(15 May ’11)
Domestic chores and
regular job routines don’t allow us Goans who live in Goa to experience what
tourists go through. We know the garbage problem and how we suffer because of
poor public transport, and there we rest our case. So with excitement I accompanied
my house-guests wherever they went, playing the role of observer. I could
hardly be called ‘guide’ because I knew so little about eating out and
shopping.
It was the HOT week
before Easter. The temperatures reached the moon with humidity to match, and we
were stuck, five of us, in a little car with no ac. Blessed are the oos-walla
bhaiyyaas from UP, with the sugarcanes sticking out of their green wood-and-tin
stalls, the standardized steel lota and the lemon and ginger available for
flavouring. For ten rupees we could guzzle a refreshing, just-squeezed glassful
of juice. Every couple of kilometers on any road between Pednem, Canacona and
Ponda, we encountered them with joy and relief. The only time we were fleeced
for the same amount of juice, fifteen bucks, was at a Goan-owned stall outside
the Shantadurga temple at Kavlem. At least he talked sweetly, quite rare for
our robust language and mostly-snappy attitude towards the brown skinned
visitors, I’m told.
Baga was a shock. The
deck chairs were stacked bum to bum under faded umbrellas. Greasy fellows stuck
to us, pestering us to ‘buy’ (rent) a chair, not leaving us alone for a minute,
lest we even touch something. You touch, you pay, seemed to be the ethos. The
entire supermarket comes to the beach: vendors were carrying snacks, tissues,
lungis, topis, dark-glasses, water and soft-drink bottles, children’s toys,
thin towels, straw chappals and ‘hand-crafted’ (made-in-China/Thailand??)
mementoes.
We chose to snack and
lunch at St Anthony’s next to Britto’s. Bad choice. We were the only customers,
so there was no reason to ignore us. After I sniffed out a waiter and gave our
order, promptly came the beer. Then followed the wait. An hour for a snack? I
asked the chap at the counter what was happening. In a couple of minutes, a
soggy, oil-dripping something that resembled nothing on earth was plonked on
our table. Is this supposed to be crisp, I enquired. Yes, said the staff, but
you said urgent, so I got it as it was. How long would a lunch order take, we wondered…
and walked out. We drove to the other end of the long stretch of beach right to
Sinquerim and stopped at a non-descript place called ‘Charcoal Cheese’. The guy
inside politely guided us, because it was closed, he explained, to a sister
concern off the road called ‘Bon Appetit’. Great ambience, good food, good
service, easy prices… and if you’re lucky, some dolphins dancing in the water a
little distance away. We were lucky. This is a place I’d recommend.
At Palolem, because it
was off-season, most of the restaurants were shutting down. The stalls were
manned by Rajasthanis and Kashmiris, who were obviously not interested in
Indian tourists who would not like to be taken for a ride, who weren’t paying
in dollars, who would bargain. Oh yes, don’t visit a toilet here, because you
might not like the idea of discovering why the sea you swim in is so salty and
the fish taste different thereabouts.
All over Goa, very,
very few shacks display price lists. Wonder why.
Now comes the drowning
part. Wherever we went, the lifeguards were present, doing their jobs,
monitoring the shore. They were alert, they were concerned. The tourists were
being warned of tides, of off-duty hours, flags were put up, notices were
prominently displayed. The one extra thing if it isn’t being done already is to
keep handy pamphlets declaring the dangers of the sea at all public places, and
in common Indian languages. Tourists must be responsible, too. No lifeguard can
save you if you’re hell bent on breaking every safety regulation: drinking
yourself silly, getting into low-tide waves after lunch, going as far away from
the shore as possible wearing heavy jeans or tight kameezes… I’m not so sympathetic towards the (Indian)
tourist any longer.
This sort of ‘sampling’
of our own product(s) has made me realize why we don’t get really up-market
tourists any longer. Poor public transport, a sense of getting cheated in most
places, dirty, noisy beaches… the list is long. Of course, if we’re happy with
dregs, which we are, so be it.
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