Storm Looms Over Goa
That was the front page headline in the English language newspaper in Goa the day we arrived. The picture that accompanied the story was of a huge shipping freighter which had been beached by the storm. The next story on the front page was titled "Margao Prepares for Flooding". Take a wild guess in which city we got off the train (which was two hours late because of all the rain). We got dumped on running from the train to the station (which was dark because the power was out). I got soaked to the bone waiting to get a taxi. Then we proceeded to spend the next hour driving from guest house to hotel to resort looking for a place that wasn't trying to charge through the nose for a flooded, rat-hole of a room. It took a while because of the torrential rainfall and all the downed trees and power lines we had to avoid. All we wanted was a few days at the beach to relax...was that too much to ask?
In the end we found a decent beach resort that had by far the cleanest rooms we'd seen and was reasonably priced. Of course the electricity was out (and according to today's newspaper it still is...three days later) so we carried around our little flashlight and used candles to light the room after dark. We found a really good vegetarian restaurant for lunch and a little bar full of Englishmen where we downed a few cold beers to pass the time. To borrow a phrase from Mr. Costanza, 'the sea was angry that day my friends. Like an old man trying to send soup back at a diner'. We spent about ten minutes standing on the beach watching the frothy water whip back and forth as the wind blew the coconut palms halfway to the ground. We dipped our toes in the Arabian Sea as images of calm water and sunny skies danced in our minds. Then the Indian lifeguard started blowing his whistle and yelling at people to get out of the water (no one was more than knee deep and this guy was going nuts shouting at people). So we made our way back to our room and read some more.
So, among the lessons we've discovered on the trip so far we'll put this one near the top: this whole "monsoon season" thing they always talk about in Asia isn't made up. Monsoon is derived from a Malay word meaning wind. It should come from a word that means "never-ending downpour that drenches Western tourists who show up during the wrong time of the year". Actually, in our defense the monsoon wasn't supposed to start until June. It just kicked in a few days too early.
Well, now that our beach vacation has been tossed aside we're trying to make our way up to Bombay to continue our journey. Hopefully we'll get on the overnight train this evening and arrive in Bombay sometime tomorrow morning. I say hopefully for a couple of reasons. First, we're on a wait list for our tickets. We did the same thing on the train from Bangalore to Hampi and it worked out fine. We just have to check with the train station this afternoon to see if our number has come up due to cancellations. Second, the train has been running a wee bit late the last few days due to the rain. In fact, yesterday's Konkan Kanya Express (the one we want to be on) which is supposed to leave Goa at 6:00 PM was scheduled to leave around 6:30...this morning. The guy at the reservation office said they hoped today's delays wouldn't be nearly as long. Ironically the morning trains are only running a couple of hours behind. So if we don't make it off the wait list on tonight's train we might leave just a couple of hours later on tomorrow morning's train instead. Ahh, the joys of travelling in India.
Stay tuned for the forthcoming story of our exciting train journey from Hospet to Hubli. I'll leave you with this teaser. You know when you see those headlines in the paper that say "Commuter Train Wreck in India: hundreds dead, 10,000 injured"? And you think to yourself, "10,000 people!!?? That's a small city, not the number of people on a train". You're wrong. They do fit that many people on a train. We've been part of it and Cece even had to pull our little French travelling companion onto the train as it started to roll out of the station.
Until next time...
In the end we found a decent beach resort that had by far the cleanest rooms we'd seen and was reasonably priced. Of course the electricity was out (and according to today's newspaper it still is...three days later) so we carried around our little flashlight and used candles to light the room after dark. We found a really good vegetarian restaurant for lunch and a little bar full of Englishmen where we downed a few cold beers to pass the time. To borrow a phrase from Mr. Costanza, 'the sea was angry that day my friends. Like an old man trying to send soup back at a diner'. We spent about ten minutes standing on the beach watching the frothy water whip back and forth as the wind blew the coconut palms halfway to the ground. We dipped our toes in the Arabian Sea as images of calm water and sunny skies danced in our minds. Then the Indian lifeguard started blowing his whistle and yelling at people to get out of the water (no one was more than knee deep and this guy was going nuts shouting at people). So we made our way back to our room and read some more.
So, among the lessons we've discovered on the trip so far we'll put this one near the top: this whole "monsoon season" thing they always talk about in Asia isn't made up. Monsoon is derived from a Malay word meaning wind. It should come from a word that means "never-ending downpour that drenches Western tourists who show up during the wrong time of the year". Actually, in our defense the monsoon wasn't supposed to start until June. It just kicked in a few days too early.
Well, now that our beach vacation has been tossed aside we're trying to make our way up to Bombay to continue our journey. Hopefully we'll get on the overnight train this evening and arrive in Bombay sometime tomorrow morning. I say hopefully for a couple of reasons. First, we're on a wait list for our tickets. We did the same thing on the train from Bangalore to Hampi and it worked out fine. We just have to check with the train station this afternoon to see if our number has come up due to cancellations. Second, the train has been running a wee bit late the last few days due to the rain. In fact, yesterday's Konkan Kanya Express (the one we want to be on) which is supposed to leave Goa at 6:00 PM was scheduled to leave around 6:30...this morning. The guy at the reservation office said they hoped today's delays wouldn't be nearly as long. Ironically the morning trains are only running a couple of hours behind. So if we don't make it off the wait list on tonight's train we might leave just a couple of hours later on tomorrow morning's train instead. Ahh, the joys of travelling in India.
Stay tuned for the forthcoming story of our exciting train journey from Hospet to Hubli. I'll leave you with this teaser. You know when you see those headlines in the paper that say "Commuter Train Wreck in India: hundreds dead, 10,000 injured"? And you think to yourself, "10,000 people!!?? That's a small city, not the number of people on a train". You're wrong. They do fit that many people on a train. We've been part of it and Cece even had to pull our little French travelling companion onto the train as it started to roll out of the station.
Until next time...
posted by Matt | 4:02 AM
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