchang- a mouth held, manual instrument that gives off electronic sound. He trance-ified our jazz numbers! I’m so buying a Morchang. Music enthusiasts, please try it out.
This would be our beloved friends- the one on the extreme right is Abhishek Denzil (on drums), the one on the extreme left is Ankur Chugh (on guitars and a darn good one). The one in center in yugi- well, he was the cheerleader with an awesome camera. 😀 This photograph is from Ashvem beach, North Goa- I have never seen a beach as beautiful, as serene, as evocative and as pretty as this. A couple of old monks and cola went right through to warm our souls.
Ah! The beach condos. Look at those wicker chairs facing the sea. Too bad we liked our budget balcony a little too much! Honestly, if we wanted, we could have stayed anywhere in Goa for how many days we wanted. But we are the borderline roughing it up ones with traveler genes in us. We like to be comfortable and no more. We have no special requirements for staying in a place but hygiene and safety. We dont fuss over food unless its too salty or extremely chilly. We don’t feel the need for a bath tub where you can bathe in the sea. I actually wanted to stay plush one day just for the heck of honeymoon-ing, but that balcony man! It just won’t leave us. I’ll tell you why…
It was the most beautiful balcony overlooking the sea. A place where you can sit all day long, do nothing and not feel bored for even one moment.
On one such moment, me and Ro were talking about how the sound of the sea is eternally beautiful. Repetition of the same and yet always so charming. To an eye that only sees, there is nothing extraordinarily exciting in the the sea. But to the one who perceive it is a storehouse of history. A testimony to everything that has passed the surface of earth. A calm saint that has silently let spices and pirates tread on its bossom. A destroyer when it wanted to. Hungry for lives and invincible ships, protector of the smallest little fish that calls it home. The power vested in it to destroy are never pronounced but sometimes to let you know that mankind is crossing the line. It’s got a character. And when you look beyond the obvious, you tend to be an extraordinary person. Your train of thoughts tries to achieve vastness. The sea in itself is meditation.
We both think a lot. Perhaps that is why we never left that balcony.
It’s impossible to talk all that I have experienced in one darn post and hence I’ll have to call it part I.
In next post, I’ll give out us playing our instruments, night life, surfer boys ( 😛 ), cocktail recipes from Goa, Cuisine, route map, budget diary and us.
Till then, Tally Ho!
P.S: I am using Darn word a lot. 😀