Day 6

Day Six

Destination Goa
An 18 mile trip to the airport took 3-1/2 hours because of three police checkpoints. At each one, they checked for... nothing.

Just barely made our flight, which hugs the coast down to Goa. The first thing one sees landing or taking off from Mumbai are the tin shacks & slums which ring the airport. Personally I think they make a great deterrent - fat chance a terrorist or anyone else getting through without thousands watching.

The monsoon rains do not begin until May, & there's more brown than green visible below at this time of year (it is supposedly winter, temperatures are in the upper 80s). What surprises me are the large swatches of land that seemingly have no trace of human activity. It's easy to recognize things like roads, dams, towns, etc. at 35,000 feet. For miles & miles, there's nothing. Scrubland, forests, hills, lakes, rivers, that sort of thing.

I think back to my recent visit to Ireland where the land is sliced & diced into parcels virtually everywhere.

The earth is a robust red in color as we approach Goa, there's a quarry in sight just before we land, iron-rich rock I find out later, the bulk going to China, probably. Volcanic activity similar to Yellowstone's super-volcano, may have been a factor in the extinction of the dinos & the subsequent massive eruption of lava created the vast Deccan basalt flats covering a large chunk of the sub-continent today.

I mention all this because the rock is also chopped up into rough 12" x 8" x 6" units. Reinforced concrete columns & this rock unit infill with smooth plaster on both sides, is the standard technique in Goa for residential & commercial construction. The units are lighter than expected, presumably because of the aerated composition. I would hazard a guess & say they 'breathe' faster than CMU, permeable enough to permit/control the flow of water, an important consideration in a humid climate, especially during the monsoon season.

The apartment was under construction 5 years ago when a hurricane made landfall. The exterior walls were not plastered & had the appearance of a wet sponge, water leaked through, flooding the apartment.

I'll refrain from talking about construction from now on, I promise.

First Stop: The Beach
Ten minutes walk from my dad's apartment is Benaulim Beach.

Clean sand as far as the eye can see, check. Surf crashing on shore, check. Palm trees, beach shacks, beer, lounge chairs, check, check, check & check. Beach mostly empty, check. Beach dogs, check. Beach dogs?

South Goa has its fair share of canines unencumbered by pesky things like collars. The sub-species inhabiting the beach appear to be distinctly well-fed. They are capable of distinguishing between Indian & European tourists, the latter being an easier touch for scraps from the beach shacks. The routine's pretty straightforward. I observed one sitting next to a couple of Russian tourists eating a steady diet of french fries & roast chicken (all three of them). Moved over to another group, received the same treatment. He then ambled over to our table, sniffed us briefly & left.

They sleep on the beach or in the scrubby undergrowth nearby. Some have excavated 5 foot deep 'caves' in the sand, which inevitably disappear during high tide.

This may seem odd, but I recall getting there at about 6 pm & leaving around midnight, but I don't remember seeing the sun set over the ocean. Very strange.

I don't remember how much I drank either.