Anyway, on a Goan beach it ain’t just the rays that’ll wear you down; the beach hawkers are VICIOUS and they WILL NOT take ‘no’ for an answer. I tried my “no thank you, I’m not interested in buying ANYTHING” with all the patience and politeness I could manage and in every possible variation, but to no avail. Apparently all they heard was “I might look totally disinterested but really I’m gagging to buy something from you, I just want you to hassle me good and proper first”. Reading a book becomes nigh-on impossible as you’re attention is 100% taken up with either fending off a current predator or anticipating which one is going to pounce next. I know these ladies are only trying to make a living, and by all accounts it’s a pretty tough one, but nonetheless I did find it oh-so-trying to be constantly defending my right to NOT BUY to people who CANNOT hear ‘no’. Amidst a few pretty aggressive scenarios involving ladies apparently deeply offended that I wasn’t fulfilling my role as tourist and buying their wares, lying on the beach swiftly lost any of its last remaining appeal.
The thing is, I genuinely wasn’t shopping. I haven’t been the slightest bit interested in buying stuff from the minute I left the UK in December. Firstly I simply can’t carry anything else, secondly I do have a budget, and thirdly this trip is partly about getting away from the acquiring and hoarding that tends to happen when I set up in one place for a while; limiting my acquisition and consumption, freeing myself from my belongings as much as possible. I stuck stalwartly to this even on a trip to the famous Anjuna Flea Market with a couple of fellow yoginis, and after a two-hour stroll through the endless stalls, vaguely reminiscent to Camden Market in the blend of ‘ethnic hippy meets goth’, successfully came away empty-handed. While my friends, on the other hand, showed off their incomparable bartering skills refurnishing their entire houses and ensuring next year’s Christmas Shopping was mostly conquered (in mid-January). Do I sound smug? Ho ho.
I had arrived in Candolim having decided that, seeing as I was gonna be hauled up in a tourist beach hole for 2 weeks whilst I dedicated my early mornings to the Ashtanga Gods, this would be a good time to get on and do that Ayurvedic Massage course I’d been dreaming about. I’ve read and studied Ayurveda a fair bit, including spending a month studying the nutritional side of things in a Sivananda Ashram a couple of years ago, but have been wanting to learn more about the therapies. I’d been thinking of doing a month course here in India but decided other things had to take priority this time around. I guess I’m just skirting around the edges because I’m not quite ready to commit to the seven-year road to becoming an Ayurvedic Doctor through the Indian University system. So I thought I’d start with massage, and see what I could learn in a week or two.
On my first day in Candolim I went for an amble to check out the various places running courses, trying to see beyond the enticing (and not-so-) advertising to the actual quality of what was being offered. I probably should have looked around a little longer, but was equally trying to restrain my Vata/Libra choice-spawns- indecision tendencies. So, after a bit of a chat with the manager of this one place, I decided to commit to an 8-day course. Saji seemed knowledgeable, the place professional and clean, and he was uniquely unpushy, which is developing enormous appeal amidst the chaotic, unrelenting pressure to buy people’s services that I am encountering all over Asia. Cynical as it may be, it is starting to seem like anyone who doesn’t have to force their product in my face probably has something actually worthwhile to offer. But, of course, there’s no topping the taste test, so I booked myself in for a trial massage first. No lady masseuses free that afternoon (convenient?), so I was booked in with the boss himself, which he thought preferable seeing as he was going to be the one teaching me. Ayurvedic Massage being of the particularly personal nature that it is, I continued to remind myself that it was all in the name of learning, if only to keep from wanting the wooden massage table to swallow me up as this man was slathering me in oil and emphatically rubbing it in figures of eight around my breasts. Somehow this kind of thing has a slightly different quality in India, with her deeply embedded social dress and contact codes, and especially because they are particularly tight for women. When I was sat in reception later and a couple of Russian guys walked away after they were told they were only allowed a male masseuse, because “it’s the law”, I asked him why I appeared to have been an exception. His reply, that he seemed to think perfectly reasonable, was that it was ‘ok’ (by law?) for men to massage women but not vica versa. Suffice to say it was a bit late to get myself in a stew about it, the damage having already been done, but I do thank my lucky stars that I have been lucky enough to grow up in a less totally sexist society. Omm.
Sexist politics aside, I wanted to learn and couldn’t faff about forever. So I bit my tongue and got on with it, from then on dedicating my late mornings to learning the art of the world’s most oily massage. After my yoga marathon and a blissful breakfast on the beach, I would head over to ‘AyurTouch’ for 2 intense and exhausting hours of pummelling in huge wave-like motions across various bodies. Despite what he had promised, theoretical information was rather limited (to say the least) – beyond some basic guidelines about the various oils, this was kinaesthetic learning, good and proper. Watch and do, and again, and then some more. Far from learning about marma points and working intuitively with individual bodies, it was more ‘massage by numbers’, learning a set sequence of moves and perfecting the various techniques. Although I had anticipated more than this, to be honest it was exhausting enough in itself, not least trying to commit the whole hour and a half sequence to memory in a relatively short time. For the first few days I was taught by one of the younger guys working there, a sweet and rather handsome young man, whilst the boss lay there grunting in two-toned (‘good’ and ‘bad’) assessment of my efforts (apparently that no-females-touching-males ‘law’ didn’t apply here). But, on day three, my luck came in when they swapped roles and I got to practise my apparently-fast-improving skills on the rippling young Adonis. All in the name of (much more enjoyable) learning. On day five I got passed over to a trio of girls to learn first-hand the difficulties of head-massaging women. All of the glowing compliments about how us Brits are fast learners and how I really did have a good technique went down the pan as they got increasingly frustrated with me and my stubborn fingers refusing to massage in smooth circles across the scalp, instead getting hopelessly tangled in the thick black curls. That, combined with head lady Sheeba coming down with a nasty cold that robbed her of the last of her patience, and I started to feel that the novelty of the English student had certainly worn off. By day six the boss was nowhere to be seen and my ‘training’ consisted of being locked away in a treatment room with one ‘body’ but no presiding teacher, to relentlessly practise and memorise the hour and a half sequence. Thankfully my ‘body’ was the sweetest and most encouraging of them all, one of those rare, eternally patient people who really want you to get it and will kindly but firmly persevere until you do. Actually I never did fully get the hang of the head and the arms, but nonetheless her enthusiasm and smiles at my getting to the end of the eight days made me feel like perhaps I did actually have some talent there. Perhaps.
For a few days I also had a series of Nasya treatments in an attempt to clear the remnants of the ad hoc travelling colds and headaches of recent months. Despite the glamorous and restorative pictures, it was essentially a pretty primitive process that achieved little more than inducing revulsion and nausea. I stuck with it, as prescribed, for the recommended full 5 days, obediently inhaling the herbal steam bath before taking up a supine pose on the wooden table for the horrid onslaught. As I lay with my head tilted back, Madam Sheeba administered the world's most revolting ointment into my nostrils, massaging my sinuses as it trickled down them and towards the back of my throat, all the while encouraging me to snort, draw the whole lot down and then “spit, ma’am, spit, spit, spit!” it out (and whatever you do don’t swallow). I’m not sure whether I was simply too blocked to actually successfully draw down anything to spit out, or whether I am so deeply British Middle Class that I simply cannot hock it up, and especially not when I have an audience. Hocking it up, wretching, spitting, along with belching and farting all seem to be perfectly acceptable public behaviours in India – Nature calls and all that. I actually have a lot of respect for this (though I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the sound of my hotel neighbours cleaning out their stomachs at 5am); it certainly removes another layer of paranoia-inducing ‘should nots’ from societal behaviour. Natural functions are natural functions, some things are genuinely better out than in, and why on earth have we made them into such a taboo? How wonderfully refreshing to be in a country where a middle class woman can belch in public and nobody turns a blind eye (other than me; it startles me still, because this really does take some deconditioning). Nonetheless, as I lay on the treatment table, head tilted back, three bemused Indian faces peering at me as if to say “Why aren’t you DOING anything? Why aren’t you making ANY efforts to help yourself? Do you really have blocked sinuses or did you just want to try this for FUN?”, I simply couldn’t do it. It would seem that I was struck with stage fright; I couldn’t manage more than a feeble little snort at best, let alone hocking up anything worthwhile spitting. I faithfully went back every day for the same revolting treatment, all so that I could walk away feeling nauseated by the desperately bitter ointment running down my throat, but ultimately no less snotty.
After a few days of my busy yoga and massage schedule I started to feel totally exhausted. Pretty amazing how tiring it can be pummelling someone else’s body, it really takes some stamina. So I welcomed the weekend, when it came, when I got some time off from both and tok a day trip to a beach up further North in Goa in vain search of a friend who was teaching up there. Although still very much a tourist beach place, Arambol has a much more mellow, hippy, backpacker vibe(with noticably less tourist hassle!) than cheesy, middle-aged Candolim; in place of fish and chips and football bars were quaint bamboo beach huts, tie-dyed clothing and yoga and meditation adverts every two paces. And the beaches themselves, which I discovered on a long afternoon hike up the coast to some quieter coves beyond the main stretch, are simply stunning. Here's one that even has a little (only just) inland lake:
I actually only made it a few days into week two before deciding it was time to move on. Come the end of the massage course, I decided my work in Candolim was done – although I was enjoying the yoga I wasn’t learning anything new and, in truth, I was craving being able to work in the slower depth I’ve cultivated in my private practise. I’ve come to the conclusion that, if you have an established practise, there’s really only a limited amount you can get out of a couple of weeks learning with a new teacher – it takes that amount of time for them to start to get to know you, your practise and everything you bring to it, and only after this can they really help you progress. It’s a long-term relationship, longer-term work. I wasn’t about to settle down in Candolim for the next few months so, rather than see out my last couple of yoga mornings, it seemed more worthwhile to check out some of the rest of Goa in the few precious days I had left before heading North to Bihar. To be honest I was on a bit of a mission to find the soul of Goa that I knew must be lurking in there somewhere.
But first...it was time to indulge the 15-year old in me and do what I have often thought about but never quite gotten around to...get my hair braided! My last evening in Candolim I spent with the lovely Claire of ‘Claire’s Beauty Parlour’ as she patiently twirled my hair into millions of tiny plaits. Gloriously pointless, yes, but also extremely cheap, so why not? I was surprisingly pleased with the outcome and, judging by the amount of passing comments I got over the following weeks, it seemed to be quite a hit with the Goan boys ;) Shame that after about 10 days I started growing a fuzz halo, its growth no doubt escalated by my daily stint of standing on my head. Furthermore, having not quite mastered the laboriously precise hair-washing technique, my head was growing itchier by the day. So, after thoroughly enjoying my ‘new look’ for a couple of weeks, I parted company with my braidy friends, the long and laborious undoing process a meditation in itself.
I definitely wanted to explore Panjim and Old Goa, the state’s capitals of now and days gone by. But before that I wanted to get a taste of the wilderness of Goa and was struggling to decide how to tackle it (the trials of travelling alone). Somehow I naively got the (wrong) impression that if I actually made it to the Bhagwan Mahavir National Park, I wouldn’t be able to find any accommodation or a guide to help me find my way. So, not wanting to be stranded on the edge of the Goan Jungle, and having read some extremely favorable reviews, I put my experience in the hands of an organised tour. Whoops I did it again, oh dear. The advertising led me to believe I wsa heading for an exhilarating, get-your-hands-dirty-face-your-fears jungle adventure; it didn’t quite spell out that it would be a one of the TAMEST order. As our merry band of 16 set off in the bus from Candolim, our guide, Hercules, told us to buckle up for the time of our lives. We were about to go into the deepest jungle and live proper primitive for the next 36 hours – we were going to (drum roll please...) come face-to-face with bugs, snakes, wild animals, we were going to get dirty and sweaty and face our fears....
Oh, really? Because it seemed more like a jungle theme park to me. I have come to the conclusion that organised tours really are for a different kind of person. I’ve given a few of them a go these past months travelling and always felt that I’m being fed a superficial and patronising tourist ‘experience’ and basically been quite BORED. But at ‘Jungle Book’ (I should have guessed by the name) it appeared I was the odd one out – as we filled in our feedback forms at the end of the trip, while I was busy voicing my opinions on how the trip was ultimately lame in comparison to the promotional blurb, others were complaining that their mud huts hadn’t been cushy enough. Talk about different standards. But ultimately I guess I was the one who had misjudged the whole thing. Organised trips are for people who want things to be ORGANISED for them, for people who don’t have the guts or resources to launch themselves into the unknown, who don't really want an exhilarating adventure. If you want to have an authentic experience it seems you have to go it alone. The problem is, as a solo traveller, it sometimes becomes very difficult to access certain places or activities. I didn’t want to be stranded on the edge of the Goan jungle all alone and I couldn’t get anyone at the mud hut place to answer the phone. So it seemed I had two choices – miss out or go with the tour, despite my reservations.
As I rather unelegantly launched myself and my bag onto the bus, I took up a pew amongst the smattering of sour-faced tourists already on board. I tried a few ‘hello’ smiles but they didn’t have much effect, so I got on with reading my book. As the bus progressively filled up a youngish man took up the seat next to me, defiantly staring straight ahead rather than chancing a communicative glance slightly to his right. Eventually I broke the ice and introduced myself to the Norwegian ‘Jake’, upon which he unfortunately seemed to decide that I was his new best friend and proceded to glue himself to me for the duration of the trip. On the way to the ‘jungle’ we took in a Spice Farm which, despite being a bit of a tourist show, was quite informative and enjoyable. Hercules walked us around and introduced us to the various spices, all growing in their natural setting, and their magic properties – turmeric, beetlenut, cinnamon, cloves, allspice (yes it is actually just one spice!), pepper, curry leaves. And did you know that ginger, cardomom and honey are a powerful natural viagra? Well, now you do. Here's a picture of our 'how to swing from tree to tree' demo (don't try ths at home kids):
After that we were fed a yummy lunch, a true Indian thali - tasters of lots of different dishes and eaten off banana leaf plates. I thought I would follow in the traditional trend and eat it with my fingers, simply because I was becoming accustomed to after six weeks in India – I actually love eating this way, it really seems to taste better. But my behaviour didn’t find fondness with my fellow tourists, many of whom were pushing the unrecognisable food around their plates with their forks and asking if there were any chips to be had: “Oh look, she really has gone ‘all Indian’”.
After that it was back in the bus and on to the ‘Shanti Eco Village’, the not-so-little settlement of mud huts that was to be our accommodation for the night. Having been led to expect the worst from Hercules’ dramatic introduction, I was extremely pleasantly surprised – I was given my own mud hut, which had a fairly comfortable bed (despite the fairly primitive and extremely LOW mosquito net) and even a wardrobe, something I had barely seen in previous weeks. Not that I was about to use it, as the whole place was rather buggy, to put it lightly; a perfect environment for me to continue my practise of selflessly sharing space with all of Nature’s creatures, no matter how black, crispy, many-bandy-legged and goggly-eyed (ugh). Even better, it was en suite WITH A SHOWER – cold water, of course, but nonetheless, what was that about being dirty and stinking? Far from being the basic benchmark accommodation, this was pushing on for Michelin-starred.
After getting settled it was time for the elephant rides. Far from being let loose bareback on board a giant mammal in the depths of the jungle, as the exaggerated advertising had led my naive and overactive imagination to believe, we were paraded in four-person elephant chairs up and down a 400 metre-long stetch in the middle of the eco village. Hurrah.
Following which all 16 of us were bundled into a cart ‘train’ and dragged up and down the lane by two huge beasts with rather boney necks and tell-tale eyes – that was the 40-second bullock cart ride, and it made me feel sick to my stomach. I know they’re inordinately strong and have always been working animals BUT, nonetheless, to be kept purely for tourist rides...I was not proud to be a part of it and, besides, it was totally boring.
After that it was back to the mud huts for a scrub up and don the glad rags for a stroll (we actually got to use our own legs here) to a local ‘traditional village’, perhaps the least ‘traditional’ (whatever that means anyway) of all the villages I’ve seen in India – well-kept houses with satellite dishes and enormous TV screens. We paid a visit to the house of the (deceased) Brahmin’s (the highest caste/social class) wife – technically the ‘chief’ of the village but apparently this doesn’t carry any weight any more – at least not in these parts (the same can’t be said elsewhere in India). In bygone days this family would have ruled the roost and all the other inhabitants of the village would have had to pay them a certain amount of their income (rice or whatever) and a lot of respect, but these days, here, at least, it’s barely anything more than a title. Although our little visit was painfully set-up, she was nonetheless very sweet and accommodating, playing her part so perfectly you never would have guessed she did this every night or so.
She kindly showed us into her (very small) house, complete with the protective entrance Tulsi (holy Indian basil) plant, and even her grandchildren were on hand to sing us a little song. Ahh.
After a face off in the lane with an aggressive sow protecting her calf from our gang of village intruders, we made it safely back to the eco-village for dinner, swiftly followed by the ‘elephant show’, where they dressed the poor beasts up in the most ridiculous costumes, made them do tricks and play football and then, ‘the highlight’, where we got to fed them energy balls and have a photoshoot. All to a high amplitude sound track and circus voice-over. How terribly jungle rough and tumble (?). Athough it is quite astonishing that an elephant can indeed dunk a basketball into a net, and even paint a Picasso lookalike with a brush held in its trunk, nonetheless I was rather mortified to be sat there watching this whole parade. Were these huge, beautiful and clearly highly intelligent creatures raised for this? Apparently the justification is that, what with elephants becoming increasingly less used as work animals in India, the need for them to be trained for such purposes is also decreasing. Training an elephant, notoriously harsh and done by pressing on particular pressure points behind their ears with your feet, is a secret tradition passed down only within the family line of 'mahoots' (elephant trainers), where the eldest son always will follow in the father's footsteps. Mahoots, and hence their knowledge, are becoming more and more scarce, and there seems to be a risk of the great secrets being lost altogether. So this is the justification for putting these animals through fierce training methods, all so that they can prance about for tourist light entertainment.
After a campfire and a spot of intercultural entertainment, it was early showers as we were to be up and on the jungle trail at 6am. This was probably the best bit of the trip, a nice walk through some of the national park, but hardly a strenuous jungle expedition, as we had been warned.
We made it back to meet the less energetic members of the group at Tamdi Surla, an ancient stone temple on the outskirts of the national park, at 9am. Surprisingly odd place for a temple, but apparently it sprung up as a while back this place actually used to be on a trade route and so they decided it needed a temple, a very small and beautiful one at that.
The perfect place for a spot of yoga, in fact. Well, you could hardly call it yoga. The ‘introduction to yoga’ (you see, we were getting the full Indian experience) was the most uninformed and inappropriate hour I have ever spent on a yoga mat, taught by a man who barely knows his own arse from his elbow (quite literally), let alone being qualified to instruct others in finding theirs. I was genuinely surprised some of the less mobile members of the group made it out alive. After no breakfast (I skipped the rather dense, nutritioness offerings of chips, rice and potato curry...for breakfast...?) we were taxied off to a beautiful natural lake for a bathe and a bask, only to be swiftly joined by our elephant friends.
As the beasts approached the water Hercules ordered us all to clear out and sit on the rocks to the side as the elephants can get quite frisky at bathtime. Giiven the size of them I was happy to oblige. There was a small expat British family also bathing there who, although not exactly in the line of fire, ignored the orders and continued going about their business. As the elephants waded in and started enjoying a bit of a soak, Hercules’ voice got progressively louder and louder until he was outright threatening the innocent lady, ordering her to "get out of the pool at once, else the elephants would be sent home again and “everybody’s fun would be ruined.” Not taking kindly to being ordered around when she had simply set out for a quiet innocent afternoon with her family, only to have her usual bathing spot descended upon by a large tour group, she outrightly refused. And so, the elephants were sent out of the water while she had a face-off with Hercules, adamently standing her ground like a true feminist Brit. As I sat on my rock observing the whole scene, I have to say my sentiments were with her, especially when the other English members of our group decided to pipe up and put in their four-pence worth: “I’m ashamed that you’re British” (oh pleeeeease). Yes, she could quite easily have moved but, quite frankly, WHY ON EARTH SHOULD SHE? It is, as she pointed out, a free country, and tourist companies don’t have more rights than individuals, no matter how much weight they might think they have to throw around. Here here. After she’d had her say about human and elephant rights, things quietened down and the elephants got on with bathing themselves and everyone else, spouting trunkfuls of water over our heads in the notorious ‘Elephant Shower’ that Hercules and his tour company were evidently very proud of (it’s AMAZING what training can do). Call me a spoil sport but, given the circumstances, I wasn’t full of enthusiasm for this whole set-up charade; I was shocked at our guide’s appalling handling of the situation and rudeness (a little politeness and tact can go an awfully long way...), and my feelings about the captivity and training of these gorgeous animals fuelled even further. I was glad when, just as we were making our way back to our bus, a window opened itself up for me to quietly express to the lady how deeply I had shared her sentiments, regardless of her ‘Britishness.’
Finally and thankfully, after a wash, brush up and feed, it was time to head back on the bus. I was done with Jungle Book, with being treated like a child in need of tame entertainment, with people who, try as I might, I really don’t have much in common with, and I was definitely ready to prize myself away from the leech-like buddy I had acquired. Having requested to be dropped off in Panjim for the next stage of my Goan adventure, I was quite literally thrown off the bus on a busy road outside Panjim with not a clue as to where I was going (this might have been a backlash from the rather honest feedback I had left on the form). Yet again I’d become accustomed to having it easy after eleven days in Goa, no having to fight and struggle to achieve the simplest of things. But it was a sudden, although welcome, jolt back into reality as I found my laden self standing on an uncrossable highway trying to flag down a tuk-tuk to take me to a decent bed for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment