Southern Goa

Goa is the vacation destination for India, kinda like America's Malibu beach. It's a tiny state, about 30 miles long and just wide enough to fit the beach and some inland hotels. The Spanish founded Goa in the 1500s and didn't leave until after the Brits got kicked out. As a result Catholicism is the dominant religion and there are cool Spanish wells and forts all over the place. I read all this in the Lonely Planet guidebook.
We arrived at 4am in the town of Manilow, or something, and got attacked by every rickshaw driver in town. Their method is to surround each person in the group with every driver talking at once, making it harder to confer with the other people in the group so that it's harder to negotiate. There are government prepaid taxi stands that will give a fair price, but sometimes it's just easier to follow a guy to his cab and pay him what he wants. I had to pee, and noticing that the natives just whipped it out wherever they were standing, I took a "when in Rome" approach and let fly in the nearby grass. While we were loading our bags outside the train station I looked back at the entryway where dozens of people were sleeping, despite the urine, feces, and dogs prowling around. Some of the sleepers didn't have pillows so their heads rested on the steps. I didn't notice these people at first because they kinda blended into the surroundings. I felt bad about peeing where somebody was likely to sleep, though I'm not as bad as the natives who whiz right next to a sleeper or on the train platform where people have to walk and maybe set bags down. I wish India would invest in public toilets.
Our guidebook suggested an Inn called Ma Mickey's. The cabbie didn't know where it was so we drove around until we stumbled on it by luck. Our guidebook also said Ma Mickey's was near the beach, and since the sun hadn't come up we took its word. After setting down our bags and agreeing to pay $5 a person per night, we set out to watch the sun rise on the beach. The lesson we learned that day: never ask an Indian for directions. You say "Beach?" and make swimming motions to a group of people and each one points a different direction, then they look at each other and adjust until they're all pointing the same way. 99% of the time they're leading you to a store or to nothing at all. This happened at every intersection on our way to the sea, so a 1-mile walk took about 2 hours. We finally found the beach by standing on the road and waiting for white people to drive by, then we headed in their direction.
We chose our town, Colva, because it was supposed to be a quiet fishing village where you could watch fishermen bring in their catches every morning. What we found instead was a man gathering up all the tourists he could -whiteys, Buddhist monks, and some wealthy photo taking Indians from Bangalore- using them to push a boat into the Arabian Sea. The boat was huge, almost as long as a school bus, and there was no way nine or ten people could push it 15 feet across dry sand. After conferring with the monks -who spoke immaculate English and wore all orange- we all decided to ditch the guy. Now that I think about it the man was probably trying to steal the boat; what fisherman goes out at midday in low tide without a crew?
Funny thing about Indian women at the beach is that they dress the same as on the street: full saris, jewelry, bindis and all. This compared to the American and European tourists who sunbathe in string bikinis with thongs, sometimes topless (illegal in India btw). Guys have no shame though. One of the Buddhist monks wore orange briefs that matched with his robe. Some of the Indians wore semi see-through boxers and those string briefs that Michael Jordan wears. Gross.
The Arabian Sea is the warmest, saltiest water I've ever been in, clear too. And the waves are gentle as a breeze. Disappointing really. The only ocean waves I ever remember playing in were Hawaiian where the waves can crush you and the currents can take you out to sea as fast as a river. The Arabian Sea was more like a really big warm lake.
On our way back to the hotel Luther and I rented mopeds. The rest of my day was spent flirting with death on Indian roads with Tori on the back. We visited a fish market (stinky), a gated Bazaar (creepy), and an ice cream shop (melty). And you better believe I maxed out that shit at 75km/h. I hit an unmarked speed bump at that speed and almost bucked Tori.
Around this time I grew a sickness that lasted for the next ten days. The high points of this sickness were: explosive diarrhea, stuffiness, dry cough, insomnia, exhaustion, and a near constant cramp in my stomach. I think it was a cryptosporidium microbe dicking around in my intestines. It goes without saying that Indians are very open minded to cleanliness in food preparation. I mostly stuck to American and Chinese food because it seemed to rest better in my stomach, that and Hayward’s 5000 or Kingfisher, the national malt liquors of India.
Within a couple days we were lured away from south Goa to north Goa with the promise of crazy Israeli party beaches and more tourist sites. We were mislead, of course, but more on that later.