dogster

Lol ladies - I appreciate your comments - it's good to hear some balance: I know I'm talking about a place you both love - but, you know, our different experiences of the same place may say just as much about US as about the place. Probably more.

I'm glad neither of you have those particular eyes to see those particular things. Sometimes I wish I didn't.

I don't much want to sidetrack myself in the middle of this report for a discussion on the merits, or otherwise, of 'Goa' if that's O.K... I've already moved on to Mumbai in my mind. I'll get confused [as if I'm not that, already] Maybe we can do that at the end - if that day ever comes [heh]

I also don't know either of you at all - other than thursday's wonderful trip reports - but a couple of things do occur to me: you're not going to get offered drugs travelling in a group, a happy American[?]couple with their local Indian friends: it's a solo pursuit - and one generally restricted to tourists of a certain kind.

You're not going to get offered drugs if you don't remotely look like you even know what they are. Perhaps my raddled look of experience, a certain glint in the eye has something to do with it. It took me about three minutes. Less.

Goa has a thirty year reputation for drugs [and cheap booze]- I wonder where that came from? You know those famous full-moon parties, the trance dances, the raves? What do you think they are doing at these events? Sipping lemonade?

Little dead Scarlett's autopsy revealed she had 'a deadly cocktail of alcohol, cocaine and morphine' in her blood [Times of India, March 21] She was fifteen.

Those rather odd looking people you must have seen at the Anjuna market, those young folks in their funny hippie clothes and dreadlocked hair, those old raddled miscreants who came to Goa 20 years ago and never left, those clean cut young Israelis, letting their hair grow after their compulsory years in the Army, those Russians who have bought up complete areas and turned them into no-go zones, those wide-eyed German back-packers - what do think they are doing in their spare time? Playing chess?

It takes a certain kind of sedative to loll around in a beach-front hovel for a month or so, a different kind of drug entirely to dance like crazy all night.

Somehow, I suspect neither of you would choose to even GO to the kind of places that provide all this, in company - or alone. Neither would I. Not in a thousand years.

But they are there - all around. You just have to have eyes to see. And if you can't see it - then it ISN'T there. [Which is by far the most preferable choice - one we either make for ourselves - or have made FOR US in a strange way - by our upbringing, our education, our professions, our friends..]

Again, I don't know you, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but it's also just possible that on these topics [and these alone] we are ALL past our use-by-date.

But I'm sorry thursday you didn't find a Beach Boy. Perhaps they were all busy when you were there [heh]- maybe their appointment book was full - or most likely they were where the crowds are.

Goa, as I said, is not ONE place, but many different scenes. I think we all agree on that. Each beach has its own personality. Some are benign, some carnivorous. Inland is a whole other thing.

Your perception of 'Goa' is absolutely correct. So, perhaps, is mine. The real truth probably lies somewhere hidden between the two.

thursdaysd

Oh, I'm not suggesting that "your" Goa beach scene doesn't exist! Just that it isn't all beaches all the time.

TracyB

Hey, me and my husband...(we are from Canada) are very laid back and we look very laid back as well......that's why we are surprised we have never been approached to buy drugs!!!

I guess, u are right though...cause we are always with locals in the evenings....and that is probably why we have never been approached!

But oh well!!! Maybe in Kathmandu (lol)

Anyways...i don't love Goa or hate it...It is a fine place to chill out after a trip through India, other parts of Asia or the Middle East...and it certainly beats going to Mexico every year like most of the people here do!!

Plus...it really is fun to go out with our friends and their friends to find we are all exactly the same...plus we get all the local prices!!!!

Not to mention the beer is sooo cheap!!

We really have had a super time in Goa, and i guess that's what has drawn us back!!

But keep me away from the beaches in Calangute...unless i am dying of thirst and have to stop for a quick drink!!

dogster

Well I'm upset now - this idiot Chinese spammer has snuck in and done a great pooh in the middle of my nice clean report.

I've gone off in a sulk and I'm not coming back until someone comes in and takes it away!

Nywoman

Now, now don't get upset, it has been reported and hopefully,will be taken care of.
In the meantime I don't want to be deprived of your writings so you have a choice. Let it be all about you and sulk, or all about me so I don't sulk.

Bu the way did I read somewhere that you went to Vietnam, did you post?

twotravel

Come back Dogster no sulking, I'm sitting waiting for the next instalment, I've a bottle ready of a fine S.A. Sauvignon Blanc its got your name on
Pauline

dogster

No!

[spits dummy on floor]

Kathie

Well, the spam is gone. The editors have the magic to rid your report of the spam.

Tracy, in case you are feeling too left out, (LOL) you might well be approached to buy drugs in Kathmandu. My ex and I were way back in 1994. All you have to do is wander through Thamel.

dogster

You are amazing Kathie. Lol.

So, for you, the thought of that bottle of S.A. Sauvugnon Blanc and Nywoman, who, if she's heading into this extraordinary world on her own, needs all the help she can get - here's the next bit.

dogster

In Colaba, the tourist area of Mumbai, the hasslers come thick and fast. The main drag there is a minefield of every known variation on that single theme. Money. It’s a real test of both patience and endurance. I saw it as a challenge.

When I knew, deep in my heart, that I truly wanted to batter that tiny beggar child to DEATH - that cute, grubby little girl who stuck to me like glue, who couldn’t be diverted, sweet-talked, cajoled, bullied, threatened, in ANY way made to stop – I knew I had failed the task.

I think we all have those moments in India.

Sometime, sooner or later, no matter what, some human straw will break this tourist camel’s back. India can be a haystack of human straw: hustlers, hasslers, pimps, beggars and thieves piled one upon the other - straw stacked higher than life itself - a MOUNTAIN of humanity. This avalanche of flotsam and jetsam seems just waiting for the tipping point – the moment when the tourist breaks with a snap, a crack and a roar – just enough to bring the whole damn thing down on his head.

Show compassion – it will be abused. Show kindness – it will be taken advantage of. Be rude – be met with rudeness back. Ignore – and be pursued.

It’s a no win situation – for us - as well as them.

Life is precious – mine – as well as theirs.

Everything is business. They have a right to eat, live, survive - as I do I have a right to walk down the street unharassed.

But I am a rich man. In India, in the tourist zone, that marks me as a target.

I am a rich man by the very fact of being there. I am a rich man who spends $250 a day just for a night’s accommodation. I am a rich man who sits in Leopold’s Bar and pisses more money up against the wall in one night than they earn in a month. I am a rich man...

I KNOW I’m a rich man.

I know they are not.

But I also know that I could give and give and GIVE till my pockets are empty and not make one jot of difference in the cosmic scheme of things – that all the money in the world would not change those desperate lives, ease that burden.

I also know that nothing is what it seems: that those children see little of what I might give them, that that milk powder for that listless infant will be re-sold, that mummy is a drunk, that Fagin and his moppets live just around the corner, that the boy clawing at my window, one stump for a hand, may have been made that way, not by God but by his desperate parents. Nothing is real – and, simultaneously, everything is desperately, horribly real.

Is there one of us who have been to India who hasn’t wrestled with this dilemma the first time around? Is there one of us who hasn’t thrown their hands up in despair? Is there one single traveller who hasn’t been reduced to occasional fury by the relentless pursuit of our dough?

Drip, drip, drip – for the tourist on the streets, a hundred times a day, a thousand grasping hands - one after the other after the other – a steady stream of need that reaches into infinity: ‘Where you from?’ ‘What you want?’ ‘See my shop – looking is free.’ ‘Let me show you...’

Or that simple, stunning demand... ‘Maaaa-neeeee....’

In that immortal Indian phrase: ‘What to do?’

MUMBAI:

It was all the fault of that block of Manali hash - and a couple of lawyers from Munich. Oh, and a Kingfisher beer - or two.

I should never mix my drugs.

Remember, I was in Kathmandu in 1971, long hair flying and an even longer joint hanging from my youthful lips. I’ve done this hashish kinda thing before – and, I confess, perhaps a couple of [hundred] times since. But I forgot the golden rule. Alcohol and hooch can spin you out.

Add fine Indian food, a great hotel, decent company at dinner, interesting conversation – it’s a recipe for, if not disaster, at very least - another idiot decision.

I still had no idea where to go next. In terms of my initial plans, I was on the M.S. Ocean Odyssey, throwing up in the high seas, somewhere north of Colombo. There were another eight days to fill before my schedule kicked back in and I took Kingfisher flight Number Three to Kolkata...

What was that phrase again?

What to do?

Dinner with the lawyers was accidental fun. They were bubbly, enthusiastic, intelligent and full of their package trip to India.

‘Go to Mumbai,’ said the German lawyer, advocating on behalf of his latest enthusiasm, ‘that looks like a MOST interesting city.’ He leant back, cigar smoke trailing from his mouth. ‘We very much enjoyed Mumbai...’

So, on a whim, I did.

It was only later, just before I nearly murdered that beggar child, that I realised the couple had been in Mumbai for all of twelve hours – and eight of those they were asleep.

We instant tourist experts – we catch a glimpse, grab a loose opinion, based on God knows what - the quality of breakfast in the morning, the taxi-driver’s smile, a sight, a smell, an adventure – who knows what presses our buttons and makes us say that Mumbai is more interesting than Delhi, Kerala more fun than Karnataka?

Comparisons, someone smart once said, are odious.

But we all do it.

A little knowledge is, of course, a dangerous thing. So is a block of Manali hash.

Just like Goa – different eyes see different sights - what is obvious to one, is invisible to others.

Alas, Mumbai’s charms were hidden to me – squashed flat under a barrage of hustlers. Things picked up – but first I had to conquer that haystack, pick my way slowly through the straw.

That took a week – but what a week of little wonders it was.

Nywoman

Dogster,
Just got an e-mail from Fodors they removed the spam.

Yes I am living and traveling in this extra ordinary world on my own.

Nobody has offered hash to me since the mid-sixties in Beirut, now I get a offered a seat on the subway.

The urchin I wanted to kill was in Udaipur, reading your post alleviates a little of my guilt but not all.
How I dealt with it in Mumbai was I took the children to a food cart and bought them lunch. This way they got food, and I felt a little better. Needless to say also got some great pictures.

Am really looking forward to your impressions of Mumbai, to me it was a city of greater contrasts than most.

One block from the most exclusive and expensive shops were tent dwellers. To read in the local paper that people who sleep on the streets, actually pay rent for the space.

All totally amazing and fascinating.

robmac

I am thoroughly enjoying your report. Your writing style and sense of humour are wonderful.

India has never been high on my must-see places to visit but your experiences are giving me pause.

Please have some more wine and carry on.

dogster

Nywoman: I'm bashing it out now. Yup, I agree - Mumbai is right up there with Kolkata for contrasts - difficult to write about for some strange reason - it was a thousand tiny moments that I'm trying to string together.

Great idea about the food cart, by the way. I hadn't thought about that.. but even then, like all of India, it's a mixed message for me. I'm still trying to nut it through - maybe I never will.

In fact, most CERTAINLY I never will. Could be why I'm heading back there [to Kolkata and the Hoogly, Sunderbans and god knows where else]in precisely 28 days...

Anyway, I'm trying to eat and write here. I have a little Oberoi diversion to nut my way thru first. Give me an hour or so to write that up, then I'll be back on the streets of Mumbai battling scarecrows.

Gawd, I feel like Charles Dickens - didn't he write his stories in weekly installments for a magazine?

Marija

Again, thanks! and more, more...

dogster

And hi robmac - you snuck in while I was writing to Ny. Your comments are much appreciated - sometimes I slow down, run, not a little dry, but I need a bit of encouragement. So your words kick me on. Thanks.

And yup, pause and reconsider - there is a way to do India - many, obviously, but you can REDUCE the hassle - kinda..

Now I gotta jump back into it.

Kathie

You are right, Chas Dickens did write a number of his books as serials in the newspaper.

Off topic, have you read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts? It's a novel/memoir by an Aussie mostly set in Mumbai. A real page turner, and one I expect you would appreciate, Dogster (and all the rest of you enjoying this thread).

thursdaysd

"Could be why I'm heading back there [to Kolkata and the Hoogly, Sunderbans and god knows where else]in precisely 28 days..." - oooh, jealousy, jealousy! But that will mean another wonderful trip report for us, right? [grins]

My snapping point with the hassles came in Agra. I thought Agra was the absolute worst, and I'd just come from Rajasthan, which was the next to worst. So I finally yelled at one particularly persistent souvenir seller (I'm tempted to say pusher, lol) outside the fort. He acted like I'd gone mad! (I suppose for a few seconds I had.)

The beggars are harder to deal with, of course. I think deciding ahead of time to give to an Indian charity might help. I still found myself giving to the infirm elderly, though.

dogster

Kathie: I bought 'Shantaram' in Mumbai after a similar recommendation - I carried that brick of a book around for the whole time in India and, in my strange manner, never had time to read it. I was living my own minor version at the time. It's on the list.

So thursday - I'm not the only one to snap eh? I'm glad to be in such fine company.

And thanks to you, Marija, too. Gawd, this is coming in thick and fast.. here's some more, more, more...

dogster

Kathie: I bought 'Shantaram' in Mumbai, lugged that great book around with me all thru the rest of India - and never once read it. I was too busy living my own very minor version.

thursday: so I see I'm not the only one to snap eh? I think we all do sometime. At least I'm in good company.

And to you Marija, thanks again - here's some more, more, more...
not particularly profound this one, but part of the reality, never the less.

dogster

lol, I thought I'd lost the first post there. How dumb of me.