Vagator Nights...

I’ve awoken in a Zen palace to find that I have been served as the main course at the bug King’s banquet. Feverishly I search out each nibble at my flesh to try and decipher who I played host too. The twit and I decide that it couldn’t have been a mosquito party, but as a safety measure I should drink gin and tonic all day.
Vagator is a small village set in a haphazard square of rambling guest houses, bars, Averyurdic health centres and stalls of multi coloured shimmering fabrics. Young girls in crop top saris hail us as we walk by, “You come look at my stall? I give you best price.” “We can’t now,” we reply, “we are on our way to the beach/lunch/dinner” (used as appropriate). “You come back later then ok?” “Ok, maybe we come later”. “You come back, you like, you buy, you promise me now.” “Ok, we promise that if we come back we look”. “Don’t forget me now, don’t forget you promise me.” And so it goes, by each and every stall we promise to return and examine the wares.
This is our fourth day in Vagator. We arrived late on our first day, and had time only to find ourselves a bed and a meal. As the night drew in we found a bar on the beach and took a beer from the waiter. “You’re very quiet tonight”, observed the twit. “We’re only busy in the day my friend,” he replied, “Tonight everyone drinks at nine bar”, he nods his head up the hill to a ramshackle construction pumping trance music into the surrounding area.
As the sun neared the middle of the cloudless sky on the second day we stretched our legs in search of breakfast and chanced upon a Zen haven offset from the road on Vagator’s outskirts. This is where we awoke today. As you walk up the cobbled drive past a blackboard upon which ‘Vehicle free zone’ is written in friendly multi-coloured chalk the mellow tones of Indian fusion chill meander over the air into your mind. Upon each table in the open restaurant sits a single red rose underneath a stained glass bell. Dreadlocked individuals and Buddhist families flick through the menu peppered with life affirming quotes to choose from the extensive range of soya shakes and fresh fruit breakfasts. The staff nod and smile, one waiter, who works the seasons here away from his Delhi home bounds over to salut the twit as his brother and to toast us a happy new year. One Nepalese gentleman serves us our drinks, is delighted to find we will visit Nepal and immediately promises to swap addresses as he nods and beams, the light of his face reaching all the way to his eyes.
Vagator beach is a liberal free for all relative to the traditional atmosphere of Campal. Western girls sun worship in string bikinis while Russian and Israeli men strut in speedos speaking into mobile phones. The British men are easily spotted with pale skin, shaved heads and long shorts. The twit and I take a seat in the bar we visited upon the first night. Almost immediately a young girl has sprung to my side, “You want to come and look at my stall?”, “No thanks, I don’t want to buy anything”. “I bring to you, I also do manicure and pedicure”. The twit leans over my lap and looks into the young woman’s eyes, “Do you know where we can get any smoke?” He punctuates his question with the international gesture for taking a toke. She looks confused, “I don’t know. I’m not sure”, and turns and leaves.
A moment later a young attractive man with an array of sunglasses draped over one arm stops by the twit, “Would you like some sunglasses sir?”, “No thank you sir”. The young man leans forward to reach the twit’s ear – “I hear you want some smoke?” The twit nods. “Come to my shop behind the bar in 5 minutes and we talk”. The twit affirms this and returns to sipping his beer. After 5 minutes he wordlessly stands and heads to the stall.
The young man is waiting for him, “This is good stuff, straight from Malawi, you won’t get anything as good as this on this beach. I had to go specially to get this for you”. The twit shuffled among the rose pink and gold scarves stacked around him and the young man, “No, no, I didn’t ask you to get it. I just wanted to know how much”. “OK then, lets talk price, how much do you want to pay?”, “300” the twit asserted. The man laughed and shook his hands wildly before him, “No no no…this is good stuff, 1800”. The twit shook his head with mishearing, “1000?”. The man gesticulated wildly again, “No, no, no, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED”. The twit stepped back among the racks of silver ornate ankle bracelets and burnt yellow saris, “No, No, I don’t want it at that price, there’s no way I can afford it”. “Well how much do you have on you?” “500”. “Right, I went and got this especially for you. Its bad for me to go and take this back”. “Well I didn’t ask you to get it, and there’s no way I can pay that price”. “How about you give me 500 now and the rest tomorrow?” “Look, I don’t know if I’m coming back tomorrow. I don’t want to make you promises that I can’t keep”. “Who’s making promises? I trust you! How about you pay 500 today and 400 tomorrow?” “No, no, I don’t know if I’m coming back, I won’t do it”. “Look I trust you, its ok”. “I might not be coming back tomorrow. I can’t bring you money tomorrow”. The young man smiled winningly, “I tell you what, I like you. Sometimes we make more, sometimes we make less. I’ll let you have it for 500 and you get me a beer. And you promise that your lady will come and look at my store”. “Ok”, the twit delved into his pockets and pulled out a 500 as a 10 fell out with it, “Ah!” the twit exclaimed as his claim that he only had 500 was falsified, “Well here, have this too”. The twit handed the young man the 510 and they both laughed, followed by the subtle handshake that only occurs when a discreet package is being passed.
The twit rejoined me in the bar, a film of sweat across his brow, “Phew, that was heavy”, and we left the bar for a sun lounger before the sunset. Once on the beach we were surrounded by 5 young Indian girls bedecked in traditional saris and silver jewellery, “Hello good couple, what are your names?” they would sing one at a time. Each girl had the same story, “Where are you from?” we would ask, “Karnataka”, “Which town?”, “Hampi”, “Are you married?” “Yes”, “Do you have children?”, “Three, but I must work this beach all day, my husband is a bad man, he sleeps and drinks and doesn’t lift a finger. I work here all day and then I must go home and wash and clean and put the children to bed”. The pleasantries would be passed over as the young girls flung anklets over my legs and saris over my arms while they leafed through notepads of intricate henna deigns. “You give good price” they begged, desperation embedded with the tactics of the hard sell. “No, we don’t buy. We DO NOT buy” we had to restate many times over. And so this continued until we had fourteen girls sat cross legged around us, “You buy tomorrow, you remember me – you promise?” Upon realizing that we would not be customers they sat back and the atmosphere changed. Happy to share stories as the tourists left the sunset beach and the days work was complete. We sat in a circle and laughed at their stories of unfriendly Russian tourists, half suspicious that perhaps they have the same spiel in reverse for Russian customers.
One of the girls was different. Young, perhaps barely 18, she skipped over to where we were sat and introduced herself in sing song tones. Draped in purple silks, her dark eyes shone with a calm wit. She was luminescent in the last embers of the setting sun. “How did your day go?” we ask her, “I didn’t sell much, but selling something is better than selling nothing”. She tilted her head and laughed, “Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?” she inquires. “No,” I say, holding up the rings put on to protect myself against forward natives, “we are married”. “This is nice”, she smiles, “how long do you know each other?” “Two years”. “Ah this is not as long as some,” she muses, “but some people know each other straight away, while some others spend years together and do not know each other at all”. We laugh, “You are philosophical” I say. “I am a professional!” she beams, “I work this beach every day since I am 5 years old. I see many people from many countries and I learn many things”. “Are you married?” I ask. “No, my parents will pick me someone soon, I leave it to them to do the work for me. Well have a good evening my friends, maybe see you soon”. And with that, she gathered up her wares and skipped off to the cliffs where she will board the back of an open truck to head home for the day. We watch her leave wondering how bright her spark will be in ten years once she has been chosen a man she must serve as well as love.
The next day, we found ourselves sat at a bar surrounded by a group of cockneys. Their reddened skin heads and ease with the bartenders signaled their familiarity with the surroundings. They have been coming to Vagator for ten years and sitting among them feels like you’ve taken your own stool in an English village pub, apart from the relenting heat and the emphatic instructions of no ice. They swap stories of their travels with us and recommend treks in Laos. One guy, whizz, tells us the story of his arrival in Vietnam, “I showed the taxi driver my 9 dollars and said, look mate, this is all I have, can you take me to the hostel. The taxi driver nodded and I got in the cab. He then started driving me down this dark alley, and I thought, hang on, my mate wouldn’t stay anywhere dodgy like this. The driver then stopped and pulled a gun out of the glove compartment which he pointed in my face. ‘Money’, he said, ‘I want all your money’. But I didn’t have no more than this 9 dollars. So I pulled out all my pockets to show him I didn’t have none. He used the gun to gesture to my necklace. So I gave him everything, my 9 dollars, my necklace, my rings, my wallet. And then he drove me around the front of the hostel, and followed me in, took my bag and everything. Smiling and joking with me like he was my best friend. Couldn’t f**king believe it. Not half as bad as the time I got robbed by a gang of Thai lady boys. What are you up to tonight? Come for a drink in Chapora.”
And so we did. We walked down the jungle lined hill to the main street of bars, shops and stalls, more ramshackle, and somehow more urban than the neater stalls lining the road to Little Vagator beach. The cockney crew are in full force, they fill the balcony and we join them. The bar has the air of a private party and this they know. They point to the juice bars surrounded by a haze of chillum smoke. ‘They’re a bit nuts down there’ they gesture to the tie dye clad hippies lying blessed out on silk cushions sipping melon juices and lassies. At the same instant, red, who has been swaggering heavily, falls back over a shop stand across the street and does not get up. We watch in silence and erupt into laughter as the sound of heavy snoring carries across the hot dusty dirt track. We meet a multitude of British people, a young couple who have just quit university because they do not know what they really want to do and they believe they will find the answer on the red brick trails of Indian shanty towns. Uncle Ed, the wild Scotsman, whose liver is decaying rapidly and who firmly believes that all British politicians have sold their soul to Satan. We meet two Londoners who continually complain that their home borough is over run with Indians. Jonathan is unmistakably middle class, and his warm open smile flinches slightly when he admits that he will be calling his mother in two days for cash. His long lean body is golden and the stab wound scars that follow his left forearm trace a burnt brown path. He has fought here too – but there is no trace of a temper in his joviality tonight. Jonathan and Uncle Ed reminisce over all the beautiful girls who have smiled, kissed and opened themselves to them on Goa’s sandy shores.
Nearing midnight, the shanty bar is running out of drinks and we head to the Primrose café. We jump on the back of Jurgen’s scooter as he speeds wildly into the night alive with the sounds of revelers and a multitude of crickets singing songs that only the insects will understand. I cheer as we rush along the dark pot holed paths, heady with liquor and heat. The twit grabs for life behind me at a handle that the bike has not been furnished with. I feel his arms wrap around my waist as he wrestles with gravity and equilibrium to stay on.
We arrive at the Primrose, the party is in full swing beneath the psychedelic neon paintings that adorn the roof. Jonathan buys us a beer and draws us a map so we can always find his English home if we need a place to crash. Someone tells me that if we want a rush, red is the man to talk to. I whisper in his ear and he sizes me up, his eyes clocking the safety of my pale skin, drunken swagger and eagerness. He takes me to a dark corner and opens a Clingfilm wrap, “Ere you are, have a dab’. I like my finger and sink it into the sticky grey mud, “Not too much mind you, its strong stuff”. I slip my finger in my mouth and beam through the acrid taste that seeps into my tongue. “Now get your fella, I don’t wanna be caught with this so make it quick”. I turn and rush off for the twit. Red doesn’t ask for anything off either of us. After the twit has had his fill, red looks up and smiles, “mate…welcome to India!”
Next thing I know I’m sat at a table where two Austrians find that they have worked together before, and the skin headed manc next to the twit resides in a trailer ten minutes from our last home in England. Synchronicities fill the air, signifying that the world is safe. That wherever you are, there will always be a friend. Jurgen and me are discussing the fallacies of bipolar ideologies and the life defying nature of heavenly beliefs. I don’t know how we reached this topic but we agree. We pose for photos with new found friends. Each picture reveals widened eyes, blackened pupils and unhinged jaws that chew the excess energy coursing through our nervous systems. I feel the floor rush through my feet and my chest heave as the lights dazzle my eyes and my optical nerves fragment the neon colours like prisms. The groups are closer now, friends of years share private jokes and intimate stories. The twit and I see its our time to leave. We hug everyone goodbye and head back to the bliss-filled ambience under our mosquito net.
Time is irrelevant here. The sun has moved midway across the sky as I write this. We sleep half the hours a day gives, and the completion of one task a day is an achievement. Yesterday we recuperated in our Zen palace, waking to eat and drink but little else. Exotic birds hummed shrills that guided our dreams to paradise. We ventured out for a beer yesterday and learnt that one night at the Primrose is sufficient to put yourself on hello terms with half of Vagator. Journeys have doubled as we meet and greet all we know on our way. Vagator seems the place that you slip into like a warm tartan slipper, it feels as if we have always been here and we would not need to leave if we did not wish it.

Negotiating strange lands...

You are not lost you are here. India is everything that I have read it to be. Our taxi spewed out of Goa airport onto chaotic streets. These unmarked roads seem to operate under a take way, opposed to a give way system. A constant backdrop of bass engine thrums and beeping horns give a feeling of constancy to a country swept up in a multitude of cultural conflicts. Tin shanty shelters neighbour colonial houses. Their green and pink ornate balconies peep between palm trees onto the lawless roads. Street vendors serve food beside houses decked in bright red corporate logos. Baboosh, our taxi driver weaves between gleaming fords and tuk tuk. Scooters whiz by on the left and right sides. Ladies draped in pink, gold and lime green saris sit side saddle, arms cradling the waist of their male driver akin to the riding habits of equestrian ladies of colonial England. Peppered between half completed construction projects, rubble piles and coconut trees are ornate shrines to Ganesh, Shiva, Buddha and Jesus. They glint dazzling golds through the haphazard city around them.

It is dark when we arrive at the Panjim YMCA. I’m almost disappointed to find a throne toilet in our spotless bathroom. The air conditioning system hums like the engines on the streets. A small boy in a Nike t-shirt leaves his shoes before our door and deposits our bags as quickly as he arrives. Afterwards, we realize we should have tipped him and feel the first flush of cultural insensitivity. Later we find him with four other lads around the same age, similarly decked in frayed labeled t-shirts and hand him 50 rupees. Feeling lost in the Panjim night, we skim the pages of the Lonely Planet. Campal, where we are staying, has no entry. Small surges of pride and rivulets of nervous sweat wave over our bodies as we realize we are already off the beaten track. However, there are two things to remember in situations such as this. Firstly, the laws of physics still apply, secondly, as the twit observed, “Where there are people, there will be people selling food”. So we prepared to venture into the bustling night with a map of neighbouring Panjim torn from the lonely planet. The lonely planet becomes both a bible of aid and a badge of amateurism. You want to consult it and at the same time fear that the image of you clutching it will scream out to locals that you are new, that you are not entirely sure what you are doing, that you are vulnerable.

In a break from my narrative of last night, I’ll just take a moment to make mention of our taxi ride from Panjim bound for Vagator. Baboosh again drives us. His cheerful tones resonates back to us as he asks us where we will go, how much do we pay at the YMCA, and points out markets, buffalo, coconut stands, his own village home and laughs with us as we veer to avoid the cows that spill into the road. His boss is a Christian, so he spends his Hindu sensibilities sat at a depiction of Jesus on the dash board. His pentamic language flows musically into his Nokia handset as he discusses his next job with mission control. He shares with us his dreams; he will take up the fishing trade of his father when he has worked the taxis for six months. Only then, when he has his own job will he find his wife who will bear him the gaggle of children who will look after him as he grows old. His smile reaches his dark eyes and his young skin shines with youth upon his lithe frame. He earns 20 pounds a month, this he shares with his family and saves for the day he may have his own home.

So, we enter the lobby of the YMCA clutching the torn off map of Panjim. In the reception area, a thin middle aged man lies on the floor with a towel draped over his face. He senses our footsteps and soundlessly jumps to life. After much map pointing, he emphatically gestures us to take the street to the main road and follow the bend. Only upon exit do we realize that he is mute, and must have felt our footsteps resonating against the tiles.

The night was close. I love the smell of tropical climates, like musk of spice and hot earth. We headed down the main street towards Panjim, turning left at the Jesus shrine, avoiding the three way convergence of mopeds, taxis and tuk tusk. The municipal gardens hung a leafy backdrop on the left. A myriad of pathways meandering uplit Buddhas and nativity scenes. In front the twit and I stopped by a street vendor serving turmeric chickpeas amidst family members perched on the wall and a sari wrapped grandmother cross legged on the floor. Determined to begin our bartering skills we paced to the middle aged man behind the counter. “How much for a bottle of water?” “15 rupees sir”. “Ok…we’ll have two.” The twit ruffled through his pocket and pulled out the smallest note. “Have you got change for 100?” The incredulous look uniformly presented upon the family’s faces told all we need to know. “Wait up, I have 30”, I ploughed through my wallet trying to seize the notes quickly. We paid for the water and walked away slightly embarrassed, and also subdued. How are we supposed to barter with people who only earn 2 pounds per day and can’t change up the smallest note we have?

We walked further down the buzzing main street and took a left into the market. Primary yellows stacked fuscia pinks and gleaming whites as women draped in twinkling saris sat upon tables and strung flower necklaces. Three graying women wiped clean the white metal shelves of the now empty fish stalls. Joints of meat hung in spotlights over the open meat counter. Silks and cottons of multicoloured arrays lay in neat piles, waiting to be selected and folded into somebody’s sari. Opposite, t-shirts adorning the badge of any English football club you could name were piled high above a counter row of Levi’s. Turning left through the market, we felt our English upbringing avert our eyes as a young woman draped in rose silk lifted her skirt to urinate in the gutter.

With stomachs feeling like cavernous balloons we heaved a sigh of relief as we came to a well lit, busy vegetarian café. Families and friends sat clustered in groups, hand feeding themselves dishes scooped up with naans and poppadoms. We sat down in a window seat under the light cast from the green neon sign. A young waiter immediately came to our table and laughingly took our order. “Is he laughing because we are Western, or because he is happy to see us?” I asked the twit. “Probably both” he replied, brow furrowed at the alien names scrolled down the menu card. I had a momentary panic as I couldn’t tell which dishes contained meat, and laughed at the wash of relief as I remembered the green lit sign spewing “Vegetarian Restaurant” into the night. We ordered Goan Thali with a side of Samosas and Watermelon juice (emphatically saying “No ice” while waving our hands in a gesture of finality).

The food arrived on a large metal plate, naan, poppadoms and rice surrounded by a circular selection of pickled chillis, curried vegetables and three white dishes, looking suspiciously like dairy which we avoided. Afterwards we took a long sip of the watermelon juice and recognized the momentary panic in each others eyes as we wondered if it had been watered down. “Its fine, the lonely planet said fruit juice is ok if it has no ice cubes” I repeated like a mantra.

The time spent after dinner, and after lunch today I noticed, is like you are playing a waiting game. Hypersensitive to the conditions of your stomach, you wait and seek out any twinge, or gaseous movement that could signal the start of the horrifying twisting cramps and liquid expulsions that you hear about from every traveler you meet who has crossed the paths of India. Will this dish be the one that leads to my own version of the traditional traveler shat myself in public story? The early hours of this morning were prominently tense in this game of wait. Especially as the twit chuckled at my rookie mistake of cleaning my teeth with the tap water. I lay in the rooms hypnotic humming of the air conditioning, time elapsing as my stomach grew with gas. Each time the twit and I fart now we declare with pride “dry”, “dry”, “phew, dry again”. We wait for our first onslaught of dysentery.

We are now staying in Vagator, Baboosh has left us at the Jolly Jolly Lester’s. We had to turn down two rooms because of the unfeasibly high prices until they slashed their price offers and showed us a room we preferred. It seems that when we can’t afford something we are actually rather good at bartering. The twit and I are sprawled out on an ethnic print cover draped over our double bed. I’m again disappointed to find that we have a throne toilet. I would like to get used to emptying my bowels into a hole as soon as possible. We’re in the hub of tourism now. Outside the door of our room bikini clad girls chat to young men in shorts sat astride hired scooters. We’re going to drink some cocktails and kick back, act like we are on holiday and join the partygoers. After we’ve holed up here for a few days we’re going to head South. Out of the tourist trap and into the fishing villages that surround the Kerala backwaters. I might try and write a story, unless I am too busy absorbing the dazzling arrays of smell and sounds that make up this run down, vibrant country.