New Year vacation on Goa

Saturday, 29th of December, last few days of the old year, vacation started. As everyone was telling me, the best way to celebrate New Year is going to Goa, the epicenter of the best parties in India.

Goa was a Portuguese colony, and as such, you can see lots of traces of their cultural influence. Churches, houses, Porto wine, food and even names. It was strange hearing Portuguese names from Indians (Da Souza, etc). This place has an image of being a hippies and recently trance centre of India (maybe even Asia). If you are a fan of electronic music, coming here is equal to a pilgrimage. On every corner you can hear and feel trance culture. This is where world wide known Goa (psi) trance was established as a new wave in the musical genres. As being one of those who fancied trance, you can just imagine how excited I was :-).

The trip
We rented one sleeper bus, for 40 of us. Beside Mumbai trainees, we had a big group from Jaipur. From the beginning it felt like it’s going to be crazy vacation – Serbia, Brazil, Netherlands, Portuguese, Japan, Finland, Turkey, Poland, Canada, USA, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, India…all 40 of us in one house!

Travel was more than “exciting”, of course for those who never drove with Indian buses. Imagine a bus where in stead of seats you have bunker beds, imagine that on each of these beds two persons need to fit, imagine of course that this is built for average Indian (average height 1.7m).

I shared a bed with Andre, German guy, works as a trainee in post-production of Bollywood movies. He is 1.85m tall, and I’m 1.82m. Just imagine – my feet on his head, and vice versa, trying to use the space given and sleep through that 14h trip by night. Also, it wouldn’t be that interesting if our window couldn’t close all over the trip. So situation was - small bed, two guys, open window, upper bed. The overall mission was not sleep and rest, it was stay up and try not to fall down!

Indian bus drivers are F1 wannabes, driving a big bus like a Ferrari F1! Imagine dark road, cliffs on the side, no light, and bus going 100 mph and faster. The night was crazy. I was bouncing left and right, and praying I come alive to Goa! On return, we used normal busses, but story was the same, with the difference of more bouncing and some strange urge of a driver to hit the gas pedal to the end whenever he is approaching a curve on the road. It’s quite impressive how they can stand safe on the road, with not even a single crash/scratch on something. They have their own system, even dough it looks chaos to typical European, but it works here!

Goan experience
We got very cheap accommodation, 300 INR per night, which was dirty cheap in that period of year (minimum was 1.000 INR per night, because of New Year). Prashant was organizing these trips for years now, so we got it by a very, very friendly price :-). Now imagine the scenery, 30 of us sleeping on a rooftop :-)!

Right after we came, changed cloth, and went straight for the beach!

The beach was great! Coming slowly down the cliff, first thing you see are waves hitting on the nearby rocks, clean sand and sun shining…quite strange end of December for European. Throughout the beach you can find various cafés, depending what kind of atmosphere you want. From chill out places playing café del mar, or high energy pubs rocking with trance, you can literally find anything in this 2km beach.

We found a perfect spot! It was café with big beds, cushions and rocking chairs. You lie down, and have a perfect view on horizon and the sea. Each step you make, you are destined to feel the positive vibe, like to whole place is there just for you to enjoy…sea, sand, sun, great cheap beer, great food, fruits, music or silence being braked with the wind and waves hitting the seaside. In one word – perfection!

As in whole India, you can also see cows walking down the beach, enjoying their life :-). One funny scene was where one guy was digged in the sand and few of his friends put some banana skin next to his head, cows saw food and started coming to him…in my life I didn’t saw that someone can undigg himself so fast :-)!

Also, all over Goa, if you are foreigner, everyone will instantly think you came to get some drugs, from weed, ecstasy or something heavier, on each corner guys will approach you and try to sell it. As I’m 110% anti-drugs oriented, they were out of business with me.

Weather was great, about 30+ degrees, perfect for a seaside. And of course, I took low level sun protection. Result was – red like an Englishman first day on the beach (or as Serbs will say – red as a lobster). That was painful! With the help of aloe cream, managed to get into normal state after a few days.

We spent NY party on some beach club at Baga beach. Free drinks and food, just for 20 Euros of entry fee. Quite cheap :-). We had lots of fun, especially next to the bar…as Indians didn’t mixed drinks properly, with a little bit of negotiation managed to get beside a bar and make my magical drinks! People just went crazy about it!!! The secret behind it (write carefully :-P) is – lots of ice, base is vodka, gin on any neutral alcohol, then juice (orange, blueberry or something sour), little bit of lime juice or sugar to make it sweet and hide the alcohol taste. Mix it all, and voila – the reason why everyone gets drunk after few glasses is there. After that I got quite a image of a cocktail master, the truth is something else – I just know how to use maximum of drinks that left over when the party almost ended, and I’m starving for another one…years of experience ;-).

Of course, Aleksandra(trainee from Nis) and I spent one part of the night recovering people and acting as doctors (who can be on legs all the time and resist alcohol influence than Serbs :-)). I think on last few NY parties I was acting as a doctor :-P.

Having NY on the beach, 30 degrees, sand, sea…it doesn’t feel like it is a New Year. I missed chilly weather, friends, that crazy Serbian celebration vibe you can’t find that often in India. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time there, just…it was different.

Next few days I decided to just chill and rest for the coming weeks at work, as some stuff we were working on are coming to its peak. Just beach, Kings Beer, fresh pineapple or banana, chill out music from the café, basically perfection :-).

There is no words to explain that feeling, maybe this picture can give you a poor image…Goa is like that, rejuvenation for body, mind and soul, but at the same time its carnival vibe makes you party till morning hours…this is why Goa is a must once in a lifetime! I’m heading back in April, anyone around…feel free to join me

Till the next post…

Mumbaikerly yours,

Sergio

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