Blame the tourists? January 30, 2009

Three types of tourists; three solutions

Returning Goan, disaffected hippie, or cocooning package tourist?

Living in Goa as a first-timer, long-stay visitor and person of Goan origin, I’ve struggled to understand culture in Goa so a colleague from my Goa Writers group passed on a book by Robert S. Newman.

I’ve excerpted a section that describes tourism. After that, I discuss how Western tourist’s expectations could actually improve the situation. I finish off with 3 simple suggestions for change.

First, the excerpt:

Three types of visitors

“Goa has been a tourist destination for many years, but only recently has it begun to suffer from mass tourism, the sure destroyer. Over the years there have essentially been three types of visitors to Goa. First, there were the Goans returning home on leave from their far-flung diaspora – reaching floodtide when the Bombay shops and offices let out for the holidays. This type of tourist brought new ideas and goods into Goan society, but was not disruptive.

The advocate and the allergy January 29, 2009

Carmona is a village full of surprises

Village laneway on the river Sal, Goa

The 700-year-old south Goan settlement of Carmona is recognized as one of the state’s top 20 heritage villages. Much of it remains agricultural and undeveloped, and its adjacent stretch of beach is free of tourist shacks because the Navy has blocked it off for shooting practise.

Nearby Zalor beach is where my Mumbai cousins Dudley and Celine bought a property ten years ago, and it’s where we spent this past Indian Republic Day long weekend. In between bouts of the Australian Open, Dudley tourguided me around the area on his scooter, and introduced me to two very  interesting neighbours: a hotelier who sorts through garbage, and a woman who is allergic to water.

Photo: beach labourers January 27, 2009

Take a break for a photographer on a bicycle

Labourers in Varca beach area, Goa, India

It’s about stopping, and watching. Most tourists lower their heads, pull up their sunglasses and step gingerly past them – the labourers who scoop out the nearby ditches so the beaches look clean.

Women load gravel into a shallow, round bowl; raise the bowl to their heads, step over wood plankways in their flip-flops, and gently pour the rough contents into a cement mixer. They smile if you do, and encourage their daughters to say “hello”. A little brother plays in gravel pile nearby, and a uncle playfully tosses a stone at him.

The Delhi Bicycling Club January 25, 2009

[The Adventure Cycling Association is a non-profit, member-run organization out of the U.S. that publishes an attractive print magazine called "Adventure Cyclist" and runs a very informative web site. They also send out email newletter called “Bike Bits.”   I thought this item from a recent issue might be of interest to Indian readers. -- UR]

“India Sprouts Green

…In just one year, the Delhi Bicycling Club of New Delhi, India, has grown from one member to five hundred. Nalin Sinha, the original lone member, says half of Delhi’s population travels less than six kilometers per day, a distance easily covered by bicycle. “It means one can cycle to work, reduce pollution, and keep fit very easily,” he is quoted as saying in this story from The Times of India:
http://tinyurl.com/a6mfob”

Hmmm, I think I said something very similar in my interview with Goa Today magazine.  Could a Goa Cycling Club be far away? Who’s in?!

Beach, Art and Bliss on Mojim January 14, 2009

“Do you live in a state of bliss?”

Subodh Kerkar begins an art installation on Mojim Beach, Goa (View photos)

Kim, originally from California, posed the question from a plastic chair next to Ganesh, her Gujuarat husband; and I stood near by with a Kingfisher in my hand.

When she and Ganesh arrived at Mojim beach to join our sunset group of artists, writers, workers, kids, and a Russian wedding party, I suspected I’d like her immediately. Her long blonde hair was held back with a casual ponytail which brushed the collarline of her salwar kumeez (loose fitting tunic and pants). She lived in the same tiny village as Ganesh’s family and she admitted that she was here in Goa for a western-style holiday in her own (adopted) country.

I took her question about bliss seriously. I tilted my head back and took in the sights, sounds and smells that had surrounded me for the past few hours. Mojim beach was locally referred to as one of the “Russian beaches” for the Russian mafia that had apparently staked a place there. This end of the beach was free of the noisy shacks that crowded the beaches further south.

Its relative isolation had caught the eye of Candolim-based Goan artist Subodh Kerkar as a good place to try out a new idea, and he’d invited a few of us to tag along. We’d started the day at his house in Saligao with a homemade lunch, then piled into his friend Veronica’s Jeep and carefully stowed camera equipment and rope under the seats. It felt more like a picnic than an installation by an internationally recognized multi-media artist.

Going Hardcore in Bhagwan Mahaveer January 7, 2009

> Introduction – Day 1 – Day 2

Cycling in Goa, Day 3: Into the Western Ghats to Dudhsagar Falls in Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary

Hamming it up at Dudhsagar Falls (click to view gallery)

The day before, we’d hopped back on our bikes and headed out to the nearby and utterly stunning Savari Falls. We stepped across the clay thresholds of villager’s yards, over zen-like babbling brooks, and around round boulders. The water fall was modestly tall, and fell into an emerald pool surrounded by shady forest.

How would Goa’s famous Dudhsagar Falls compete?

On paper, at 600 metres it is India’s second highest water fall and – since it is located in the southeast corner of Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary – is not accessible by private car or tour bus. Instead, visitors can view the falls from a monkey-habited railway bridge that passes over the top third of it; pay for a ride in an over-sized tourist jeep (that thrashes across stream beds and chews up 12 kilometres of delicate dirt road); or ride a bicycle, as we did.

According to The Rough Guide to Goa, the Sanctuary “encompasses 240 square kilometres of semi-evergreen and moist deciduous woodland, peppered with clearings of parched yellow savanna grass and the occasional mud and palm-thatched tribal village.”

To reach the sanctuary and the falls, we’d cycled increasingly rolling roads that separated the hardy cyclists from the less experienced. I (addressed as “Madam” by the group, even though I kept telling them to call me “Uli”) rode with the two “uncles,” Pravin and Tapan. We were slower than the Pune quartet and a few others half our age, but ahead of a trio of Mumbaikars who hadn’t quite mastered their Grip Shifts on the uphills.

Orange trucks and soil in Cavorem January 6, 2009

> Introduction – Day 1

Cycling in Goa, Day 2: South and east to Tanshikar Spice Plantation in Netravali village

An early start out of Assolna (click to view gallery)

Up until this point, the road had been stunning. An early start out of Assolna had rewarded us with morning mist over village streets, rice fields and meadow creeks. A few of us stopped frequently to photograph cycling school kids, swooping eagles and a coconut toddy tapper stopping his cycle to climb a coconut tree and collect its liquid.

We’d stopped and hammed it up for increasingly goofy group photos, then gasped at short, steep uphill climbs to deserted plateaus. While the ride continued on quiet roads on mostly rolling roads, the hills around us become steeper.

Creating a stir in Mormugao January 5, 2009

> Read Introduction

Cycling in Goa, Day 1: Campal, Dona Paula, Vasco de Gama, Majorda beach, Assolna by bicycle

The Mercury arrives at Mormugao Harbour (click to view gallery)

The Mormugao Harbor Police were not impressed. One month ago, a handful of youth dressed as backpackers had landed on a jetty like this, pulled out AK-47’s, and terrorized the city of Mumbai for three days. And here we were – sixteen people in matching black T-shirts – briskly unloading hefty knapsacks and foreign-made bicycles off an unscheduled Goan cargo ship just 375 miles south along that same coastline.

We’d left Panjim “base camp” at seven that morning, peddled to the Dona Paula jetty and loaded our bikes and gear into the  “Mercury,” a 35-foot vessel hired especially for this trip by Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI) carried us across the wide expanse of Mormugao Bay.

On the Mormugao side, we’d set gear onto the concrete pier, unaware of the stir we were creating. Once we were unloaded, two brown-shirted officers indicated that we should form a line to question and I had an awful realization.

Magic Military Camp, YHAI-style January 4, 2009

A “hostel” Goan cycling adventure

Cycling Majorda Beach, Goa with YHAI (click to view photo gallery)

Magic strikes again and – if you’ve trained your eyes to look for it – it’s hard to miss. This time, it appeared as a tented military installation. I nearly cycled past it but something about its odd location in  Panjim’s community Sports Complex made me stop and take a closer look.

Rows of green canvas tents formed a barrack community, but there were no soldiers. To the contrary, a young couple staffing a registration tent at the entrance  beckoned me to step in. I looked around and read a nearby poster: “YHAI National Trekking-Biking Expedition – Youth Hostel Association of India.”

“This is a trekking expedition?” I asked the woman. She nodded and, seeing my bicycle, pointed to the cycling portion of the trip on the poster.

“It’s also a cycling trip around Goa,” she explained. “Hostel members from all over India are meeting here to cycle to Dudhsagar Falls in the Western Ghats, and back.”

It was a trip of 225 kilometres spread out over five days. The lucky cyclists would ride south along the Salcete beaches to Assolna, then eastwards through Goa’s agricultural backroads. They’d see temples, mines, waterfalls, wildlife sanctuarys; stay in tents, cabins and lodges; and then loop back through the World Heritage Site of Old Goa. The Goa branch of Hostelling International would provide brand-new American-made mountain bikes, backpacks, food, lodging and trip support. 1800 rupees ($39 CAD) covered costs for the entire trip.

“Wow,” I said to her wistfully, “It sounds like it would have been an amazing trip – I wish I’d heard about it sooner as I would have signed up.”

“There’s space for you, if you’re a Hostelling International member” she said pushing a registration form towards me. “They’ve only got sixteen riders, and only one girl – it would be great to have you along – do you ride a cycle?” I pointed to my one-speed bicycle.

She beckoned for a camp volunteer to give me a tour of the camp which ended with a hot lunch at the canteen. I sat in the burlap-walled tent with the cook staff, ate dahl and chapatis with my hands, and tried to imagine what it would be like being the only foreigner in a group of predominantly male Indians for a full-immersion five-day bike-camp trip.

I couldn’t imagine it, which is why I washed my hands and walked back to the registration tent.  “Sign me up! When do you leave?”

"Base camp" in Panjim, Goa

“Tomorrow morning,” replied the same woman, “But it would be best if you sleep here in the compound tonight to get an early start – do you think you can do that?”

I thought about how quickly I could pedal back home, pack five days’ worth of stuff into a backpack and bus back to spend a night in the “military installment.” Yes, I told her, I think I could do that.

> View photos of the Hostelling International cycling expedition in Goa, India

> Read Day 1

What’s News in Goa January 3, 2009

What’s caught my eye in today’s Herald

Poster from outside a children's clothing store in Panjim... if she was 14, she'd be allowed to hang out in Goa nightclubs.

Airlines cut fare – Following market leader Jet Airways and state-owned Air India, Kingfisher Airlines today announced discounts in domestic Indian flights of up to 65 per cent, effective January 1 2009.

Katrina won’t play Scarlet on screen – Actress Katrina Kaif will not play murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling in an upcoming film based on a true event called “Rave Party”. Not only is it incomprehensible that a film on this teen’s rape and murder on Goa’s Anjuna beach is being discussed within a year of its occurrence, but that a Bollywood star would be considered to play the controversial UK teenager.

Woman was raped close to bunker – Over the holiday season, Goa police set up a number of bunkers at beach locations to prepare for possible terrorist attack. A local flower seller reported that she had been raped at Arambol beach. Now it’s come to light that she was in fact gang-raped “just a few metres away from the police bunker.” The police superintendent is quoted as saying he will investigate whether the bunker was manned at the time of the incident…

Allegations of harassment to trawler crew on the rise – In a December 5, 2008 entry I related that, in light of the Mumbai Event, the Vasco de Gama police force were asking the All Goa Fishing Boats Owners Associations (AGFBOA) to help them out with national security and keep an eye on marine activity. I also mentioned that the fishers “…have reminded police repeatedly of the illegal smuggling activities on the shores they work.” In today’s news, “Trawler owners in Vasco have accused security agencies of harassment under the pretext of enhancing security along the coast.”

Sources in the fishing community say that they have even been threatened by coast Guard officials at gun point. “Very often in the name of search operation, Coast Guard officials demand bribes of costly fish from the trawlers. If anyone objects to it, then they are unnecessarily harassed by pinpointing that documents are not clear,” said a furious trawler owner.

As John commented in his recent visit here to Goa, India seems to be doing what the U.S. Did after 9/11: crack down on civil liberties in the name of “security.” Only in India, it just adds to the foul blend of inaction, greed, corruption and that was already in place.