February - the last week.
The next day we were both feeling healthier than we had done in over a week. We had met a lovely couple, Miriam and Roolfe, a 
couple of days before, and they had recommended a great place to hire some motorbikes for a week. We had just that: one week before M arrived, and also our friend, Omar, was coming to meet us for his 30th birthday. So we decided to kill some time and explore the coastline of Goa.
We dropped our big packs at the house of the guy who was hiring us the bikes and inspected our steeds. Well, that is to say Marcus inspected his moped. I’d decided I was old enough and responsible enough to stop crashing bikes now so I had hired a Yamaha Enticer. However it hadn’t turned up as yet. In fact it took two hours for him to locate and bring the bike to me. It was worth the wait though. The Enticer is a wonderful machine. Ithas a small capacity - 250cc - for a bike its size but it is a 4 stroke engine and has a very low gear ratio. It is designed to cruise on, not to race. It has an electric starting motor, a drop seat and large moose-like handlebars. Basically, it looks like a Harley
Davidson, and when you are riding around one of the most beautiful coastlines in Asia, that is what’s important.
We headed out of Anjuna and rode south. First down to Old Goa town where we could join the highway and cross the two estuary points of the Zuari. This meant joining the highway. Surprisingly on the highway in Goa you had to wear a helmet if you were riding a motorbike. Interestingly enough this rule didn’t apply to passengers. The traffic police were notorious for stopping and fining tourists and extracting bribes from them, however we had been tipped off and were well prepared. We had hired bikes with authenticate hire plates (red ones) we had the papers of ownership and we had helmets for the highway so we didn’t get stopped.
The ride down was interesting, to say the least. It had been over 12 years since I had ridden a geared motorcycle but, in much the same way as having sex on a trampoline: it comes back to you. After a couple of hours I was pretty comfortable with it. The highway was a little insane but we managed to traverse it without killing ourselves, although we did end up a little bit off course. Marcus heard from a friend he’d met travelling around South America. She was in Goa for a couple of days – in the south, in Palolem. We decided to take the bikes all the way down the coast in one day. It was about six hours all in all. We made it way before time. The last 40 kilometres were mountain roads and we spent the whole time dodging buses, trucks, and oncoming traffic whilst weaving through deep canyon passes at break-neck speeds. I loved every minute of it.
We arrived in Palolem and, after a bit of arsing around, found a fantastic room with A/C, hot showers, and a TV for a decent price. Palolem was a beachfront town curving around the bay so enclosed it was nearly a lagoon. With two natural breakers on either end that kept the tide to a minimum flow and ebb. It appeared a little touristier than Anjuna but that didn’t detract from its beauty. Also because it was the end of the season it wasn’t too busy.
We met up with Marcus’s friend, Nikki, who turned out to be excellent company. She had a wicked sense of humour and was a good party person. We went out for some food on the beach – in a nice little joint called New Orleans – and a chat. Nikki was a project manager for charity relief organisations and had been working in East India completing an analysis of the efficacy of the charity organisations set up to provide aid after the 2005/6 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. After dinner, several beers, and a Nargile, we stumbled off up the beach to some flashing lights to see if we could find a party. We managed to find a noiseless rave.
A noiseless rave, we found, works very much the same way as a normal one. People flock to the party, pay the entrance fee, listen to live DJs, dance, drink beer, and socialise. The only difference is in a noiseless rave there are no speakers. No music is played anywhere save from through the wireless headphones you hire when you pay your entrance fees. These amazing little bits of electrickery have a range of over 100 metres and two channels on you can select which music stream you want to dance to. If you get bored of one DJ or you spot someone bopping along to a different beat you think may be better, you just flip channel. The whole setup is a bit weird. It works fine whilst you have the headphones on but taking them off and watching a beachful of people dancing silently to the flashing strobe lights is more than a little surreal. Good fun though and the main point is no noise pollution.
The next day we took it very easy. We rode the bikes over the next beach, Patnem, which was even quieter and sunbathed, swam and read. In the evening we played pool and had dinner in the hotel where we were staying. I was still feeling pretty ill so I opted for an early night and left Marcus and Nikki to catch up.
The next morning we were still midway through our bike hire so we decided to work our
way slowly back up the coast. Nikki wanted to check out Benolium beach. So she hitched a ride with us up the coast for the afternoon. We stopped off at a Hindu Temple and I got my first Bindi spot. We were invited to an annual procession in two days there but we were a bit dubious about making it back.
We got to Benolium and checked into a very quiet out the way place that took ages to find the road in to. But it was worth it in the end. We had a late lunch with Nikki then I dropped her at the bus stop in the nearby town and then Marcus and I chilled out and had a couple of beers. In the evening we went and watched some belly dancing.
The next day I ran along the beach at dawn and then we spent the day doing the same as we always did: reading and doing nothing. Marcus was interested in riding a geared motorbike so we found a quiet road and I gave him some basic lessons. He took to it really well and I left him ride around the backroads for the afternoon. We went out in the evening and I had to come home early – still feeling ill. Fat bastard himself had a huge Kingfish sizzler. I think it may not have
been as fresh as he’d hoped as he was to find out over the next few days.
It was time to bring the bikes back the next day. We could have kept them longer but we wanted to get back to Anjuna. We also wanted to chill for a day or so as Merryl and Omar were due out on Saturday. We road back up along the coast. We stopped off at for lunch. It was like Benidorm for Indian people. We didn’t dally there for too long. We checked out the Portuguese fort at Fort Aguada and then headed back up to Anjuna pulling into town just in time for tea. By this time Marcus had been visited by the stomach faeries and took himself to bed. I decided to pop down to the flea market – that runs every Wednesday in the old town. I found the most amazing pair of trousers I had ever seen in my life. Joseph’s technicoloured dream coat would have paled into insignificance by comparison. I spent over twenty minutes haggling with the market stall owner and finally got them for a song. They were phantasmic. I was so excited by them that I had to go back to the hotel and jump around the bedroom in them for 10mins. It’s not often you procure such a
pair of pants as this.
The next couple of days we did relatively nothing apart from hang out in Anjuna watching movies in the bars in the evening and making plans for the week-end when the others were to arrive. Marcus was too ill to even get out of bed for most of the time so I mooched around, breaking in my new pants, reading books, swimming, and chatting to people. Oh actually we did make it out one evening to catch a live trip-hop/reggae band. They were brilliant. A cross between Portishead and Peter Tosh. Everyone in the bar was so off their face it beggared belief. People were falling off stools and one guy was swinging his guitar around and knocking peoples drinks all over the place.. only in Goa.
couple of days before, and they had recommended a great place to hire some motorbikes for a week. We had just that: one week before M arrived, and also our friend, Omar, was coming to meet us for his 30th birthday. So we decided to kill some time and explore the coastline of Goa.We dropped our big packs at the house of the guy who was hiring us the bikes and inspected our steeds. Well, that is to say Marcus inspected his moped. I’d decided I was old enough and responsible enough to stop crashing bikes now so I had hired a Yamaha Enticer. However it hadn’t turned up as yet. In fact it took two hours for him to locate and bring the bike to me. It was worth the wait though. The Enticer is a wonderful machine. Ithas a small capacity - 250cc - for a bike its size but it is a 4 stroke engine and has a very low gear ratio. It is designed to cruise on, not to race. It has an electric starting motor, a drop seat and large moose-like handlebars. Basically, it looks like a Harley
Davidson, and when you are riding around one of the most beautiful coastlines in Asia, that is what’s important.We headed out of Anjuna and rode south. First down to Old Goa town where we could join the highway and cross the two estuary points of the Zuari. This meant joining the highway. Surprisingly on the highway in Goa you had to wear a helmet if you were riding a motorbike. Interestingly enough this rule didn’t apply to passengers. The traffic police were notorious for stopping and fining tourists and extracting bribes from them, however we had been tipped off and were well prepared. We had hired bikes with authenticate hire plates (red ones) we had the papers of ownership and we had helmets for the highway so we didn’t get stopped.
The ride down was interesting, to say the least. It had been over 12 years since I had ridden a geared motorcycle but, in much the same way as having sex on a trampoline: it comes back to you. After a couple of hours I was pretty comfortable with it. The highway was a little insane but we managed to traverse it without killing ourselves, although we did end up a little bit off course. Marcus heard from a friend he’d met travelling around South America. She was in Goa for a couple of days – in the south, in Palolem. We decided to take the bikes all the way down the coast in one day. It was about six hours all in all. We made it way before time. The last 40 kilometres were mountain roads and we spent the whole time dodging buses, trucks, and oncoming traffic whilst weaving through deep canyon passes at break-neck speeds. I loved every minute of it.
We arrived in Palolem and, after a bit of arsing around, found a fantastic room with A/C, hot showers, and a TV for a decent price. Palolem was a beachfront town curving around the bay so enclosed it was nearly a lagoon. With two natural breakers on either end that kept the tide to a minimum flow and ebb. It appeared a little touristier than Anjuna but that didn’t detract from its beauty. Also because it was the end of the season it wasn’t too busy.
We met up with Marcus’s friend, Nikki, who turned out to be excellent company. She had a wicked sense of humour and was a good party person. We went out for some food on the beach – in a nice little joint called New Orleans – and a chat. Nikki was a project manager for charity relief organisations and had been working in East India completing an analysis of the efficacy of the charity organisations set up to provide aid after the 2005/6 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. After dinner, several beers, and a Nargile, we stumbled off up the beach to some flashing lights to see if we could find a party. We managed to find a noiseless rave.
A noiseless rave, we found, works very much the same way as a normal one. People flock to the party, pay the entrance fee, listen to live DJs, dance, drink beer, and socialise. The only difference is in a noiseless rave there are no speakers. No music is played anywhere save from through the wireless headphones you hire when you pay your entrance fees. These amazing little bits of electrickery have a range of over 100 metres and two channels on you can select which music stream you want to dance to. If you get bored of one DJ or you spot someone bopping along to a different beat you think may be better, you just flip channel. The whole setup is a bit weird. It works fine whilst you have the headphones on but taking them off and watching a beachful of people dancing silently to the flashing strobe lights is more than a little surreal. Good fun though and the main point is no noise pollution.
The next day we took it very easy. We rode the bikes over the next beach, Patnem, which was even quieter and sunbathed, swam and read. In the evening we played pool and had dinner in the hotel where we were staying. I was still feeling pretty ill so I opted for an early night and left Marcus and Nikki to catch up.
The next morning we were still midway through our bike hire so we decided to work our
way slowly back up the coast. Nikki wanted to check out Benolium beach. So she hitched a ride with us up the coast for the afternoon. We stopped off at a Hindu Temple and I got my first Bindi spot. We were invited to an annual procession in two days there but we were a bit dubious about making it back.We got to Benolium and checked into a very quiet out the way place that took ages to find the road in to. But it was worth it in the end. We had a late lunch with Nikki then I dropped her at the bus stop in the nearby town and then Marcus and I chilled out and had a couple of beers. In the evening we went and watched some belly dancing.
The next day I ran along the beach at dawn and then we spent the day doing the same as we always did: reading and doing nothing. Marcus was interested in riding a geared motorbike so we found a quiet road and I gave him some basic lessons. He took to it really well and I left him ride around the backroads for the afternoon. We went out in the evening and I had to come home early – still feeling ill. Fat bastard himself had a huge Kingfish sizzler. I think it may not have
been as fresh as he’d hoped as he was to find out over the next few days.It was time to bring the bikes back the next day. We could have kept them longer but we wanted to get back to Anjuna. We also wanted to chill for a day or so as Merryl and Omar were due out on Saturday. We road back up along the coast. We stopped off at for lunch. It was like Benidorm for Indian people. We didn’t dally there for too long. We checked out the Portuguese fort at Fort Aguada and then headed back up to Anjuna pulling into town just in time for tea. By this time Marcus had been visited by the stomach faeries and took himself to bed. I decided to pop down to the flea market – that runs every Wednesday in the old town. I found the most amazing pair of trousers I had ever seen in my life. Joseph’s technicoloured dream coat would have paled into insignificance by comparison. I spent over twenty minutes haggling with the market stall owner and finally got them for a song. They were phantasmic. I was so excited by them that I had to go back to the hotel and jump around the bedroom in them for 10mins. It’s not often you procure such a
pair of pants as this.The next couple of days we did relatively nothing apart from hang out in Anjuna watching movies in the bars in the evening and making plans for the week-end when the others were to arrive. Marcus was too ill to even get out of bed for most of the time so I mooched around, breaking in my new pants, reading books, swimming, and chatting to people. Oh actually we did make it out one evening to catch a live trip-hop/reggae band. They were brilliant. A cross between Portishead and Peter Tosh. Everyone in the bar was so off their face it beggared belief. People were falling off stools and one guy was swinging his guitar around and knocking peoples drinks all over the place.. only in Goa.
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