Goodbye Goa

On monday night Pinka, her friend who's name is Modesser (no idea if that's the right spelling) and I went out again to Mambo's the same club we went to Saturday. It was way less crowded than Saturday night but still a fun time was had. I made friends with some British and Spanish students who study in Spain and are here working in an orphanage, something many of them had done last year as well.

On tuesday I got up and Edwin took me to Panaji, where I did some shopping and saw some new beaches. The first store he took me to was called Blooming Dales (weird I know) and was a very cool store. I finally really splurged on myself a bit (not that this whole trip hasn't been one big splurge really) and bought a badass robe that I feel is the perfect "Oh you like it? I got it when I went to India" type of gift for myself. I also got a few other gifts for people and then proceeded to go to four different stores until I finally found the closest thing to marshmallows (weird, small, twisted, japanese marshmallows with fruity flavoring) as I could as well as some chocolate and some tea biscuits which where the closest thing to graham crackers I could manage, all to make s'mores for my cricket buddies.











I returned to the hotel, grabbed my book, my cowboy hat, and my hookah and headed to the beachside bar where I had gotten a drink and a massage the other day. There I had easily the best prawns of my life and probably the best meal since I arrived. Later my hookah drew the attention of the kitchen workers at the bar as well as that of a large group of cousins and brothers from Hyderabad. Who became very fast friends, feeding me food I didn't want (as I had just ate) and whiskey that I did want. They also made them start playing music and started dancing around and making me dance with them, giving me lessons on how to dance like an Indian and all taking turns wearing my hat (most of them putting it on backwards at first). Soon we grabbed our glasses and moved down to sit on the beach. There another white guy walked by and they quickly snatched him up insisting on uniting two lone white travelers. John, a British guy, sold his car to travel around for about a year because the job market is so bad in London and he seemed to have nothing better to do (like there is anything better to do). He was a bit of a stiff dancer which the Indians did not take well, but regardless he got the same treatment as me, being fed food and whiskey and getting dragged onto the dance floor. After several hours of drinking, dancing and pictures we parted ways, John joining me to make s'mores for the kids and our friends from Hyderabad exchanging contact info, insisting I visit them in Hyderabad one day and telling me that two of them will be in LA in May.

My new friends






Dancing With The Hyderabadians:


Because of the rain we could not do a traditional campfire, for which I had prepared a ghost story to tell over but ended up forgetting all about. Instead I had the open air restaurant at the hotel prepare a stove top and a table for us. For whatever reason many of the boys were not allowed to come so it was only about 6 of us. I explained to them that I did my best and that they were not getting true s'mores but that they should still be good. I showed them how to cook them and prepared the rest of the fix-ins for them one by one also having them cook them up for John and Pinka and Modesser and the staff at the restaurant who wanted them. Then we sat and ate and I ordered them a round of sodas which they slurped down joyfully as one of the boys gave John and I matching anchor tatoos on our arms (I had considered getting "Thug Life" on my stomach but decided against it because it would have been too time consuming and mambos awaited us.

We arrived at Mambos to a burst of excitement as all of my European friends from the night before yelled out my name in jubilation. The club was almost completely empty which was fine by me because we had our sizeable group and the dance floor to ourselves. I was surprised to find out that my European friends, who I assumed were 18 or 19 were actually just 15. Regardless they were a blast to hang out with and hopefully we'll reunite one day. We spent the night at mambos, then at another bar and ended the night with a walk on the beach and a light dip. One of them, Miles, a British boy was persistently smitten with Pinka who (for obvious reasons, like the fact that she's 10 years older than him) had none of it. We walked back and they said their goodbyes, as did John who I know was thankful to have met some people and had a good time.

Euro Friends:




All in all, Goa is unbelievable and I am confident that I will return, hopefully many times, during my lifetime.