Mango7

Goodness gracious. How do you not get lost, at least in your mind?

TracyB

Your first impression about Goa..the overweight Europeans and crowded beaches of Calangute...is soooo true...

However...we found a lighter side to Goa... and while we have friends there...we have done mostly local things and go there to have a great time, eat good food....get a little off the beaten track...(u will find it if u look hard enough!!)

I never wanted to go to Goa...but we met someone in Kerala whom lived in Goa, and he invited us to visit, and we became very close with he and his family...

So now, it is a yearly trip (always combined with other parts of India or other countries) and i am constantly searching for the Goa that used to be!!!

And we always have such a good time, that we can't wait to come back...

Anyways, i think no matter where u go, if u look hard enough...u will find something you like....and if u don't then there is no need to go back!! And if u have a good time...u will probaby go back again!!

dogster

TracyB - don't worry - I found it. In my own funny Dogster way.

I ended up spending 10 days there. Once I get the next instalment up - you'll see. I'm just a little exhausted right now - it's been a big burst of writing over the last 36 hours - so bear with me.

BTW - I love that last paragraph. You're absolutely right. Sometimes circumstances point me in the wrong direction - it can take a real effort of will to turn myself round again. As Mango7 noted [heya kurt] I get lost quite often.

Particularly traveling on my own. You have to be a REAL self-starter then.

But then, somehow, the scales fall from my eyes, I see it from a different perspective and things, all of a sudden, fall into place.

My mantra when travelling is 'everything is interesting,' a phrase that, sometimes, I have trouble living up to.

But I try. I stumble forward.

Kathie

Dogster, when you first wrote about having booked that cruise, my immediate thought was that it sounded like a disaster. I couldn't imagine what possessed you to book it, but then I remembered the Pouilly Fume. Your description of the ship and it's occupants was even worse than I'd feared. Let me recommend a different wine before booking your next trip... perhaps a lovely Puligny Montrachet?

It's clear from your report on Bhutan and this report of the "cruise" that you have no hesitation to cut your losses. Very wise, I'd say. Very, very wise.

Fabulous report! Keep it coming!

Hanuman

Kathie,

You've got good taste!

Smeagol

Dogster - do you write for a living? ypur style is simply ADDICTIVE and fabulous.

dogster

Lol Kathy: well, you were absolutely correct - even I kinda knew that, I guess. The problem with drunkenness and the internet is that once you've entered in your credit card details and pressed the button - it's all over, Red Rover.

And, if you do it at short notice, as I stupidly did, you're already in the 100% cancellation zone. No point making a fuss - you've already blown your dough.

But, I got a [I hope] funny story out of it... even if, due to my own idiocy, I was ultimately the butt of the joke.

dogster

Awww smeagol, that's SUCH a great compliment - but, nope.

I don't do nuttin' for a living now - I had the great good fortune to be able to retire early. That's how come I have the freedom to travel.

But your kind works have inspired me to attack the next instalment. I just need a night's sleep [it's 3.00 a.m. here] and I'll be fresh to go. The next bit is a little more serious... that's harder to express.

Gpanda

Did they have actual Luddites in Australia? Or merely their contemporary cousins?

dogster

I don't think there's a Oz Luddite society, per se.

But you know, I think the older you get and the faster things move, the more Luddicious we all become.

Kathie

Luddicious - I love it!

dogster

Heh - on that note guys - I gotta crash.

I'll try and squeeze out the next episode tomorrow.

ekscrunchy

I am positively howling with laughter!!! Keep up the great work!!!! Please come back soon!!

thursdaysd

"I just need a night's sleep [it's 3.00 a.m. here]" - sleep, when you've gotten us engrossed in the story and ready for the next installment? What do you mean, you're in another time zone?? [grin]

"I hope, one day we bump into each other on the road. I think we'd get on." - thanks, great idea, but hopefully not on a "cut your losses" expedition! I've realized it's been four (!!!) years since I was in Asia, so definitely time to go back.

Smeagol

Dog
You have now gotten quite a following on this board and we eagerly await the next instalment. I at least have the benefit of only being 10/11ish hours behind you!!!

Mango7

Hiya Dogster. I'm guilty of having a couple bourbon and cokes and then booking a trip. Its awfully fun and intoxicating to do. Your writing style is pretty wild--you should consider writing if you don't already. Glad you had a great time.

Kurt

TracyB

I am also guilty of having too many vodka's and then booking a trip!! I guess i am not the only one!!!

rhkkmk

your experiences at the ship's table was just about like my fort nite in bali with gpanda...my only mistake was that i did not have the guts to leave before the ship sailed...

i am enjoying your report...

AO lives!!

dogster

Ahhh, so I'm not the only one with a guilty little [liquid] secret, eh?
It's a relief to know I'm not alone in my idiocy. It's a fatal mix, alcohol and the net.

Now I feel in good company. Thanks for your support TracyB, kurt..

And perhaps, judging by AskOsena/macintosh's post - there are a couple of other guilty little secrets yet to be explored...

I've been censoring some of my extra-curricular activites. But perhaps, now that the cat is out of the bag, I can relax just a little bit - and fess up to a few more of the naughty bits...

But then, on second thoughts, maybe some information is TOO MUCH information. Dogster, on occasion in foreign climes, is no saint. But I want you to think well of me.

And, on a more serious level, there are some ISSUES with all that - of exploitation, of greed, power and corruption. Some of them are being dealt with in the Patpong post right now.

I'm off somewhere else in my head right now - contemplating religion, as we speak. The next chapter is coming right up once I check it thru.. a little more reflective, this one - fewer jokes. I hope that's O.K.

That'll get thursday's daughter and Smeagol off my back... heh.

dogster

Good Friday in Panjim began with a bang.

I was tottering off to the bathroom in the Panjim Inn, as you do, just before bed. I switched on the bathroom light and there was an almighty explosion. The light bulb exploded, showering every inch of the place with minute pieces of broken glass and plunging me into darkness. I let out an oath of surprise which went unheeded - Panjim at midnight is deserted - I could have hurled myself from the balcony screaming and no one would have appeared.

I put on my shoes and crunched inside to attend to my every need.

First thing next morning I called the lads to my aid. There’s not you can do in a bathroom covered in broken glass. It was apparently a normal occurrence – when the humidity reaches a certain point moisture gets between the bulb and the socket and Bam! It explodes.

I knew how that light bulb felt. Panjim was bloody hot and sweaty this Good Friday. A storm was building up and the place hovered in steadily increasing humidity. Something was gonna blow and it wasn’t just the fuses.

The heat built steadily upwards as the streets shut down for Easter. In a fiercely religious town like this one, Good Friday was a serious event. No point going into town – it would be deserted. Restaurants, shops shuttered, roads empty. I sat on my balcony and contemplated life.

‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I, all alone, beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself - and curse my fate... ‘

I was feeling a bit solitary today. All the excitement of the past few weeks had caught up with me. The flight, the Golden Chariot, all those conversations, all that social life... now, here I was, back on my own.

‘On the road again... ‘

Only the Dogster could jump from Shakespeare to Willie Nelson in the space of sixty seconds - it was that kinda travellin’ day.

I’d better back-track a bit or we’ll all get lost. I’d arrived in Panjim, the inland capital city of Goa a few days earlier – fresh from Bangalore. I had four days there before getting on the M.S. Ocean Odyssey – then another three when I got OFF the M.S. Ocean Odyssey while I worked out what to do.

I was staying, as I noted, in the Panjim Inn – or, more correctly, just over the road in the Panjim People’s – their up-market property. I was on the first floor, directly overlooking the Inn courtyard and restaurant. I could keep an eye on them and, whenever I was sprawled on the balcony, they could keep an eye on me. Not they were in the least concerned what I was doing. It wasn’t that kind of place.

www.panjiminn.com

People came, people went, the staff did what were meant to do, the waiters waited, the cleaners cleaned – everything ticked over just fine. This was a popular joint with a wide, interesting range of travellers – presided over by the patron, a portly Panjimmer of aristocratic stock.

He sat, silently, in his special patron’s chair just inside the door, looking out - just as I was - on all he surveyed. He was always neat and tidy, relaxed, laid-back – a faintly regal figure in a wide-brimmed Panama hat. He’d seen it ALL over the years, the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows – I’d grown accustomed to his face.

[Yup, now I’ve slipped into ‘My Fair Lady...’]

Now he was content to let his son run the property, his staff do their duty, to sit and think and dream his dreams.

He’d barely acknowledged my presence when I arrived. That was somebody else’s job. A nod, a grunt, the flicker of a smile. He’d seen a million guests come and go, a thousand thousand back-packers, upmarket and down - the good, the bad and the ugly. [Gawd, Sergio Leone now] There was nothing he needed to say that hadn’t been said, not a stranger’s conversation left in the world he hadn’t had, not a question he hadn’t answered a hundred times.

He was content.

But yet he wasn’t quite ready to let go. The Panjim Inn and its children, the Panjim Pousada and my temporary home, the Panjim Peoples, were all still his babies. He’d restored them, built the business from scratch, watched as it grew from one to two to three, raised his sons and daughters, mourned his wife and parents and witnessed his town turn into a city. He’d also seen Goa turn into a nightmare.

On this Good Friday he was watching me, up on my balcony, as I relaxed and thought of Shakespeare, watching the world go by.

By mid-afternoon I noticed the streets getting crowded. Families were walking along the road dressed in their best Sunday clothes, all heading somewhere special. I learnt a long time ago that when I see a crowd heading somewhere - follow.

That’s an attitude that has, in my more bohemian days, got me into a lot of trouble: I’ve been tear-gassed in a squatters riot in Amsterdam, run screaming from police on motorbikes in London, even just recently, nearly beaten by Nepali policemen during one of the many Free Tibet demonstrations in Kathmandu - but somehow I didn’t feel the today’s Good Friday service at the Church of the Immaculate Conception was going to be particularly risky.

So, behind the crowds, one very impious tourist tagged along.