Interesting article by Glenn Mitchell on ABC Online � Australia Australia India
Laid-back ... the local beauty parlour and craft shop (ABC) |
Goa: Taking life at a snail's pace
Due to a unique tour schedule, the Australian team is effectively having a holiday between the second and third Tests.
Such an itinerary is a rarity nowadays, with not so much as a tour game organised for the eight-day break between matches.
And a good thing it is too, as the series is effectively comprised of two pairs of back-to-back Tests with just three days between each.
In this sort of climate, that can be pretty harrowing, especially for the fast bowlers.
The bulk of the Australian team is currently in Mumbai, while some have taken the opportunity to head elsewhere.
Matthew Hayden has headed south to Kerala, where he's staying on a friend's tea plantation.
Adam Gilchrist and some team-mates have flown to Singapore, where they are catching up with family.
In Adam's case, it's a chance to see his daughter, who was born just a week before he flew out to England for the Champions Trophy tournament, after which he headed here to India.
Jim and I have also decided to head away from Mumbai.
Our destination has been the tiny state of Goa, a flight of around 40 minutes south of Mumbai.
Whilst it is located less than 500 kilometres from one of India's largest cities, they are truly worlds apart.
For us, it is a chance to get away from the hurly burly of a big Indian city.
Life in Goa takes place at a snail's pace compared to the frenetic lifestyle of a city like Mumbai.
The entire state covers a land area of around 3,700 square kilometres, with one of its main attractions being its 105 kilometres of coastline on the Arabian Sea.
Unlike a lot of the beaches along India's coast, the ones in this neck of the woods are suitable for swimming.
As a result, it is a mecca for overseas travellers, especially British tourists who head here to escape the northern winters.
We're staying in a delightful guesthouse, run by a local lady called Jessie, located about 400 metres from the beach.
The rooms are spotless and cost the princely sum of around $A20 per night.
This month, the region is on the cusp of the tourist season. All around where we're staying, shops are being smartened up ahead of the tourist influx.
Starting next month, tens of thousands of tourists will descend on the coastal strip, many of them staying for weeks.
Jessie told me last night that the room I occupy in her guesthouse has been let to the same English woman for five months each year for the past eight years.
It is like the area is awakening after a period of hibernation, which in essence it is.
From June through to early October each year it resembles a sodden ghost town as the coast is battered by the monsoons.
Many of the shop owners head to the north of the country to ply their trade, having battened down their stores here in Goa.
The region owes much of its history to the Portuguese, as it served as one of the first footholds for them in Asia from the early 1500s.
The ruins of many of their forts still dot the coastline.
Evidence of their presence here extends to the language which is still spoken by many locals today, as well as the architecture and cuisine.
The airport is located in an area known as Vasco da Gama, named after the legendary Portuguese maritime explorer who trod these shores 500 years ago.
Jim and I went for a walk along the beach when we arrived here yesterday afternoon.
As we headed south we moved closer to a 61,000-tonne freighter, the River Princess.
In treacherous currents on June 6, 2001, she ran aground. And there she sits today, rotting away in shallow water less than 200 metres from shore.
In the three years that she's been sitting there, argument has raged between the ship's owners, its insurers and the state government as to which is responsible for her scrapping.
There's no sign apparently of a resolution in the near future.
Which in some ways is very symbolic of the area as a whole, for in Goa, time tends to stand still, and nothing is ever done in a hurry.
______
(Thanks to Julio Cardoso for forwarding the article).
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