Leaving Goa

The time has come to pack up my bags and move inland, away from the coast and oh-so-easy beach lifestyle. As I said before, I am so glad I visited this last colonial stand, run by the Portugese until 1961 before becoming India's twenty-fifth state in 1987. It's been refreshing to observe the Goan culture which differs from it's neighbors in slight but noticeable ways. Women wear skirts instead of saris, stoic white churches rise from the palms, and some of the older generation still speak Portugese. At times I felt I wasn't in India anymore at all, which is maybe why so many people like it, but I definitely felt pulled in by the allure of its arid climate, rugged landscape and lack of pushy people.


Strangely enough, Goa looks a lot like how I imagine the Portugese coast to look like, and in some areas the landscape and ecosystems remind me a lot of California. I immediately noticed avocado and guacamole on the menus (though not in season right now, damnit!) and felt the relaxed atmosphere in a state much drier (and browner) than Kerala at this point in the season. I could almost imagine temperate live oak in place of the cashew farms that line the small bi-ways that connect the beaches. A couple times I even felt that I was in Occidental or some small northern Californian town, with a warm breeze and red dirt overwhelming my senses. However, Goa attracts a ton of international people each year, and part of me has been yearning to get back to the India I know - with crowded streets, chai stalls, and veg thali everywhere you go.


That's not to say it wasn't hard to leave. I definitely had second thoughts as I packed my bag at 5:30am to the sound of breaking waves to hop on a bus and an eight hour train ride to Hampi, in Karnataka. The travel was long, dry, and hot, but I arrived here this afternoon to be greeted by Flinstones-style rocks teetering on top of one another, happy to have broken the lolling pace of the beach (which really does have a hypnotic effect) and to be traveling again. I will spend the next few days meandering the ruins of an empire that fell around the same time the Portugese arrived on the Western coast in the early 1500's. The now empty elephant stables and enormous palaces bear testament to the grandeur and excess of the maharajas long before western colonialism made it mark, and the ruins of a spectacular empire will take at least a few days to pick through in this surreal landscape.