Goa

We took a 14 hours train ride from Pune down south to Goa, about 550km away. It was the longest and most unbearable train ride for me yet.

And it turns out not all that pleasant.

When we did managed to squeeze through the people rushing in and out of the train looking for their seat/bed, some huge-assed luggage, as is the same with all other luggage carried by a typical Indian travelling on trains, every space and every aisle is taken up or is already occupied.

It is pretty confusing at first for newbies trying to make sense of the Indian train ticketing system, when the ticket you have doesn’t guarantee you a seat in the train. The ticket may be in Waiting-list, Reservation against cancellation status, or you may buy the tal-tak (last minute) scheme to get a confirmed seat but would have to pay more.

So anyway we got to our seats and thinking that was it, we can now rest for the remaining 14 hours, NO. BIG NO. Indian Tan climbed up to his bed on the upper berth and me on the lower one and he immediately fell asleep.

Some time into the journey, at some random India stop at the wee hours, many Indians were making their way up the train. It was then that I saw how the India train system works. As long as u find space, u find Indians. 2 indians squashed up to my leg room area on my bed. They were the more fortunate ones who shared my bed with me. Their friends wasted no time to mass occupy the floor area below my bed and opposite. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE. They were like inches away from me and there I was, trying to get to sleep. Can u imagine that? I think its hard unless u experienced it yourself. Apparently after Indian Tan fell asleep, there were about 837020 indians that boarded the train and took up whatever space they could have found and that includes the leg space area of my berth. SCREAMS

Indian Tan later said I looked more piss than his piss when they refused to move away. But luckily or not so lucky, afterall that happened, all of them alighted at the same station a few hours later, although I had already lost my sleep for the night.

Wanting to save money the backpacker way, we decided to walk instead to the bus terminal. But we ended up walking around in circles in the downpour with our heavy load. And realized that lessons learnt for the day was not to follow an Indian’s instructions. At about 9am, we finally reached Madgaon station, Goa after the overnight journey. But the sky is dull and raining. After looking through the listed beaches in the guide on the train journey, we decided to go to Arambol, a beach situated in north Goa that is out of the way, hoping to avoid the crowd and visit the more laid-back part of the often touristy beaches.

Author’s note: When asked to turn left, always do the opposite.

From the Madgaon bus terminal, we took a bus to Panjim, then from Panjim to Mapusa, and from there to Arambol village. It only cost us about 50 rupees each for taking the public transport although the whole journey took us 3 hours altogether, and we still had to get to the beach from the Arambol village.

The Arambol village looks like a typical rural village and there are no sign of any travellers which left us wondering if we had came to the wrong place. We asked the villagers if the Arambol beach is nearby and they confirmed it. We then wanted to take an auto-rickshaw to the beach but there are hardly even any vehicles in sight.

This starts to get worrying.

We continued walking under the drizzle which turned into a downpour for like 45minutes, asking for directions from the villagers while passing by rice plantations, chickens, wild boars, cows walking by themselves, children playing in the rain, mothers sitting by the kampong houses staring at us walking in the rain like we are Mathatma Gandhis doing the Salt March.

And finally we saw the beach.

The description of the Arambol beach in the guide says “If you’re looking for a committed traveller vibe, this is the place to come.”

We read again if it should be “committed suicide vibe”.

It’s not a comforting sight at all; the beach is dirtier than Sembawang Beach, and there are no silken sand, coconuts trees lining the beach nor beach hunks or bikini-clad babes lounging in the sun as what we expected.

It looked like we were gonna have difficulty finding a room when all we could see was just a dead beach and dogs roaming around. We dragged our feet along the beach with only the roar of the waves in the background and the dogs following us tightly. I was glad it was not cats that were more than human beings there. They seemed very happy to finally see us humans.

When it seemed that we had managed to find a place to stay else where, a restaurant by the beach comes into sight. We immediately took shelter inside and enquire if there were rooms available.

An old Indian man, who was apparently the boss, tilted his head downwards and peered at us without looking through his glasses, not believing there were 2 idiots drenched in sweat and rain coming to the beach in the monsoon season. He then offered a 150 rupees/ night double room.

We were happy to hear that there was room available, without even bargaining for the rate or looking at the room conditions. Not that 150 rupees is expensive ($1.50/person/night). haha

We were finally able to get a breather after dropping our backpacks in the small room, and without talking, both of us agreed that the 3 nights stay in Goa is gonna be an awful one.

After washing up and napping through the early afternoon, we went down to the restaurant to attack the food. The rain has now subsided and there are now a few fishermen trying their luck with fish nets catching at the beach.

Indian Tan suggested to rent a scooter to explore the place since we had nothing to do at the beach anyway.

And we managed to rent a scooter from the village for 150 rupees for 12 hours and off we went, riding up and down the area.

It actually wasn't all that bad afterall. There was barely a golden-haired or outsider. Whenever any of the kids saw us, it was as if we were celebrities. We would wave at them enthusiastically and me being at the back of the scooter having nothing much to do but sitting at the back of the scooter, had a pretty good time waving back at them. I think i managed to lose some 0.00000005 ounces of fats after all the waving. And the people would always shout “Korea” or “Japon” at us. At least they didn’t shout Cheena Cheena lol.

The atmosphere at Goa is relaxing and there wasn't much touting or other tourists in sight. We were starting to like this place already =)

After riding for about 50km, we went back to our lodging. The restaurant was actually a nice place to chill. We get to watch the TV while eating heart-attack fried food and drinking beer. Occasionally a typical long-haired tattooed drunk hippie would come in for a beer and chat us up. The guy working at the restaurant called Satya is a friendly dude and we had a good time chatting with him.

This became our favorite pastime for our stay in Goa and every night when the boss goes to sleep Satya would voluntarily open up more beers for free and we would all have a great time drinking.

Both of us agreed that Kingfisher taste the best when it’s free.