All Good Vacations Must Come to an End

The sun and fun are endless in Goa. After a very stressful Sunday filled with sand and surf, we decided to take in a beautiful Goan sunset on the beach with fruity cocktails from one of the shacks. While we had learned from the swim up bar that frozen, fruity cocktails in India come without the "frozen" (which is surprisingly disappointing on a hot day), we thought that maybe the shacks would be different. In retrospect, it seems absurd that we might think this considering they are shacks and if a resort hotel can't manage a blender, it's certainly going to be harder to do so on a beach. But still, we ordered the specialty pina colada and sipped the warmish drink while people watched in the evening.

We saw a couple of Indians walking down the beach in ski hats and sweat pants. We saw groups of boys with their arms around one another and/or holding hands as they strolled along pretending not to stare at the tourists. We met another frail women who came over to introduce herself carrying a large gym bag that was so full, it looked like it might tackle her. She had closed up shop for the day but stopped to admire the necklace I was wearing that was made of different kinds of red beads. She commented that the red against my white face was lovely. "Really, the red against the white, white skin, very nice." The way she lingered over and emphasized the "white" was very amusing to Sir. And I thought I was getting a healthy "summer" glow. We also saw a boy walking a cow down the beach. The cow attracted the attention of a playful stray dog who followed them down the beach. They passed us again going the opposite way about 20 minutes later. The boy and the cow kept going while the dog came up to play with some Russian ladies. We did see the sun go down but just as it was hovering ever so slowly above the horizon, the haze and/or clouds that had been lurking in the distance decided at that moment to swoop in and cover the sun that had just gone from orange to red hiding the pinks and purples.

So we left our half full drinks and walked back to the resort for dinner. We were treated to a seafood buffet on the lawn with live "jazz" music. We enjoyed the tiger prawns which are larger than jumbo shrimp but slightly smaller than lobsters. Sadly, we don't think they can be found in the Atlantic. We also had salmon that was small and white but strangely tasted alot like the larger, pink variety. The jazz music consisted of a (presumably) Indian gentlemen at a keyboard and a woman who might have been Indian or African on vocals who sang popular jazz hits like Sheryl Crow's, "All I Want to Do," some Whitney Houston hits (of the 1980s) and an occasional Motown tune.

We had all day Monday since our flight did not leave until 7:30 PM so in the morning we decided to do what all good tourists who come to India eventually do, rent scooters. We had called down to the hospitality desk to see if we could rent through them or if they could help us arrange for one. The women told us that we could go outside and talk to the taxi drivers who would help us. So while I checked out, George went outside to get the story from the taxi drivers. He came back and said that we could get a scooter for the day for 300 rupees ($7) but we had to take a taxi 9 km to get it. He was told that we could just leave the scooter at the hotel when we were done and someone would come fetch it later. We drove through a couple of small "towns," which were no more than four or five store fronts, to a side road leading to another beach. We pulled into a small square with a couple of shops and about 20 scooters parked out front.

Our taxi driver and a man standing by the scooters nodded to one another and we said we wanted to rent a scooter. He asked if we had a license and said it would be 300 rupees for the whole day but we couldn't leave it at our hotel. We said that the taxi driver said we could, they exchanged a few words and the man renting the scooter said, "ok, give me a little more money then." We agreed to give him 350 and he said ok. Then the taxi driver asked for 350 for the ride from the hotel. George tried to ask how renting a scooter for the entire day and a 9 km taxi ride are the same price but they played dumb. After we pushed him further, the taxi driver went back to his car and showed us a laminated price list. We decided with such official documentation, to not argue and just paid him. Then we asked about gas. It was empty of course and petrol was not included in the price. We got into a discussion about how much petrol we would need, where we could get it and how many km we thought we might drive. Not knowing where we would be going or how far anything was, and still getting used to using kilometers (and not miles), this was not an easy conversation. Finally, we opted to just fill it and go. The man renting the scooters said he would help us get the petrol.

He pulled the scooter to a shack behind his "store" and called out to his friend. His friend then went down some alley and came back with four water bottles filled with a liquid the color of diluted iced tea and a funnel. He opened up the gas tank, fitted the funnel on top and poured all four water bottles into the funnel. At that point, they were ready to wave us off until we said we needed a quick lesson since neither of us had driven a scooter before. I suppose he figured if we had a driver's license, we knew how to drive one. He gave George a quick tutorial and he took a very short test run around the small parking lot before I hopped on. The guy who was renting it gave us a look like, "don't make me regret this," but just kept repeating, "just take it slow, Sir." We never signed anything, we never told him our names or where we were from, just that we were staying at the Kenilworth in room 229 (although we had already checked out) nor did we know his name, the name of the place renting the scooter or our taxi driver. We did think about this momentarily when all was said and done, "what if we had gotten a flat tire or the petrol turned out to be iced tea," but at the time, we just adopted the Indian attitude of "no problem." When we did finally return to the hotel and gave our key to the reception desk, they asked who would be picking it up and when we said we didn't know, they just seemed to let it go. No problem.

All of the roads were pretty empty and after the first couple of kilometers, we were able to lift our grips so our knuckles weren't completely white. We cruised around at an easy 30 km/hour, letting everything but bicyclists pass us until finally towards the end of our ride, George felt confident enough to pass another slow poke scooter. Aside from the fact that he was driving something he'd never driven before, he said it was difficult because he constantly had to be paying attention to make sure he was on the right side of the road, that he knew what was behind him and if they were going to pass, that he knew what was in front of him (as some people cut it very close when passing other vehicles) and keeping track of all the animals, push carts and people on the sides of the road, all while being totally exposed. It was only scary for me in the beginning when he seemed a little shaky, like people who a just learning how to ski and you think you better steer clear of them. But after he got the hang of it, I was taking pictures and just enjoying the ride. We tried to get into one of the exclusive resorts but they wouldn't let us park and walk around. But we did get to walk around the Park Hyatt Hotel which definitely seemed like a $500/night resort. Everyone seemed to greet us as if we were staying there and we looked like all the other guests, so we wondered if we couldn't have tried to use some of their facilities as no one seemed to be paying to much attention to where we were going. After taking a stroll down to their beach (which looked exactly like ours but with better chairs) we hopped back on our bike and headed back to the Kenilworth for some more beach and pool time before we had to leave. They were kind enough to let us use their spa to shower and change before our flight.

The flight back was an easy hour journey on SpiceJet and our faithful Chandan was waiting for us as we walked out of the Bangalore parking lot with his yellow plates back on. The big strike was over.

So, all of you who weren't really sure if you were ready for (or willing to come to) India...we could always bring you to Goa to lounge at a resort and you'd be just fine. Pack your Speedos.

P.S. I added more pictures but they are in with the ones that were posted yesterday.