Goa with the floa

Palolem, Goa

Here it's all about the beach. The single most perfect beach I have ever seen, two headlands anchoring a pale wide mile-long sunset-facing crescent. The thick fringe of coconut palms behind the beach shelters dozens of lodges and cafes-bars-restos, and the road behind them is full of shops and travel agents and Internet cafes, but it doesn't feel oppressively built up; the locals have kept a close eye on development here, and there are no two-story buildings or hotel complexes, and most people stay in simple thatched bamboo-stilt huts, rustic but civilized with fans, mosquito nets, electricity, and reliable if communal running water. The beach is big enough to swallow us all up and still leave plenty of space for solitude, if that's your thing.

Or activity. There's a lot of activity. Swimmers and traipsters and sunbathers, of course, and mostly-placid dogs and cows wandering by, and Frisbee, soccer, volleyball, and cricket. That last is played almost exclusively by intra-Indian tourists, who, as at all Goan beaches, make up a hefty percentage of the population, which I like: de facto whites-only bubble enclaves make me uneasy. There are a few boats, outrigger fishing boats and canoes, but not many. People are reluctant to leave the beach. It's understandable.

I've basically spent the last week hopping from one idyllic beach to another. I understand that your sympathy to anything further I say will now be muted, but really, this has highlighted the fact that chilling-out places like Goan beaches are an exception to my always-travel-solo rule: I'm having fun, and have met some cool people, but places like this would be best as part of a couple or a group. Still, you know, as work goes (yes, I said work. Research, remember? A new book, remember?), this ain't been so bad.

( party beach, package beach, vanished city, perfect beach )

And now in two short hours I'm off to the hills of inland Hampi, to visit the relics of the long-ago Vijayangar kingdom, and thence Bangalore. Further bulletins as the proverbial events warrant.