After a short flight, and with the wedding behind us, I was ready to party in Goa. This is the hotspot for hip Indians and a lot of Europeans. I suppose it can be compared with our Cancun or South Padre. Again I had no idea what to expect other than it would be less populated and less polluted. This expectation was fulfilled and then some. From the moment we landed, it was evident that Goa would be a welcome respite from the frantic Mumbai experience.It was immediately apparent that the small towns in Goa were far cleaner and had a unique, Latin feel. This was no doubt the effect of its Portuguese history.
Goa had been settled by the Portuguese several hundred years ago where they converted most of the locals to Christianity. Our guide for the Goa leg of the journey was a young Indian man named Russell D’Souza whose face was as unique as his name. He sat quietly in the front of our tour bus as we drove through the villages en route to our resort. He quietly and politely answered all of our questions about the history of Goa, as well as a few questions about himself. I found it interesting that he said nothing more or nothing less than exactly what we asked him. I can only guess what he thought of Justin and I making stupid jokes about every little thing we saw. Granted there were a few things we just could not pass up. For instance, there was a billboard along the side of the road we were traveling that was advertising some sort of a local sale. On it were advertised T.V.s and DVD Players, but the most notable was what it said in the bottom right-hand corner. “Flea Market Cum Sale”. Enough said.
The heavily Portuguese-influenced architecture was a welcome change from the endless slums we had seen in Mumbai. If we had no other reference as to where we were, it could easily have been some place in Mexico or even Southern California. Apparently Goa was split into two distinct parts, the northern and southern. The northern part was where all of the trendiest clubs were located and young European tourists gathered to enjoy the type of unique techno trance music that had originated there. Our resort was in the southern part which is where people came to relax and enjoy the quiet serenity of Goa’s white sand beaches and the beautifully clean, warm water of the Arabian Sea. At first I was a bit dissapointed that we weren’t in the ‘happening’ part, but once we got to our hotel and stepped out onto the nearly deserted beach, I was glad that we were where we were. We had arrived in the evening with just enough time left to sit on the beach, have a cold beer and watch the sun dip into the ocean.
It was such a nice change of pace and just what I needed to recharge. I set up the video camera to capture the picturesque scene while I dove into the warm water. For the next 30 minutes or so, Justin and I built sand castles – actually he made a globe and I made a human face. It got dark before too long, so we left the beach and got settled into our cottage.
After a few minutes of cleaning up, we met my parents for dinner in the outdoor restaurant located just a few hundred yards from the Sea. We enjoyed a really nice dinner and several glasses of wine after which my parents went back to their room to get some rest while Justin and I headed for the bar right on the beach. We had several more beers and then walked along the beach in the moonlight to find our next adventure. Unlike Mumbai, this beach was completely deserted at night so we had no unexpected visitors.
The next day was New Years eve and my cousin was to meet us there in Goa. Ironically, he lives in Washington D.C., but I hadn’t seen him in 3 years. As fate would have it and with a bit of planning, we were to meet again, halfway around the world in Goa.
The only bad part of the Goa experience was that we were leaving at 5:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Apparently the flights were booked all day long as this was the spot for New Years in India. I tried desperately to find a later flight, but to no avail. So the plan was to sleep in that morning and maybe even take a nap in the afternoon so we could just stay up all night and hop on our early flight out. The sleeping-in didn’t happen. For whatever reason, I still could not sleep past about 5:30 in the morning and once again I made my way to the beach to do some writing.
Just like in Mumbai, I had beaten the sun out there and was the first one on the beach. Since this was the western coast of India, the sun would be rising through the palm trees behind me, but it was quite beautiful nonetheless. Again I took a series of pictures as I set the timer, sat down, checked the pic and repeated. I was out there for about 30 minutes before my parents came strolling up. My Dad sat there as my Mom and I wandered around the beach. I got some great pictures of us in the morning light.
I really can’t remember the last time my Mom and I had done something like that, so it was really something special to me.
About an hour later, Justin woke up and joined me on the beach where we sat for the next several hours drinking and talking. Over time, a dozen more people joined us at the beach front bar. It was then that we noticed there wasn’t anyone else under the age of 40 staying at our resort. This truly was the ‘leisure’ part of Goa and as such we were congregating with the leisure (read: geriatric) crowd. I asked the bartender, through a series of hand gestures and broken English whether there were any younger guests. He explained that there were three pretty Russian girls who had been there for the past week and that we should keep an eye out for them. I gave him a tip and asked him to let me know next time he saw one of them so that we might enjoy some younger company.
3 O’Clock rolled around and my cousin made it to the beach front bar where Justin and I had been drinking for the past several hours. We caught up on old times and exchanged stories of our individual, but equally eccentric, journies thus far.
While we were talking, the bartender approached me to let me know that one of the Russian girls had just come by to get a drink. I jumped out of my seat, tipped the guy and ran down the stone trail to where she was already walking away. The bartender was right, the girl was quite pretty and young. At this point I was so pleased to see a younger face that I tapped the Russian girl on her shoulder, not even knowing whether she spoke any English and introduced myself. As it turns out, she did in fact speak English and told me her name was Irina. I explained to her that she was the first, and quite likely the only, young person I had seen at our resort and that she and her friends should join us for a drink. Irina explained that she had made the same observation about the elderly crowd, but that her friends were resting before the evening’s festivities. She asked me if I was going to be at the party planned by the resort which was to kick off around 7p.m. Since we really hadn’t planned anything else, I told her that I would. We agreed to meet again in the evening and discuss our New Years Eve plans.
With that I rejoined Justin and my cousin who, like me, were pretty well drunk. We tried to figure out whether to make the hour long trek into North Goa for all the hotspots or whether we should just find some place a bit closer in South Goa. After deliberating we decided that given the time constraint of the 5 a.m. flight we didn’t want to take a 2 hour round-trip as it would cut into our drinking time.
After having a couple of more drinks with my parents, we decided to get cleaned up (read: sobered) before the dinner party. I donned one of my new, tailored shirts and some jeans and got ready for the party. All in all the party was really cheesy as the hotel had commissioned some group of acrobats that spat fire and limboed. The food however was really good and was just enough to fill my stomach in preparation for more drinking.
After dinner, while watching the show, I spotted the three Russians that had made it there about an hour after we did. I went over and spoke to Irina, at which time I was introduced to her two friends, Maria and Natasha. I told them about the options we had come up with for a New Years celebration. They all agreed that we should do something as a group, so I informed them that after talking to the concierge we would decide on a place to go in South Goa. At the front desk, the man was nice enough to call around and eventually recommend a place called “Venom”. The name sounded pretty cool – but I later learned it was quite misleading. Around 10:30 pm, we had the front desk call us a taxi. Justin wasn’t feeling very well so he decided not go with us and instead just get some rest. While wating for the cab to arrive, my cousin and I engaged in some small talk to get to know our new-found friends. Irina and Maria spoke English really well and Natasha, not so well, but ulitmately we were all communicating without too much trouble. 
When we arrived at Venom we realized immediately that our idea of what ‘Venom’ should look like and the reality of it were two very different things. From the outside this club looked like the size of my garage and about equally well decorated. Nonetheless we went in and made our way to the dance floor. The place was packed with seedy looking Indian guys and maybe one or two girls. While I wasn’t really worried as my cousin and I were quite a bit bigger than the locals, it didn’t seem like the best place to hang out all evening. After about 20 minutes and one drink later we decided to go a bit further into town in search of a better place.
Upon Natasha’s random suggestion we headed down an extremely crowded street and found a really well-lit and open bar.
It almost seemed like a vacant building and had very few people in it. The most enticing part was the fact that it was bright and had comfortable seating. A few minutes after entering and sitting down we were approached by a white British woman with a heavy cockney accent. Ironically, even though she technically spoke English, it was harder to understand than all the Indians we encountered to that point. She explained to Irina and myself that her niece and nephew owned the bar and this was their opening night. Whether out of a sense of good customer service, or the fact that we were their only customers, the bar owners really rolled out the red carpet. Given the packed streets and lack of Westerners we decided that if not ideal this place was at least safe and comfortable. For the next several hours, my cousin and I got to know the three girls through our reflections on India and some of the differences between Russian culture and American Culture. At some point Irina asked me what my sign was and at first I didn’t know what she meant. I’ve never subscribed to cosmology or anything of the sort, but I did happen to know that I was a Taurus. Irina informed me that she was also a Taurus and that her birthday was May 9th. I did a double-take, as this is my birthday. At first she didn’t believe me when I told her, undoubtedly thinking I was just working some sort of an angle, but fortunately I had my Missouri driver’s license as proof. I saw a very contemplative look come across her face as she smiled from ear to ear. From that point onward we had a renewed and more in-depth conversation about life, religion and culture. If I didn’t know better – and I did – I was certain she was interviewing me for a potential relationship. I smiled to myself as I considered the irony of meeting someone “special” in India, who happened to share my birthday, but was Russian. It had all the underpinnings of a good ‘how we met’ story. I quickly cast those thoughts aside as we had a few more drinks, and enjoyed the evening. We rang in the local New Year with a multitude of toasts to everything from India to May birthdays. Just past midnight, I was already starting to feel the exhaustion from a full day of drinking. The girls wanted to hang out a bit longer so we could also ring in the Russian new year which was an hour and a half past the local Goa time. Following our last round of toasts to the Russians, we finally decided – at about 3:30 a.m. to call it a night.
Even though the streets were packed we were able to get a cab relatively quickly. We all piled in, the 3 girls and myself in the back and my cousin in the front. 
The cabbie was blasting ‘In Da Club’ by Fitty Cent which I couldn’t help but chuckle about. The ride home was pretty quiet aside from the hip-hop playlist. 30 minutes later we made it back to our hotel where Irina and I exchanged phone numbers and business cards. As a final goodbye she held out her hand as though I should kiss it, but for some reason, I didn’t. I walked away thinking to myself about why I didn’t, but at that point I was thoroughly exhausted. I was less than two hours away from packing up my stuff and catching a flight out to Delhi. I laid down for the remainder of the time but didn’t sleep. Before I knew it, I was back up and ready to leave.
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