A throughly enjoyable and relaxing week predominately beach hopping in Goa..
Average Steps: 9000 (down due to time on beach). Average daily spend for two : £45
Top score at bat and ball: 104 (before Mark broke the bat)
Rats seen in Mumbai: 7
Book club this week…Midnight’s children by Salman Rushdie. Well we managed to finish it (just)! I think we might be in the minority in saying that we didn’t enjoy it, especially as it has won the Booker of Booker prizes. It is undoubtedly well written, with some wonderful descriptions, carefully chosen language and interesting links to Indian history. Unfortunately the story is long winded, with many tangents, too much magic realism and unlikable characters. In our opinion about 300 pages too long and we wouldn’t have persisted with it if we were at home.
Highlights this week include:
1. Beach hopping by moped. We joined the rest of India and hired a moped to scoot between beaches. Luckily, unlike the rest of Indians, Mark wore his helmet, as the police were out doing spot fines (although helmets for the main driver a now compulsory in a lot of states, from the driving we’ve seen Indians aren’t too bothered by following road rules or indeed enforcing them). We’ve only been in the quieter south Goa, but even here the beaches have a very different feel. We were glad we weren’t staying on the party beach of Palolem. We had a beautiful hut overlooking Agonda bay, then moved to a cottage with a wonderful Terrance at Colomb bay and the a lovely homestay apartment in quiet Galgibaga. We also enjoyed dinner at busy hippy Patnem and lunch at the lovely and serene Talpona beach. We’d throughly recommend Galgigbaga or Talpona for a relaxing Goan getaway.
2.Activities on the beach. It’s been a tough week, bat and ball took a new level this week, we reached a total of 104 passes at a 4 strides, before Mark’s bat snapped with all the effort. The waves are fantastic for body boarding and we both enjoyed the ride to shore. Once you’re beyond the waves the water was lovely for some long swims. From the shore we were able to watch dolphins jumping and playing. We had wanted to windsurf but apparently there wasn’t enough wind, so the backgammon rivalry continued instead.
3.Seafood. Apart from swimming the best thing of being by the sea is the fish,yum! We enjoyed fish every night with tandoori kingfish, whole snapper, lemon fish and mackerel, and the local speciality ‘Goan style’ calamari and prawn Sukkha. We’ve seen a number of outrigger style fishing boats on the beach and saw the local women selling the daily catch Canacona’s fish market.
4.Sunsets. It’s lovely to be back on the west coast to see beautiful sunsets. In contrast to lively Varkala the beaches in Goa are more serene with a number of people meditating in the lotus position watching the sun go down – I’m not sure how much they appreciated our bat and ball activity.
5.Marine drive and Chowpatty in Mumbai. We enjoyed an evening stroll along Marine drive, probably the most popular spot to watch the sunset in Mumbai. It’s lined by posh business high risers and art-deco apartment blocks. It was interesting to see the tetrapods in action (formal of costal erosion defence) having read about them in this week’s book. We ended the night with the locals eating some spicy street food on Chowpatty beach. We needed to share a milkshake near our accommodation to settle our stomachs.
A final thought…This week we’ve been talking a lot about plastic. Perhaps apt in the week that Greta Thunberg came to Bristol. India has a real problem with people littering and waste disposal in general, as such non-biodegradable objects are everywhere. Being faced directly with it makes the issue so unavoidable. The cows eat most things, so it’s the crisp wrappers, shampoo containers and drinks bottles that are left.
What has surprised us is the proactive steps India is taking (more so than the UK) with the problem. India’s anti-plastic movement includes cotton bags in supermarkets, metal straws in bars, to banning single use plastic in botanical gardens and public filtered water to re-fuel your bottles. Although behind Bangladesh (the first country to ban plastic bags in 2002), plastic bags are banned in 18 states and three states (including Maharashtra where we now are) have banned single-use plastic products including cups, straws, plates etc. In Goa there are people employed to pick up all plastic bottles and recycle it, indeed the beaches are beautifully litter free.
We feel guilty that at home it’s easy to ignore the problem because we ‘recycle’ and dispose of our waste and then forget about it. It’s got us thinking if India can ban single use products, why aren’t we in the UK. New York are banning plastic bags today in exchange for chargeable paper bags, shouldn’t we follow suit?
Sabbatical adventures (Mark and Lizzie) 