Palolem: Silent noise and goodbyes

Once we recovered from the yoga, vomiting and diarrhoea we decided that another 5 day boot camp was not for us, this was Demelza’s holiday after all: she was crazy to even consider it. They must have momentarily brain washed us during the Om meditation sessions! That settled we finally had our little blow out with Tanya helping and we forgot that we ever considered more yoga. Of course we have grand plans to practice our moves every morning before breakfast but that plan still hasn’t reached fruitation (and it’s been a few weeks now!).

Arambol was the cheapest place for us in Goa- and for all the hippies or pseudo hippies who dressed in what looked like designer coordinated outfits. It’s also a great place for all types of courses including yoga, meditation, Ayurvedic massage, cookery, dancing, juggling, tree hugging, fire worshipping, spirituality...the list goes on and we decided it was time to go. Where Arambol is the most northerly beach in Goa, Palolem, our next destiation is one of the most southerly- two hours down the coast. We were shuffled there in a taxi van resembling a can on wheels. We firmly believe it had a tuk-tuk engine as it never passed 50 and barely made it up the hills!

We were a little disheartened with the resort. It seriously lacked decent accommodation and was full of English and Irish package tourists. Had we made a terrible mistake? It took a while, but Mal and I found a crappy room within our budget and left all the bags so we could have breakfast. We spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a nice room for Demelza. She honestly wasn’t choosy; there just weren’t any nice rooms in the resort- or else the nice places were fully booked! It was disheartening; I know Demelza was thinking about her lovely room in Arambol as we looked at the shattering beach shacks. As evening approached she had to settle for a dirt cheap room that looked every bit of it! However we did have a delicious dinner at another fabulous Italian restaurant- Magic Italy. Refuelled we decided to have one more look for a room, as no one believed that Demelza would get any sleep in the room she’d booked. Thank heavens we found a newly renovated hotel with nice rooms for a bargain $10 a night, we quickly booked two rooms and left the other place. Unfortunately three giant cockroaches appeared in Demelza’s en-suite, but otherwise the rooms worked out well!

We spent our time in Palolem wining, dining, sunbathing, swimming and shopping for Demelza’s souvenirs. One day on the beach we caught a pervy Indian man taking photos of myself and Demelza leaving the water along with all the other women on the beach. Demelza told him to stop photographing her and he said ‘I’m sorry you think that ma’am’, but never apologised, we couldn’t believe it. Later when Mal and I were going for a dip I saw him taking more photos and asked Mal to go approach him about it.

He denied everything saying he hadn’t taken any photos of us. Mal took his camera phone from him and roared ‘that’s me and my wife!’ on seeing that the last photo taken was of us!! The man looked worried, I mentioned the police, Mal was hovering dangerously close to the water, the man probable thought he was either going to throw the phone in or hit him. But neither would have been a good idea considering as we said earlier, you’ll never win in India. Mal deleted the pictures, explained to the guy why it was totally out of order and he replied ‘This is our default culture’. What?? He continued asking ‘How long have you been in India?’ following up with ‘The longer you stay here the more you will be exploited, it’s our default culture.’ Such a crock of crap.

Demelza was telling us about all the gigs and concerts she has been too recently (come to think about it, with Malachy and Demelza a lot of conversations revolved around music!) and told us about silent discos. You go to the venue and everyone wears radio headphones, you choose what music you want to listen to and dance. There are usually a few DJ with different music on each channel so the person dancing next to you may be listening to something completely different, thus dancing totally different. She has just told us about this when we saw a flier advertising… you guessed it, a silent disco! This is actually a perfect way for the clubs to get around the 10pm loud music laws! Sold, we had to go and we did on the Saturday night, albeit we made our way there slowly, stopping for Mojitos at a few beach bars along the way! It was around twelve a.m .when we arrived and it was very unusual. You could hear everyone talking or shouting to each other but no music. They gave out red bindi’s for those ‘free to flirt’, I planted one on Demelza’s forehead, but unfortunately there was a serious lack of talent and she was far from interested in meeting anybody. The lack of music (without the headphones on) actually made it really comfortable for chatting, a thing difficult to do in the usual club setting. We were on the Vodka and coke, and from the killer hangover/sickness we had the next day, I think it’s very safe to say it was some form of paint stripper they were feeding us! We met a slightly older Irish woman who was studying massage and mystified by the whole silent disco experience. Mal bought her a drink and she proceeded to buy us about three rounds back, I think she was afraid to let us go!

The next day was spent serious ill (poor Demelza, this holiday involved a lot of sickness, she returned home a size zero!) they really did poison us with the vodka, although the mixed cocktails were probably a contributing factor. Demelza managed a shot of wheatgrass at breakfast, whereas I couldn’t even look at the orange juice I ordered, although I was well able to eat my toasted gouda sandwich!

Sadly we eventually had to take Demelza to the airport as she was flying to Mumbai to spend a day and night there before going home. It was really sad saying goodbye, the three of us had become a perfect little group in the two weeks and it was disappointing to see it break up!

Come back Demelza!!!