I was now well into my first week in Goa. Anjuna was lifeless and empty, so I beat the path through the trees and over the bridge into Baga and onto Calangute every day in search of a stimulus, a distraction from the fading dream of building a new life here. I thought I had it all worked out; Rent out my flat back home, and with the proceeds get a modest place by the beach, it was so cheap here I wouldn’t need much expendable income, and I could even use the guitar, or teach Karate if I needed or wanted to make a bit of extra cash. The fact was though, there was no live music scene in Calangute, not this time of year anyway, and who was I kidding?, nobody was interested in Karate here, not least from a relative novice like me. So I sampled the bars and restaurants in quiet contemplation, but drinking and dining alone didn’t sit right with me, I’d never been the type to initiate a conversation with a stranger, feeling uneasy that I may be bothering someone. So I just used the time to think. What was I doing here? A question I was beginning to struggle with more each day. Here, most people, especially the ex-pats, tended to just ‘exist’ day by day, no goals, no progression, nothing to build upon or strive towards each day. I hated to admit it to myself, but I was starting to miss home and all the little things associated with it. Technology, modern shopping malls, cleanliness, English pubs, the cool breeze of the sea, but more than anything, back home I always had something to do, somewhere to go, or someone to see. Here, I had to force myself into doing something.
One morning I took the bull by the horns and made my way down to Anjuna Beach at the crack of dawn, I’d not trained in a week and wanted to establish some sort of regime for the remainder of the trip. I’d read that Anjuna was the location of Goa’s best nightclub and market, but sadly I’d saw no sign of either throughout my trip. I had to make up my own entertainment. As soon as my foot hit the sand, I was swamped by droves of young children selling jewellery, asking my name and hassling me in general. I tried my best to ignore them and proceeded to a flat looking part of the beach that looked good to train on. Suddenly I heard a young but authorative voice screech out from the adjoining huts I’d came across on the first day. The crowd immediately dispersed around me as the boy confidently approached me. On the face of it, the boy, no more than an early teen, with relatively smart clothes and hair, looked innocent, but by the way the others fled, almost in fear, I quickly came to the conclusion he must be a superior to them in some way, or at least had some sort of control over them, an enforcer maybe, as ridiculous as that sounds. Regardless, we now stood alone on the beach, a stand-off almost. He had an unnerving aura of self-confidence which almost made me nervous, and also the best English I’d heard so far. Strangely, all he did was ask my name, before going on to tell me about his background and family. The conversation developed into his education and hopes for the future in a similar vein to the coffee shop boy a few days earlier, before going onto the much darker subject of the corrupt government. Not once did he ask me for anything, he just wanted to know about me, where I was from, what I did for a living, what it was like in the west. I’d done it again I thought, I’d jumped to conclusions, I’d thoroughly enjoyed talking to him and that should of been the end of it, but as he walked back over to his hut dwelling, past the twenty or so other children that fled earlier, the look of fear in their eyes and the now deserted beach left me with the feeling that all was not what it seemed. There was a pecking order in place, not just here, I’d seen it around Calangute beach too. Maybe it was something as innocent as family structure, maybe the beaches were monitored by (very) young staff, but something about the situation, fuelled by my inner prejudices made me feel like there was some sort of organised crime at work, maybe even slavery.
I’d almost forgotten about the training, but I found a nice flat area of sand in front of some of the young stragglers sat on some dunes behind me. They remained subdued, so I just started off my training routine while they watched. That was the thing with Karate, it focuses the mind, which was something I was lacking on this trip. It was a beautiful spot, a narrow beach and crashing waves looking out into the massive expanse of the Indian Ocean, but it was overcast, not just the weather, my thoughts were also clouded with thoughts of the children behind me. I was being watched, but was I being monitored? where had the boy gone?, are other’s on their way? I tried to concentrate as I progressed onto some drills and Kata, but my feet were beginning to sink into the too soft sand. Not only was this not a good place for training, it also felt like an unwelcoming place, a place I didn’t belong. So I packed up and headed off, never to return. But just as I was about to exit the beach, the young boy appeared again, this time in a much less than inquisitive mood. “Can you give me your sandals?” he said, with his crowd of followers looking on in the distance. I looked down at my £6 sandals from George@ASDA, reminding myself of the gulf between our countries and cultures. “Of course I will”, I’ll drop them off on my last day”. We smiled and shook hands, while the tension seemed to lift from the rest of the group.
Anjuna Palms seemed even more quieter than usual. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there was nothing to do here or even in the whole of Goa. Nowhere to go and no-one to talk to. Another walk into Calangute ? not today. I didn’t even have the energy at the moment to attempt anything else. The heat was beating me down, I was getting bored, I was covered in mosquito bites, I was taking malaria tablets which were giving me horrendous stomach cramps, I missed home, I was wondering what I was even doing here. To occupy myself, I decided to go through the documents and books I’d brought with me. On opening the drawer of the desk in my room I noticed what looked like a piece of string. As I reached out to grab it, it wriggled away into the innards of the desk as I leaped out of the way in panic. I stood frozen, eye-balling the desk, what was it, a snake ?, some sort of reptile’s tail? either way I couldn’t rest until it was out. I began by tentatively nudging the desk with my foot, as my hands where still quivering in shock. This produced nothing, so I kicked the desk harder. A scurrying sound could now be heard, the feint pitter-pitter of tiny feet. My mind was now playing tricks, What sort of devilish creature was this? was it dangerous?, poisonous? deadly? With one last violent, nervous kick I shook up the desk again, lifting it off it’s legs. A large grey rat slithered out of the woodwork with it’s long tail and a panicked expression similar to my own, shooting straight past me almost under my legs and out through the gap in between the wooden doors. I took a long, deep breathe.
As I began to calm down, I’d noticed it was almost dark outside, From the grounds behind the hostel, a combination of singing/praying had commenced at an ungodly high volume. Almost instantly repetitive, the droning, hypnotic ramblings carried on without respite as I checked over my mosquito bites. My arms and legs were in bad shape, something needed to be done about them soon, Felix had fitted some sort of electronic contraption to the wall which you slotted a ‘mosquito deterrent tablet’ into, and it sort of buzzed and was supposed to get rid of them. No chance. As I looked at it disappointingly, I noticed swarms of insects of all shapes and sizes had made their home on the ceiling amongst a bed of leaves, larvae, carcasses and cobwebs, I was just about ready to flip, rolling up a copy of Guitarist Magazine, and flailing about out of reach of my unsuspecting room-mates. A large alien-cricket-type creature, about half the size of my hand, hovered into the range of my frenzied attack. The first hit was a glancing shot, stunning the xenomorph enemy into a cobweb by the side of the wall. I showed my pray no mercy as the second blow crushed and split the insect clean in two, splattering deep red blood over the wall and over me. Shaking at the amount of blood and level of violence I swept the remains off the wall and back under the door. The evening stomach cramps were kicking in again, but worse than ever now. Standing up was even out of the question, all I could do was slump onto the bed.
And that’s where I stayed, As the music pounded on and the ineffective mosquito buzzer buzzed. I looked around me, a single bed, an ex-rodent home and chair in the corner, a battered un-secure wooden door with gaping gaps and holes, my clothes and suitcase strewn on the floor in the opposite corner, the land-based insect infested filthy stone floor, the airborne insect and spider infected ceiling, the throbbing sores and lumps all over my body, the crippling abdominal pain and the dusty spices polluting the air and tightening my asthmatic wind-pipes. I was a beaten man, physically and emotionally, and I didn’t want to be here anymore. There was nothing for me, no way to train, to play. Upping sticks to stay was out of the question, I’d reached boredom in a week already. As I finally relaxed myself enough to sleep and the music faded away, I asked the question again….
What am I doing here?