South Goa where the living is easy..........

A 15 hour train journey probably wasn't such a good idea in third class sleeper! It started off deceptively pleasantly, the beautiful keralan waterways speeding past like a verdant comet! A few hours later when a crowd the size of a population of a London suburb got on, suddenly an overcrowded south western commuter train doesn't seem so bad! A sweaty mass of body parts, feet in faces, big bums spilling onto seats, women spitting with all the grace and delight of a bare fist fighter, everyone lobbing cartloads of trash out of the window. 15 hours later at 2am arriving triumphantly at my coco hut in the black of night, I feel at home with the sound of the crashing waves. Early the next morning I stumble onto the beautiful smiling sands of Agonda, no-one to bother me but a few holy cows!!

In the village, as obedient school children file past, seemingly unperturbed by the smattering of tourists I walk past the graceful white church and small hindu temple. This place seems to have mastered that fragile balance of being a real place with a healthy dose of gentle tourism. Beach hawkers are forbidden, and the scene here is totally chilled, so all of the unsavoury side effects of larger scale tourism don't plague Agonda........for now at least.

Talking to a couple of young goan girls, working their clothes stall, their stories at the tender age of 19 are like fictions imagined by the most creative of literary minds. The 19 year old has sage manner of a middle aged woman. She was married (a love marriage not an arranged marriage she assures me) at 15, ran away to a nearby village with her man where they lived together for two years and had a baby. After two years hubby legged it and is now married to someone else, she hasn't heard from him since, though legally they are still married! Both of these girls could be colgate models with the dazzlers on them.

So far its a winning combo - cute eco friendly coco hut at the lovely Shanti, delicious food, relaxed yoga (much less militant than the ashram variety!), great goan hospitality and dancing dolphins on the skyline....