Palolem Beach

Palolem, I was here 7 years ago, so it is difficult not to compare then with now, and since I was here last there has been a massive development with regard to tourism.  That is not to say it is a horrible place, it is still beautiful, and for a two week holiday the place is idyllic.  There is a real festival atmosphere to the place, the colours of the beach huts and the clothes hanging from the shops are all vibrant and strong, lots of bright oranges, blues, reds and purples, and the sari’s of the local women are bold and glinting from the gold threads weaved through them.  There are people wandering around without much intention in very little clothes, plenty of old wasters, occasional fireworks on the beach and nothing much to do except drink.  In the evenings the bars and restaurants are twinkling with fairy lights, and different music which comes fades in and out as they are passed, the familiar strum of a well-known melody drifts out of the bars, in the little stores the twangs of typical Indian sounds and in the instrument shops men with bongo’s drum away.  There are also sounds of horns, scooters each with a slightly different parp, and people blowing whistles.  The smells are plentiful and rich too.  Wafts of spices prick up the nostril hairs, and in the evening the fresh scent of citronella cuts through the warm air.  And there are the women, the beautiful Indian women who try and henna your hand or sell you jewellery on the beach.  All with bright happpy smiles and a very effective charm offensive ready to gently coax as many rupees as they can from the heavy pocketed tourist. 

I think this is the time to be here, a lot of the beach huts are still being constructed, and the numbers of tourists are at a tolerable level, although over the last three days they have doubled in number.   Once the brightly coloured mechano-like tourist town has been built again for the season, in a couple more weeks, apparently the beach gets insanely crowded.  I have visions of mounds of pink wobbly flesh and gin soaked morons who seem unaware that the British raj has been ousted, demanding cigarettes and water from insolent brown serfs because they are too lazy to wibble wobble a couple of huts down and get their own.   The wi-fi bars are going to be rammed with bored looking whities nursing cool beers and glasses of white wine, sat facing the exquisite beach while looking at their hands and flicking their fingers rhythmically across the screens of their i-phones.   It’s already evident to a lesser degree.

I feel a downside of the development of tourism has created a distance between the Goan’s that work in the bars and restaurants and the visitors.  The interaction between them and the tourists is non-existent and they just serve as an interface between you and your food.  Previously I remember it being much easier to talk with them in bars and feel more engaged with the place.   

And it is quite expensive.  I mean that relatively.  We still have a clean room with a fan and an attached bathroom with hot and cold running water for around £8 a night, and a bottle of beer is around 75p.  We have been informed though, that this will double within the next month….

Although this is a lovely place to bumble around in for a few days, I am looking forward to leaving Palolem and finding places I can feel more engaged with the country.  It is a lovely holiday destination, but it is close to home in the general ethos, I don’t feel I am travelling yet, just holidaying.  However, this is the best place we could have arrived.  I think Alex may have freaked if we had landed anywhere else, this is the gentle adjustment we need to ease those worries out of him and prepare for the journey ahead.  He is writing a diary of neuroses at present, so in a couple of months when he is sat on a dirty pavement eating street food with his un-sanitised hands, he can read back through it and chuckle at his funny ways.  I will not divulge the extent of his irrationality and will leave him to reveal them when he has found a little more humour with them.  However, we are making swift progress with them, and he has now given up fretting over best before dates on bottles of water, we are going to move into a beach hut for a few nights and risk the wildlife, and hopefully after a couple more nights, he will no longer confuse me for a face invading rat, when I try nudge him to stop snoring at night (whoever told him the story about the rat on the face has a lot to answer for).

All the ‘realities’ of home are becoming gradually distant too.  There is no talk of financial damnation, blackberry outages, immigration problems, property prices, the disaffection of youth and student fees. Neither is there the morning commute, the trains stuffed with heavy faces, clothes with no energy, just differing shades of grey, or getting caught in a bustling, impersonal wave of people moving with determined purpose to get the day over with so they can slump in front of the telly and turn their brains off from the daily imagination drain.

We have had our first encounter with a beggar this morning.  A young girl with what looked like a severed tongue approached us at breakfast with a woeful note about her horrendously disabled family and a petition with an ‘official’ stamp to, I assume, attempt in some way to verify her pitiful story.  On it were a few signatures and next to them the amount they had donated to her.  This ranged between 100 and 400 rupees (£1.20 – £5.00).  I thought that was a little excessive, so gave her 20 rupees, which I also thought was a bit too much.  The little wench looked at it with complete contempt and flounced off without so much of a Namaste.  I have resolved though, not to give any more mutilated children any more money.  Not due the girls reaction, but I cannot give money to something I ultimately in no way condone.  It is abhorrent to disfigure a child in any way to make money from it, and by giving money to these children solves nothing, it just propagates the horrible cycle of abuse.  In a country where the average wage of a poor person is a dollar a day, it is awful that a parent can earn substantially more than this by harming their children.  I will still give a couple of rupees to adult cripples, but not to children.

As for our own health.  Our stomachs remain unfazed and our skin still milky white.  And aside from Alex’s nerve quivering hangover today, we are well and heathly. 

Well I suppose we should head back to the beach now, it is going to be dark soon and Alex doesn’t fancy braving the Goan suicide drivers in the dark, on a scooter.  We have escaped from the throng to a beautiful nature reserve for the afternoon and sat by a lush green lake watching an array of birds and butterflies flit around us.  Considering it is only a 20 minute drive from the beach, it is surprising that we have only seen two other people wandering around here.  But that is a good thing.  Places regain their beauty when humans are removed.  It was lovely to sit in the luxury of nature and feel time pass without care.    

xxx