Baggage, birthdays, and goodbyes

Mark and Henry arrived, tired yet excited. Unfortunately their luggage did not. A cancellation of their flight from Heathrow had thrown everything off kilter. They were met at Mumbai with an attendant waving a fistful of rupees and an apology that their bags would be sent on when they arrived the following day. Amazingly they did just that. A rick-shaw pulled up in Agonda two days later, with two shrink wrapped bags. And not a moment to soon as the limited beach wear I owned had been shared out between us.

Next it was in a taxi and down the coast to Gokarna in Karnataka state. Initially there was talk of loading all four of us onto the two bikes and heading down, but on seeing the amount of luggage Mark and Henry had brought from England, this plan was never going to get off the ground. - Secretly I think it was intentional as both Joneses only ever sceptically eyed our bikes. - Holly and I followed the taxi for the three hour run down to Gokarana, blasting through both the Goa and Karnatkan state police road blocks sans interruption to save a hefty baksheesh.

Om beach is named for the beautiful curving shape the two bays make resembling the symbol that Hindus believe to be representative of the divine, and source of all manifest existence - although heard as a sound and not a word. And divine it was.




Two beautiful golden sandy beaches, sloping down to a tranquil Arabian Sea where we were to spend the next week. 8kms north, Gokarna town, represents one of the holiest towns in India. The beaches appeared to be an extension of this with pilgrims coming to bathe daily. This made for an interesting mix of devout Hindus, drunk India men, and horizontal westerners all vying for a spot of beach. Fortunately the competition was never that fierce and Om beach remains one of the most relaxing places we've visited so far. Hammock time was maximised as were the many hours of ruthless hands of shithead and dirty sevens (Attila's Turkish card game). Unseasonally we experienced thunderstorms nearly every night. More a novelty than an annoyance we made do. Coincidentally perhaps the rains arrived along with the Joneses lost luggage.

My birthday fell on Good Friday. It was also full moon that day, the Hindu festival holi and the Jewish festival of Purim the night before. This alone was inspiring. A lot of the Israeli travellers on the beach were throwing a fancy dress party- as is traditional - so Thursday night saw us dressed as Leopard, bumblebee, Harry Potter, Ganesh - Hindu elephant god, a lotus flower, and cap'n Jack Sparra respectively. It was a fairly raucous affair which left many feeling sore for the following day. My birthday was as good a birthday as one could hope for. A beautiful spot, my best friends from home and those we had made in India, and of course all organised expertly by Holly and rounded off with some of the biggest fireworks I have ever had the pleasure of lighting.
Holly had even bought a cake from a bakery in the local village and stashed it at the restaurant we were going to have dinner. However there was a massive thunderstorm that night so we ended up having dinner at our guesthouse. When the raining had ceased a bit she walked along the beach to get the cake and bring it back. On her return, literally out of no-where a cow, horns down, comes charging at me from the shadows. Holly started to run but the damn thing was much faster than a half drunk cake wielding Holly, so the only way to go was into the sea, where she walked the remainder of the beach and lost the cow and delivered the cake in perfect chocolatey condition to the birthday boy.

Moral of the story: cows like cake, but they won't swim for it


It was with some sadness a day later that we all packed up to head back up to Goa, waving goodbye to those who had travel from north to south with us - Denis & Sara heading back to Mumbai, then Germany and Attila heading north to meet his sister. They would be sorely missed.

Back in Anjuna we fluked a house rental for three days. Right near the beach and with bedrooms, kitchen and a lovely porch to sit out on we were pretty spoiled. A lot of rum was drunk and a few more drunken swimming episodes occurred. A trip to the weekly flea market furnished Mark and Henry with all the gifts they could ever need to take back home. A hike up to Chapora fort on the penultimate day of their stay only being marred slightly by a policeman trying his luck for a bit of extra rupee. When seeing we were up to good rather than no good he slunk away tail between his legs. Then it was off for one last supper with the boys and a farewell glass of Indian red - not advisable, by the way.