Postcard from Goa

"Eefa you wanna fuckin' holiday from fuckin' India, then you should goto Goa," spat Bravo, the angry middle-aged Italian ex-pat I met on the beach in Gokarna three weeks ago. "Eeza the only motherfuckin' place in zee 'ole fuckin' country where you can ezcape ze fuckin'women in saris, blokes wiz ze big fuckin' moustaches an bad shoes, sheet motorbikes an stinkin' piles of garbage an' cow sheet every fuckin' place you go. Eeza lika fuckin' paradise man." Despite being a fossilized old racist with a body like a worn leather saddle bag in a g-string loin cloth, I have since discovered that Bravo was quite right about Goa. The lush stretch of coastland between Maharashta and Karnataka is a spiritual honey pot for jaded western malcontents, retired package tourists and gap year students, desperately trying to lose themselves (not find themselves) via the traditional means of cheap beer, ugly sarongs, fake dreadlocks, hallucinogenic drugs and largely unregulated raving. People like itbecause you get all the trappings of a spiritual break in a developing country – the heat, the brown people and the funny foreign food, rickshaws and squat toilets – but you can still eat egg and chips for breakfast, most of the brown people are called things like Martin, George and Theresa (thanks to the Portuguese) and you can get drunk really, really cheaply. And this is where I have been 'losing myself' for the past 10 days (on a two week holiday from India) with Rosie, (on a two week holiday from London), along with a whole lot of other people on holidays from various things. But as with most holidays –home is always closer than you think.
It all started with a large tattoo of Che Guevara, emblazoned on the back of a puny Welshman from Pontypool. Rosie and I were sitting in a café overlooking the least populated beach in southern Goa, gazing out into the distance where the jungle meets the flat white sand, thinking how wonderful to finally be so far away from it all, with only the sound of the lapping waves and a herd of buffalo for company– when suddenly: "WELL, well, well gurrrls," says a rolling Welsh voice, the sound of smacking lips just audible. We turned around to find a skinny bloke (Gaz) standing dripping wet in a pair of baggy red trunks, with a nervous looking chubby mate (Big Rich), looking longingly at us in our bikinis. "I 'ope you don't mind if me an' my buddy Big Rich sit ourselves down next to you, its not often' we get to talk prrrropa English on a beach in India to a pair of such bewtiful ladies such as yourselves, is it now?" Before there was time to react, Big Rich and Skinny Gaz were pulling up chairs, and suddenly I was transported from my Indian beach idyll to drizzly South Wales, the waft of fag smoke and the smell of wet dogs and chips by the sea. "No not at all [stop staring at my tits]", we said, "nice to meet youboth [fuck off fuck off fuck off]". After a bit of idle chit chat about Gaz's previous career as a Morris Dancer, a Bookie and a Ballroom Dancer and about how he once made 48 quid having sex with a girl on an Internet chat room, we finally got onto the subject of the Cuban revolutionary stamped across the back of his puny ribcage. "Oh this ole' thing, yeah got it done on 'oliday in Cuba last year". Wow, we said, it's really nice. "If you like this one, you should see the one I'm going to get done when I go to Jamaica: the lyrics of Redemption song tattooed over my entire right arm". Wow, we said, is that because it's your favourite song? "No, my favourite song is 'Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve," said Gaz.
Since meeting Gaz & co, Rosie and I have spent more time trying to lose them, than losing ourselves. We covertly moved into a different beach hut, started sunbathing at the other end of the beach and started wearing big sunglasses and speaking in thick Russian accents –but to no avail. The Welsh boys can sniff us out from a kilometer away like a herd of horny goats. And we are not alone. The longer you spend in Goa, the more people you find trying to escape from something: shit jobs, broken marriages, drug problems, family problems, or a disappointing career as a Morris Dancer… You find that some people escape by dressing themselves all manner of disguises bought from roadside tourist shops like Technicolour tie-dyed dungarees, genuine clip-on Rasta dreadlocks and pixie hats woven from banana leaves. Others go the classic route of choosing from the large assortment of hallucinogenic drugs on offer here - like a group of guys who I met last week. I found one of them, Steve, an electrician from Essex, sitting red-eyed under a mosquito net in his beach hut. He had been in there sweating for three days waiting for his mate Paul, who got lost after taking some bad acid at a rave in North Goa. "Where did you last see him?" I asked. "Well," he said thoughtfully scratching his chin, "I think it was when he escaped from the back of the car, took off all his clothes and ran into the jungle naked shouting: 'WHO THEFUCK ARE YOU? I WANNA GO HOME!'" He didn't have a passport, any money, any clothes, or any idea where he was, so I suppose you could call that the most literal incidence of losing oneself that I have come across so far.
Tomorrow I am leaving the beach, the bamboo huts, coconuts and powercuts and I am proud to say that I came out of the Goan beach experience relatively unscathed - with only a mild case of faux spirituality, a couple of dreadlocks and a small Che Guevara tattoo toshow for it.