Bollywood Stars and Vagator
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2004
1
5
53
Trip End
Aug 15, 2005
Vagator, India
Thursday, October 7, 2004
The next morning we got our cab to Vagator which in the Lonely planet said was where all the parties were at. As we arrived we could not quite belive that as the place was dead not many restaurants or hotels were open yet and everywhere seemed to be shut, apparently the season doesn't really start until November. On our first afternoon in the one bar that had a touch of life in it "Tin Tin's" we met a 40 something pikey from North Wales called Sean who comes out to Goa every year for 3-5 months. Now what a character he was, mostly stoned and a little bit tipsy throughout the day but full of stories and jokes to keep you buzzing all the time, here's an example of one of his fine jokes:
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are going through the courts to get a divorce when the judge pulls Mickey to one side and says
"Mickey I don't think you have much of a case here, you can't divorce your wife on the grounds that she has big teeth"
and Mickey replied
"I didn't say she had got big teeth I said she was fucking Goofy!!!"
Also Sean introduced us to Honaji or 'Energy' for us English folk, who had his own taxi, motorbike an scooters for hire and could get us anything we wanted.
Vagator is a really pretty part of Goa, even though the beaches aren't quite as nice as Palolem the little town itself is really charming and felt like a village with its own little community feel, with cute little lanes and houses nestled in the trees.
On the Wednesdays in a place down the road called Anjuna there's a big flea market so we hired a scooter and went to check it out, lots of stalls selling all sorts where Liz bought some bracelets and a dance CD.
In the evening Sam, Nicole, Sean, Honaji, me and Liz went to a club called Paradiso which was a wicked little venue on the beach and the club itself is carved out of the rock face for the 1st party of the season. We stayed a few hours but had had enough of the banging, full-on Goan trance and went back to Tin Tin's for a few more drinks instead.
We ended up staying in Vagator for 8 days in which time the place was getting busier and busier with travellers.
We are all going to miss Vagator but its time to move on and go get ourselves a nice little house boat in Kerala for a few days. So on Tuesday we left to get the 16 hour train to the Keralan city of Ernakulum and from there a taxi down to Allepey to get a house boat.
We arrived at the train station in plenty of time to get our train at 9.30pm with all our tickets confirmed. At about 9.15pm a train pulled into the station with "Ernakulum" on the side and people shouting out "Ernakulum, Ernakulum" so we all quickly got our backpacks on and dashed for our 3 tier Air Con carriage, this was no small distance - about 50 meters to the correct carriage, upon alighting the correct carriage we were struggling to find all of our seats as our 4 tickets were not together. A conductor came to offer his assistance and took one look at our tickets and told us we were on the wrong train!! One problem - the train had just started to move!!! So we scrambled past people in the aisles fully loaded with backpacks making a dash for the door, At 5 miles per hour Sam made a successful jump for it and landed on his feet (he claims that jumping of roundabout competitions as a kid had trained him for this sort of stunt) As the train got quicker Nicole was next to leap, an unsteady landing led to her falling forward, followed by a roll over her backpack, the train was getting quicker and quicker, Liz was next to go!! Indiana Jones eat your heart out - a perfect leap followed by a graceful landing hmm only joking, as she landed everything gave way, rolled over her backpack a couple of times and got massive cuts on Knee, Hip, Hand and Elbow, followed by masses of Indians running to offer a hand up and asking if she was OK. It was now my turn, the train was going pretty quick by now but I had no choice, a quick leap was followed by my knee giving way and then my head colliding with an Indian's suitcase which broke my fall so Liz actually came of worse than anyone. All I could hear as I got to my feet was hysterical laughter from Liz -she was obviously ok and not seriously injured.
We sat down and it was obvious Liz was a little bit shocked as she was white and wide-eyed and still trembling, but none of us could really stop laughing at the thought of being able to do something like that in England - no way would the ticket inspector encourage you to jump because you were on the wrong train!! - also what must the Indians think of those daft tourists who can't even get on the right train!
What was supposed to be 16 hour train journey turned out to be 18 in which I managed to get the shits! - Great!! and not only that, every time I needed to go we seemed to be at a station so I always had to wait until the train was going again before I could go. Just what you want hey?
Anyway we are now in Allepey and are getting on our house boat tomorrow for 3 days of total relaxation cruising around the backwaters of Kerala!
