My Diary

I kept a journal for the first 10 days of my Indian adventure but lost it on the overnight bus ride between Panji and Mumbai. The following is taken more or less verbatim from the replacement journal that Tori bought me.

So, beginning yesterday, we separated from the group and embarked on a 15 hour bus, jet, taxi ride to Delhi. The Bus was miserable because I was on the tail end of my sickness and coughed the demons out all night. I also had to pee and the bus had no bathroom nor did it stop much but kept a pace of about 25 miles an hour, the highest speed traffic ever gets up to in India. I did get to see a good Bollywood movie about some Douche and his nerdy friend. The douche, Farah Khan, seduced a secret agent and tried to get his friend laid. Then there was some dancing and a few songs and somehow things got resolved. The best part was when the douche's wife found out he was flirting with a secret agent. She threw a big fit and slapped him then he apologized and all was forgiven. The movie sucked, actually.
We stayed in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) for only a few hours, much to Tori's regret. Mumbai is the fashion capitol of India and she was dissapointed that she missed the glamour. What I saw of Mumbai leads me to believe it is the dirtiest and most polluted of Indian cities and I was glad to leave it (this all takes place a month before the terrorist attacks).
From the bus I got into a taxi and sputtered to the airport. I tried bargaining my bottle of Smirnoff for the ride, figuring they wouldn't allow it on the plane, but the airport security told me I could bring it so long as I didn't drink any on the plane. I paid the taxi and gave the security guy a firework.
The plane we flew on was owned by an airline called SpiceJet. What a stupid name, "SpiceJet." I sounds like a novelty, like a toy investment for some rich kid or a marketing group fresh out of American business school. The other major airline, Kingfisher, is owned by a beer company. I'm not sure if I would have preferred to fly with them or not.
The interior of the SpiceJet was new, but cheap. The seats looked and felt like padded lawn chairs screwed into the floor. Though they could recline, the passanger behind would have their legs squished, and the food trays extended all the way to my stomach. The exterior of the plane was covered in dirt, as if it recently landed on a gravel runway.
My introduction to Delhi was nice. Tori and I toured the city (the cleanest and best maintained in all of India) and found a room in the Janpath Guest House, an expensive mosquito breeding ground. After a nap we explored a Bazaar where I bought a couple hookahs. As we were leaving we set off the metal detectors but the guards didn't investigate us. They did bother the each and every Indian that entered the bazaar, even if they didn't set off the metal detectors.
My biggest learning adventure happened the next day, keep reading.

Angel Island/Could We Get a Boat that's a little less Sinky?

Break from India for a sec. Angel Island is like the Staton Island of San Francisco. My sister Jane and I took the S.S. Gash, a ferry with a five foot long stab wound in the side, on a day trip down to the island -a magical journey into the affluent California sea scape. As the first people on the boat, we got a killer spot next to a window. We avoided the outdoors because my microfiber hiking shirt, above-the-knee cargo shorts, and fanny pack were too flimsy to bear the harsh sea wind. A Note, I was not embarrased in my hiking outfit. On the contrary, I blended in nicely with all the yuppies in their Colombia pullovers, camelpacks, and Smartwool socks. Jane just wore jeans and a sweater; we looked down on her.
There was a sailboat race going on that day and we got the chance to see these magnificent eight-man racing yachts tacking through the wind while the crews raced from one side to the other for counter balance, boats nearly capsizing as our ferry and 3-man crew cruised past.
The Island was pretty typical for and island. We hiked, saw nature, got tired. There was a cool tree that looked like it was bleeding. I think it was magical. Or maybe it is all of nature that is magical. Just kidding, nature sucks. We tried to have a picknick at the summit but all these damn bees kept getting in out business. By the way, although the summit of Angel Island is one of the highest peaks in the area, at 1000 feet it is still about 2oo feet lower than my parents house in Des Moines.
On our descent we saw these goofy twig trees with giant pinecones, that and a hiking path that ran along a cliff. If we were severely intoxicated we could have stumbled to our dooms.
Speaking of which, on our way back to port the captain made a stop in a well-to-do Marin County sea town. There was a seaside bar that the captain presumably went to where these middle age ladies did milf dances (hands in the air, a-rythmic gyrating, awkward spins) in full view of our ferry. Since we were all bored on the boat, waiting for the captain to drink his fill, the lot of us sat and watched, critiqueing, imitating, enjoying.
When we finally got going again the captain drove us within throwing range of Alcatraz (and some smaller sea vessels) then crashed into the dock, more or less, which helped explain where the gash on the side of the ship came from.

Evil Northern Goa is a bad place

If ever you are planning a vacation to North Goa, don't. We were lured there by the promise of crazy Isreali party beaches that we later learned were made illegal because people kept getting raped.
We took the ten mile, hour and a half long journey at the height of my sickness, when my head was stuck in a vice that made my nose leak and my balance faulty. Add to that Goa is very hot, around 90 degrees plus humidity. There're more trees and fewer roads in South Goa so I didn't notice the heat as much, but in the north it's unbearable. Of course nothing has air conditioning.
The driver who was bringing us to the north said he'd cut us a deal if we visited a couple stores. I sat outside for the first store but the second I checked out because I saw a running air conditioning unit taped and nailed to the outside. Here is where I learned that Indians don't understand air currents. The A/C unit was on the bottom floor, next to the entrance, pointed at a wall. Maybe it's because of my spoiled American upbringing but I think if you're going to spend all that money powering and maintaining an A/C unit you should put it somewhere useful. Instead we were stuck in a sweltering top-floor showroom looking at fine silk carpets that sold for around $900 U.S. dollars. After hanging around for a respectful half hour and listening to the store owner's sales pitch we politely declined to buy anything.
Geckos really are man's best friends, not dogs. Geckos are small, eat bugs, live on the ceiling and walls, and stay out of my way; dogs do the opposite. I tried explaining this to Tori at the thatch-roofed hut we were staying at in the peasant town of Anjuna, but she couldn't get past the sound of scurrying above her as she tried to sleep.
The next day at 4 am we woke up and went for a walk to the beach. Some kids and I found volcanic looking rocks with nifty tidal pools by the sea. I tried to catch some creatures but they were too fast, then we walked to a beach where cows were lying around and dropping grenades in the sand. Back at the hut, Tori rented a moped, i think. I was feverish and a little delirious. She disappeared for the day and came back with cold medication while I sat in a hammock and hung on to consciousness by reading comic books. At some point in the day Luther, Tauti, and Evan stopped by and talked to me. Later that night we moved to an air conditioned beach side hotel.
My main problem with North Goa is that it's almost impossible to leave the house. As soon as I stepped out the door fifty people would surround me and try to snake my money. Constantly, everywhere I went, people just wouldn't leave me alone. At one point I was sitting on the beach, trying to enjoy the tide's ebbing, when a gang of gypsies pounced on me. I lost my temper and threatened the lot with torture and ruin, but they just didn't get the point.
Eventually I figured out that I had to store my stuff at a restaurant and buy something, then their staff would chase the gypsies, beggars, and crap toters away.
Swimming was an option too, but barely. There were nazi life guards posted every 20 yards on the beach an in the water. We weren't allowed to go deeper than our waists and we had to avoid "rip tide" zones. It was crowded too and creepy Indian men kept trying to touch Tori.
One of the saddest things I saw was the cruelty of higher caste people to lower castes. There was one kid making sand castles while two higher caste kids ran around him playing soccer with their dad. Every once in a while the high caste kids would intentially run through the castle or kick the ball at the kid. The dad not only didn't care that his kids were total shits, but he stepped through the castle once too. The sand castle kid's dad was nearby too, but he couldn't do anything because he was a lower caste. I wanted to get in the soccer dad's face, tell him to clean up his act, but Tori advised me not to. Guy probably didn't speak English anyway.
That isn't to say that Goa is all bad. As whiteys my crew and I were invited to exclusive clubs that played Euro trance with laser shows while transvestite looking ladies danced on the balcony. When not partying we could sit on the beach side, smoke hookah, and get drunk on weak martinis.
The oldest and biggest eastern churches are located in the town of Old Goa. Composed of one room big enough to fit a blue whale, intricately decorated and painted with at least 5 different colors per square foot, all hand painted, and sitting on the verge of collapse, the churches of Old Goa were really nifty. They also have a cool museum devoted to 500-year-old paintings of explorers and magistrates. Some of the paintings had disturbing depictions of Christians being dismembered by natives and it made me wonder how these burnable paintings survived so long.
We saw some army guys at a local restaurant. They had soviet looking assault rifles sporting patches of bare metal where the black paint flaked off and stood a foot taller than most other Indians. When they came in the whole staff stopped what they were doing to wait on them. I don't think they paid either. I was surprised by how old they were too. they all had gray hairs and lines on their faces.
After 5 days it was nice to leave Goa, the beach bum life was wearing on me. Little did I know the greatest trial was yet to come when we made for Delhi.