Beating the Goan Solitude

A lot of times I have wished to explore a new place alone, to know how it is to travel alone, to experience and experiment solitude, to just observe the place and its culture in my own way. Reading travel stories of solo trips by women didn't help. So one day when I got that opportunity I seized it, knowing very well that I would regret if I miss this time.

My train from Mumbai to Goa started at 10 o’clock in the night, it didn’t seem unusual since I have travelled alone from Chennai-Bangalore countless times. But the very thoughts about spending the next 35-40 hours all alone in Goa created an unusual feeling. Like any other train travel day, I was reading , listening to music, chatting with a fellow passenger (that's unusual of me) before I dozed off.  I am a fan of train travelling, I love to look outside the window and watch each frame getting replaced by another , the wind hitting forcefully onto my face and I feel as if I am leaving the world behind me. 

So the next morning I traded my place for the window and kept looking at the green cover of the western ghats occasionally intruded by the backwaters of the Arabian sea. 

The train reached about an hour late which was expected.  I took an Auto and was charged 200 INR for the 7km ride to the resort. The route was as beautiful as one could ask for, the narrow roads with fields on each side sometimes sidelined by rows of coconut trees. And then we reached and I was happy to see that the beach was hardly 200 metres away. I dumped my bags and went to explore the beach.

The Colva beach is one of the most populous beach in South Goa and that's where the resort is situated. Surprisingly the beach was not much crowded, there were hardly 20 people, which by Mumbai standards doesn't count at all. I moved away and saw that the rest of the beach was even more empty with 1-2 people here and there. I couldn’t wait to start my beach walk.

Colva Beach - First Look

I decided to head towards the north, because after some 1.5  km is a restaurant named Mickeys, claimed to be one of the best restaurants in Goa for seafood. This is what I do when I could not fix on a particular route.

Each step along the beach was refreshing, the air and the land seems to be so much cleaner and . It would be a shame if I even compare these beaches to Mumbai. I walked on listening to the waves somersaulting in joy as they reach the shore; I walked on enjoying the calmness in my mind; I walked on humming Mohammad Rafi’s ‘Zindagi Kaisi hai paheli’; I walked on enjoying my lone time doing my most favourite thing; and I walked on hoping to enjoy the famous rava fried fish and tiger prawns of Goa at Mickey’s. After walking for some 15 mins I saw a group of people bustling along a long fish-net that seems to have been freshly pulled out from the sea. 

The fresh booty

The bigger fishes were thrown into the baskets and sent away in small trucks probably to local vendors, the smaller fishes mostly Sardines which were stuck in the mesh where pulled out later by another group.  

There were also small children who had come to try their luck with the left out fishes. I hoped someone would make a stall right there and fry some of those fishes for me. As I watched them, I noticed they were throwing away few thick blobs. On a closer inspection I found that there were some fishes and even small sting rays and starfishes inside them, the unintended preys of human greed. Anyway this explained the scores of dead starfishes scattered throughout the beach.

Walking further, passing a small fishing village I finally reached the restaurant sweating badly and with my ankle showing signs of pain due to a previous injury.  It looked so inviting with steps leading to the restaurant right from the beach. As I climbed the steps I imagined myself devouring my favourite Sear fish, only to find out that the restaurant is closed and would remain so until 7 and the clock had hardly turned 3. I walked away in disappointment and consoled myself that I would be able to find another good restaurant on my way back.

Sunset - something which I can't afford to miss

I reached my hotel around 7 after an unsatisfied meal of Goan curry with rice in some shady restaurant, the only restaurant opened at that time. Off season vacation has its own downsides. Nevertheless I did not miss out the evening sunset, I can never ever get blissed out of the sunsets. The beach walk had tired me out, and so I parked rest of the evening for reading and sleeping. The morning had dawned, I had finished a Jeffry Archer book before I crawled into the bed with my eyes puffed up.

It was 11 AM on the second day of the trip and my supposedly ‘better’-half Prabhu who was to join the trip by now, has not reached Goa yet. Poor guy had been travelling for the last 16 hours in a bus and would not be expected until at-least for the next three hours. I didn't want to stay at the hotel anymore nor did my rumbling stomach, apparently the morning Chole Batura was not sufficient.  There were some good restaurants at some 1-2 km from my hotel. The sun was scorching and my legs were not to be depended upon. But with no proper transport I had no other option but to walk, I chose  the main road with the intent of finding a nice restaurant and also to see the Goan marketplace. So I walked on looking at the tattoo shops and the mannequins sporting the flowy apparels. I checked into a couple of dry fruit shops never buying anything, tourist places are not for shopping. As I walked, I started looking more at the Goan houses than their shops. One could spot the typical houses with their long windows, pitched roofs and big gardens. I am going to stay in such a place the next time I visit Goa.

I walked into an almost empty restaurant by the name Penne Al Dente which seems to have been opened recently. I was asked to sit comfortably in the air conditioned hall on the first floor which I obliged to happily. The waiter came with the Menu card and casually asked if I had come alone. I replied in negative and cooked up a story about my husband joining me in a while. During the entire course of the meal, he would have come upstairs at-least 5-6 times sometimes in the pretext of doing unnecessary chore like removing tissues or at-times just to loiter around the room asking me questions as to where I have come from, what I do, where I am staying in Goa and so on. A similar incident had happened the previous day but I had ignored it as a one-off. This time it was creepy, I quickly finished the meal and left the place. Later I asked my friend, a Goan guy if these kind of incidents were common to solo women travellers to which he replied in affirmation. I could not believe this happens in Goa, of all the places. My friend adds on that there could be many reasons why people act like this, other than the obvious one of course, either they want to be your local guide and show places to earn money, or they could be drug suppliers. So much for travelling alone !

It was 3 PM and I was back to the hotel room safe and sound There is a knock on the door and I see Prabhu weary and dreary because of the fateful journey. I am happy to see him, solitude ends but no complaints here. 

Of course then followed the typical two wheeler ride to the usual beaches - Colva, Cansaulim, Benaulim; and to one not so usual beach named Betul Beach where the Sal river meets the sea separating the dry brown Betul with a green thicket of Southernmost Goa. 

The Betul beach - Sal river meets the Arabian Sea

What started as a solo trip walking in the quiet of the Colva beach ended up in a deep conversations and laughter in the Betul beach. The river met the sea gracefully to end its journey  start a new journey, and so did I.