India Light

It was a 19-hour train journey to Goa. We were supposed to leave the previous day but the company didn’t organise a taxi to take us to the train station an hour away, so we missed it. That was Second Class AC ticket. They hurriedly booked us a ticket for the next day, that was Third Class AC. The difference between the two is significant. In 3rd AC there are six people to a cabin instead of four, the beds are narrower, and there’s no curtain to pull across to block the light. Ok India, let’s do this.

It actually wasn’t that bad. We stocked up on crisps and biscuits the night before, had books to read and fully charged phones for music. The Indian family we shared the carriage with were very nice, they even offered to share their rice and fish when they saw we only had crisps! We went to bed about 7pm, and got a few hours’ sleep.

Now, something I find almost impressive about Indians (generalising I know), is how little they give a damn. They just don’t care who they irritate. I was woken up at 11pm by a man who had just gotten on the train and was on the bunk below mine. He came in, turned all the lights on, hung a plastic bag next to my face, plugged his phone in (again next to my face) and sat on his bunk doing a Sudoku for the next hour.

We got off the train at 4am and headed to the hotel to crash.

Upon waking and further investigation we found ourselves to be in Colva. Now a problem we have had a few times with our travel company is that, as they are Indian, they send us to where the Indian tourists go. This is normally quite a good thing, but not for Goa.

Colva is very pretty! Don’t get me wrong! But Goa was where we were hoping for a real holiday. A break from the craziness of India. We walked to the beach and saw one Western couple, the woman was in a bikini and had a crowd of about 15 Indian men around her asking for selfies. Oh no. Oh no no no. No…No.

We spoke to the company and asked to be moved somewhere up to the north of Goa, about an hour away somewhere like Baga where the guidebook promised lots of Western tourists, somewhere we could blend in.

There was an even more chilled vibe in Goa. Just strolling along the beach was lovely. It was a bit annoying because on Colva beach every two seconds an Indian woman would try to sell me a bracelet/hair braid/ henna tattoo, but mostly it was pretty.

Now we were in Goa, good food was everywhere! We had beer and fish and chips, woop woop! We looked at the map and planned to visit the next village over, Benaulim, the following day.

For tea we tried to find a highly recommended pizza place called Kudos 25 minutes’ walk away and set off in our flip flops. 45 minutes later we passed a sign saying “Welcome to Benaulim” and it was officially dark.

One last ditch attempt sent us asking for directions, we were told Kudos was just 5 minutes up the road and to not give up hope! Two minutes up the road, Greg’s flip flop snapped irreparably and he decided to go barefoot. Thinking all was lost and noticing that there were no taxis around, we kept going, looking for the little pizza place.

We found the "pizza place". It was the swankiest restaurant we’d been to for months, and Greg was barefoot. Hope they let us in after all this.

They did let us in, albeit reluctantly. The pizza was delicious. Happy campers.

We went to Benaulim beach the next day and it was gorgeous and basically empty. We walked a massive roundabout way to get there, then realised it was connected to Colva beach right outside our hotel. But for some reason, the Indian tourists wouldn’t leave Colva beach. It was like there was an electric fence. No hassle and prime paddling conditions!

We still weren’t putting on swimwear as we were considered a top attraction even in normal clothes; one man came running across the beach to Greg saying he was a “beautiful man” and asking for a selfie which was promptly turned down.

Our last adventure in Colva took us back to near the train station in Madgaon where we arrived. According to Lonely Planet the best restaurant in Goa was there; “Ruta’s World Café”. It was open between 10am-5pm and we were going to find it!

We got a tuk tuk from Colva and asked him to take us to the café, he hadn’t heard of the café but recognised the map so dropped us off and left us to wander around. 45minutes of wandering with no luck we asked a local who said we were on the wrong side of town and the map showed a spot about an hour’s walk away. Balls.

About an hour later we couldn’t find the bloody thing anywhere. We bounced our way from shop to shop asking directions, eventually reaching a Baskin Robbins that said “Oh! It changed its name! It’s just up the street, called Tulusi.” Success! We rushed up the street to find it was closed.

Turned out they had also changed the opening times. A neighbour shouted out the window that it opens at 7pm. Ice cream? Ice cream.

After spending hours trying to find the place, we were going to eat there. So we killed three hours in a Coffee Café Day (Indian version of Costa with really bad coffee) and waited. 6:55pm we were waiting outside and trying not to snap at each other, it had been a long day.

The food was amazing! Our mood skyrocketed and we were happily chatting away with beers and the best prawn toast I’ve ever had. On a side note this wasn’t Ruta’s World Café. Apparently they had moved and another lady had taken over the place. The Olympics were on and we ended up staying until closing drinking, eating and chatting. Worth the drama.

We left in search of taxis about 11pm, two minutes later two of the waiters came running after us, concerned we wouldn’t find any tuk tuks. As much as we said we would be fine, they wouldn’t hear it and walked us to the likely spots to hail a taxi. There was no one! Eventually they walked us half an hour to the train station, bargained for us, and got us home. Lovely guys! We tried to give them some money for their time but they wouldn’t hear of it.

The next day we left for Baga.