A couple of nights ago I spent many hours drinking rum. At 5:30 am, it was finally time to fall into bed; on the way home, me and my new pals Rick and Tom stopped on the beach to smoke a left-handed cigarette. We spent a few minutes wondering about the low moans emanating from ~15 feet away, audible between crashing waves. Pitch dark, so I stepped a bit closer to discover a tangle of pale limbs. Yes. Indeed. The sweet romance of making love on the main stretch of a public beach. Meanwhile, three drunks pause next door to argue loudly about the relative merits of the Aladdin soundtrack. We concluded that "One Jump Ahead" is the best song, and that getting sand in your private bits is never worth the trouble, and hastily parted ways.
I've spent the last five days or so on Palolem beach in southern Goa. It's fairly developed - beach huts and restaurants everywhere. But the beach itself has nice sand, small waves, no sharks, and surprisingly little garbage. I'm probably the only woman on the entire beach, including the morbidly obese and the elderly, not wearing a bikini. (Good luck buying a decent bathing suit in Dawson - no, in the Yukon.) So twice a day, I stick on my ill-fitting WalMart one-piece and wallow in the waves. I actually almost fell asleep in the water this morning, star-fished out in the shallows. Add 'Arabian Sea' to the long list of places where I'm capable of napping. Had I fulfilled my half-assed childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, perhaps I'd enjoy the distinction of being the only person in history to doze off during a space-walk.
Before Goa, I was in Mumbai. It seemed like a good place to do a bit of shopping. I decided to buy some Indian clothes, see if I can pull them off. I went to FabIndia, a big chain of shops... nice selection, good quality. Bought a couple of knee-length kurtas (tunics), a pair of white churdiwar (leggings), and a beautiful fine cotton dupatta (narrow scarf). Wearing these more traditional clothes in Goa, of all places, is quite funny, because it's the one place in India where Western women seem to get away with skimpy clothes. But, wow, what a difference! Positive attention versus questionable/negative attention. Fewer googly stares and more friendly remarks. I get it! Wearing ankle-length leggings feels somehow wrong during those sticky, hot afternoons, but white truly does make a difference. I'll probably buy some more light-coloured kurtas and churidars to see me through the rest of the trip. It feels a bit unfair when you see Indian women strolling about in Western clothes, but there are different rules applied to foreigners. So it may be worthwhile to just roll with it and dress more conservatively.
It's been more than two hours since my last meal, so I'd best get moving toward lunch. All of the best holidays are based from meal to meal. There's buckets of fresh seafood all around - perhaps some kind of fish curry. Also, if you ever get a chance, try the traditional Goan dessert bebinca [left], it's outrageously tasty.
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