Over the river...

Crossing the river from Aronda, Maharashtra, into Goa was a fairly straight forward procedure. Queue up with the other bikes, taxis and cars and await the flat decked tug boat on the other side. 15 minutes later with gang plank laid we rode onto Goan soil. This is where everything started to get a little weird...

Perhaps the four days preceding this moment we had been happily hopping down the Maharashtran coast . From Ratnagiri we took the advice of a local chai shop owner and headed out to Vijayadurg, a small fishing village overlooked by a medieval fort. Here we were lucky enough to score a room in a not yet completed government guesthouse for next to nothing overlooking the fort and a tiny bay below.

A short hike over the headland led us onto a deserted beach where we happily tanned for the afternoon. The highlight though was yet to come. Tonight was a special night in Vijayadurg. Appearing for one night only at the local school was the famed magician Suhani. This was low budget magic at its best/worst. Ladies were sawn in half and people climbed into boxes only to be seen again minutes later running from the back of the crowd to the stage. And all set to the loudest, cheesiest hindi-pop mimed out by two scantily clad beauties. Holly and I weren't exactly blown away but the crowd seemed to enjoy it. We were almost the support act with many of the Indian families present taking an interest in the two gangly westerners.

For Maharashtra was not only stunningly beautiful but devoid of tourists. As we dived and climbed into and out of steep jungled gorges we saw no one. Inevitably as we reached the bottom of each gorge a settlement appeared where a few people waited patiently for buses or sat drinking chai. No westerners in sight though. It was as though it had been reserved entirely for me and the Tribe.

So it was almost a massive dose of reverse culture shock that awaited us on the other side of the river bank.

Westerners on Enfield motorbikes were everywhere. Dreadlocks hung limply from scrawny figured Israelis and Europeans and the maharati signage from the previous week were replaced instantly with English. Arambol, the first beach we came too was as pretty as any beach we had come across. It was however also crammed with backpackers and restaurants and shops set up to service their needs. On the way into town Holly's clutch cable snapped which pretty much decided for us where we would stay. A beach hut just behind the palms where a soundtrack of waves crashing played out for us. It took however an hour or two before we had settled into this alien way of life. People speaking English! Pizza, and pasta for sale and scantily clad adults attempting to tan on the beach. Most obvious was the lack of Indian tourists on the beach. This was more or less exclusively for tourists.

Three or four days later we had fully relaxed into the Goan experience. It now felt good to order expensively portioned western food to enjoy with a beer and chat with other bikers and backpackers. We moved fairly quickly down to Anjuna in time for the weekly flea market and a chance for Holly to do some well earned shopping. Anjuna seems to have had its day though with prices soaring as well as attitude. Touts lined most of the roads to the beach offering mostly taxis, and hashish. Three days of this was enough and with a packed beach full of sun loungers we longed to head somewhere more relaxed with the perfect beach.

At this point we heard from Atila who had shacked up in Benaulim for a few days just a few Kms down the coast from Anjuna. Benaulim was as quiet as it gets. Four or five beach side restaurants all with the ubiquitous beach huts behind and a handful of people at each. It was also scorchingly hot and lacked any real shade, so after two days the three of us decided to leave for Agonda, the promised land...