Here we go again, another thing to **** the tourists off – will India never learn?  Please read on about Government edicts, elections, police interpretation, curfews, corruption, rules that are just not enforceable and the public’s ingenuity at getting over ‘totally inept government’.

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Now, here’s a question.  Is our favourite beach shack becoming like Benidorm?  There are many characters who frequent the shack during our three month stay, some more colourful than others.  Most are quiet couples who like to chat a little but mainly enjoy reading and the tranquillity of our usually uncrowded and haphazard shack.   This year we have our first transgender, a lovely person from Dublin called ‘Sean or Heather’.  Heather has a lovely selection of bikinis and dresses and, as you might expect for a Barrister, a great sense of humour.  Sometimes the overall effect of the delicate outfits is spoiled a little when Heather sits puffing on a very large cigar!  We have a bag lady – well she turns up with plastic bags on her feet then heads down to the sands to top up her mahogany tan.  Let’s not forget ‘Frenchy’ a very elegant high maintenance lady with a delightful sing song French accent and her gentleman friend ‘Swede’ who are a couple in their 70’s who use English as their common language.  He starts at 10am with a beer before they both hit the vodkas and they openly bicker like there’s no tomorrow. 

Then we have the ones we are less keen on. We have the German ‘dog feeders’ that are also the last of the big spenders.  They sit at a table and read for about 3hrs over a pot of tea and a bottle of water….100R’s or about £1.10! The normally laid back dogs get growly and snarly at any approaching dark skinned people as they demonstrate they are protecting their feeders.  This is hugely annoying as the German couple sit back instead of training the dogs to behave.  We also have ‘child bride, granddad and brat’ who are a very young Nepali girl with a 70 something German husband and an annoying 18 month old child.  They rarely speak to each other, and both often leave the brat to run wild expecting everyone else in the shack to be babysitters…..but not us miserable old gits!

 Finally, and this has driven us to leave Francis after 10 years, we have ‘Rabbit’.  She arrived in January and has a very loud and annoying voice, ‘it’ doesn’t have an off switch and ‘it’ only has three subjects to talk about making her conversation with people (definitely not us) extremely repetitive. Her husband is fine, quiet, probably because he can’t get a word in but she’s also got a friend at the other end of the shack, ‘lonely’, who has also got a very loud and annoying voice.  She gets bored so heads off along the beach to visit her friends in other shacks (hurrah – an hour of peace!) Unfortunately as soon as she is back she gives a blow by blow account of her conversation with her friend to her husband.  One of her favourite repeated sayings is – ‘that shack that so and so uses is so crowded and noisy and you can’t see the sea!’  Oh the irony – it was quiet here in Pescador until you got back motor mouth!!!  As we said, she finally ground us down and even loud music on headphones couldn’t drown out the inane ramblings.  We couldn’t take any more and left Pescador Beach Shack for our last two weeks and became ‘shack tarts’ trying out different establishments.  We’ll will go back to Pescador next season until ‘Rabbit’ returns.

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We’ve had a number of events, a very enjoyable quiz night where our team of 6, called Universally Challenged, won!  John and Sue, Clive and Linda and us two competed against a dozen other teams …..our prize was a small box of Smarties each……amazing!  Wine tasting again, birthdays to celebrate and we’ve spent quite a lot of time with Aditya and Priti who have now gone to Mumbai before Aditya sets off on his round the world tour on his Triumph Bonneville.  Hopefully, we can catch up with them when he passes through the UK.  John and Sue had some friends arrive from France so we were forced to join them on yet another dolphin trip.  This time it was much more reserved although there was still plenty of beer flowing.

We were also invited along to Francis’ son’s First Communion Party. This was held in the small yard in front of his house where a small canopy had been erected to provide some shade. Functions like this are held throughout the village as many of the children all had their First Communion on the same day. The family parties start with a delicious plate of starters and drinks flow. There is time for chit chat and finally the cake is cut and the buffet is served. We are used to people chatting and socialising for a long while afterwards however, the Goan way is to sit almost in silence and then wolf down the buffet and clear off! Our table of foreigners who frequent Pescador had a great afternoon enjoying the delicious food. It was also a novelty to see Francis dressed in smart trousers and a shirt.

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The money situation has improved but there are still times when the ATMs are empty.  However we have a brand new annoyance.  It’s election time in Goa and there is a strict code of conduct applied as Indians are not allowed to drink alcohol in the build up to and during the voting.  The Government decreed that for most of the month of January the sale of alcohol stopped at 11pm, even in restaurants, which often became 10pm if the police decided so.  Then during the peak 3 days before and during the voting they have shut all bars, and have prevented restaurants from serving alcohol and generally they have made the lives really difficult for the already beleaguered tourist industry of Goa.  The police even entered one restaurant at 9.30pm and told people to leave and shut the place.  Half consumed food and drink was left on the table and people left straight away leaving bills unpaid…….obviously this bar owner didn’t pay his baksheesh (bribe).  The crazy thing is that we have, like everyone else, just stocked up. 

However, at one point the police changed the rules once again and without saying anything to the general public all liquor stores were shut 2 days in advance of the ‘dry days’ before the vote itself.  We hadn’t bought enough gin and Cheryl had a middle class crisis as there wasn’t a single bottle to be found anywhere in the village!  Luckily, Aditya was back at Micon to pick up his bike and came round to our place with a bottle from his stocks as we had plenty of  tonics.  So, as usual, we found ways around the restrictions.  Some people had take out parties on the balcony, some carried neatly disguised drinks to add to the mixers that you can still buy or drank straight from fresh coconuts with a straw having added a shot of rum……..yes it is, once again, proving to be ‘Incredible India’!

We spent our last few days finalising plans for the rest of our trip to Thailand and China plus our week long journey to Delhi with John and Sue to go wine tasting and sightseeing.  We also made sure we went to our favourite restaurants to say ‘goodbye, see you next season’.  Our trip for pizza and red wine at Luna proved to be particularly eventful as we had some Spanish Flamenco dancing to enjoy…….well not really.  A young couple of Spaniards came in at about 9pm and they were obviously very drunk.  The girl was singing and generally being annoying.  Everyone in the restaurant did the right thing and just chose to ignore the attention seeker.  Then she got out her castanets and started dancing but it wasn’t long before she fell comically backwards onto her arse with her legs in the air and her man had to pick her up.  Unfortunately at this point a bemused group of young Russians politely applauded!! 

She then proceeded to go and annoy the chef at his open air pizza oven which forced Ingelisa, the dotty foreign lady who helps run the place, to intervene.  She asked the Drunken Spanish girl  politely to please sit at the table and be quiet.  Our cabaret star then proceeded to be abusive and accused Ingelisa of being German and rude, she’s actually Danish and very meek, which then forced the hands of several men, including Neil, plus Cheryl to go to her rescue.  ‘Get out, you’re not welcome here’ we shouted and without any fuss, just verbal abuse, the couple left!  Well, what an evening!

We do have a bit of good news. We’ve managed to secure the same house for next season and you’re all invited to join next year’s madness……but not all at the same time!  We have 2 spare bedrooms, a pool to share and a plentiful supply of restaurants offering most types of food.  Plus an array of colourful characters, surreal experiences, government ‘surprises’, wall to wall sunshine and temperatures in the early 30’s.  How can you resist?

That’s it for lazing around on a beach doing ****** all.  Next we’re off for some proper travelling so watch out for the next entry.

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