Diwali and a trip to Goa

Note: I wrote this yesterday, but wasn't able to upload it until this morning. It will be concluded later today, hopefully.

Diwali ends this week. Last night I stood on my balcony looking over Pune, watching as people in the streets set off fire crackers and fireworks. I watched as families set off their rockets all over the city, and watching the fireworks from above was one of the most incredible sights I have seen so far.

I spent the Diwali weekend in Goa, a place that a friend of mine told me before I left was “the place white people go to get tanned”. Goa is famous in India for its gorgeous beaches and clear blue water. We had Friday and Monday off due to the holiday weekend, so our plan was to leave on Thursday and come back on Monday night. Both would be over night trips. The way down was in a non AC seater bus, and the return was in a non AC sleeper bus. The Extentia interns plus a couple of friends of ours caught the bus on the way down. One the others, a Russian girl named Anna, hopped on with our group to meet up with some friends of hers that were spending time in northern Goa. I didn’t understand why she didn’t ride with her friends, since they had a nice sleeper bus to go in. The reason would be clear to me later. Our plan was to start in the south, and travel north.

Trouble started Thursday afternoon. We got a call from the bus company. They told us the bus would be leaving an hour earlier than we expected on our already tight schedule. It would also be leaving in deep southern Pune, a place that none of us interns know. Better yet, none of the rickshaw drivers knew how to get there either. We left our bikes at the office for safe keeping while we were gone.

Our rickshaw driver got lost, drove around for a while, and eventually found his way with the help of some other rickshaw drivers to the new bus location. The bus arrived at the same time we did. We thought we were lucky to get there on time. Turns out we still had an hour wait while they strapped dozens of boxes, bags, and all other sorts of packages to the roof of the bus. We cheered with every hoist of a large box to the top of the bus, and as the men half climb and half jumped off the roof of the bus.

The ride down was in the pretty uncomfortable back of the bus. Sleep was punctuated by constant rest stops and no less than two flat tires on the ride to Goa. I think that tires and I just don’t get along very well. When we got in, we said farewell to Anna and went to the first beach: Benaulim.

Benaulim is one of the more laid back beaches in Goa. The south beaches tend to be less crowded then the beaches up north, and so this beach was more like an empty beach on the Cape back home. The water was beautiful and warm. We were all excited to relax. We ate lunch at a shack by the beach, ordered some beers, and went to take our spot on the beach. Then the swarm descended.

This is off season still, in Goa. We were also at a pretty empty beach. The wallahs and vendors homed in on us like a beacon.

“You’re very white” they would tell us. “Want to buy anything?” and they would show us their collection of necklaces, bracelets, CD’s, and bootleg movies. There were dozens of them talking to us. As soon as we stepped out of the restaurant (which was protected a short, angry manager who would hurl out any vendor who stepped inside his restaurant) we were consumed by these women and their goods. They weren’t sure of what to make of us foreigners, but they were desperate for business. One of them wore a Yankee’s hat.

“Are you a Yankees fan?” I asked her.

“Yes of course!” she replied, clearly unsure of what I was talking about.

“Oh, I come from Boston. We’re not allowed to buy stuff from Yankees fans.” Her friends laughed for a while and decided to sit and sell us stuff on the beach. It was fun for a while, and I spoke to an older woman named Rose who sold identical knick knacks to her friends.

“Don’t lay down, take a look at my stuff. Don’t close your eyes!” she would yell at me when I went to lie down on my towel. I was starting to get tired of all the people trying to sell stuff. Sitting up, and before I could tell her off, I had a pile of necklaces, anklets, bracelets and every thing I could never use. “Be friend! Make me small business! Are you married? My friend here is unmarried. Make me small business and maybe you can marry my friend.”

I wasn’t interested in getting married in Goa, so I instead decided to buy a small cheap piece of jewelry to get some time alone, and I went swimming for a while. I ended up falling asleep on the beach. The bus ride had left me exhausted. I ended up with a minor sun burn on half of my face.

We ended up eating dinner on the beach, and having drinks while watching some Diwali fireworks. I tried feni, a coconut based hard alcohol. It tasted as weird as I thought it would. I stuck around on the beach after everyone left. Bobby told me that there was a guy pushing a boat on to the beach that had asked him to push the boat on to the shore. I figured it would be a great chance to get some interestingpictures. By the time I got there, they were still pushing the boat, and had it almost to the top.

“Friend! Friend! Help us push our boat!” they shouted to me. I took my position under the boat and heaved while they chanted something in Hindi. It took a while, even though we didn’t have that far to go. Afterwards, the captain scowled at me that five able sailors would have been enough normally. We were pushing with about a dozen people, and I was the only foreigner. We got along pretty well, so he ended up showing me his catch. It was a giant net that he had inside his boat, and some of his crew were going through it slowly, taking out the fish that they caught. It was mostly small fish and baby sharks that they caught.

On the walk back to the hotel I heard some people behind me speaking German. They turned out to be students from Pune who were down for the holiday as well. It was a short walk back to the hotel, and we talked and laughed. I forgot all their names after about a minute.