Do Not Pass Goa, Do Not Collect Good Times

Me:               So what should I do in Anjuna [the part of Goa where I am staying]

Cab driver:     Do you do drugs?

Me:               No.

Cab driver:     People go to Anjuna to do drugs.

Me:               ...Oh.

I'm definitely sick. Again. I'm just glad I'm in Goa because if you're going to be sick, it might as well be in a beach resort place, right?

I had to take a selfie because there was NO ONE ELSE HERE

Turns out, Goa isn't all it's cracked up to be. That little intro vignette on this post was a word-for-word conversation I had with my cab driver. I chose Anjuna after some minimal googling and by looking to see where there was the greatest density of hostels, which is generally a good sign of where there will be activity. Guess I didn't read thoroughly enough about what goes on in Anjuna. I certainly had some role to play in all of this by choosing to come here during monsoon season. Apparently, this is the place where people have crazy parties, except for right now when the place is totally dead.

I arrived at my hostel, which is down kind of a sketchy dirt road. Which is fine, it was daylight out. The proprietor of said hostel was a woman with a Christian name. She's the first Christian I've met in India, but it turns out there's a sizable Christian population in the south of India. She's been running this place for many, many years. She started out just renting out a room on a one-off basis just because she could, and from there it grew into her owning a full-fledged hostel. Entrepreneurship at it's finest.

Ok, ok, it's photogenic, but don't let it fool you

I checked into my room. There is, of course, construction going on right outside of my door, but at least I had my own room. It's not nice, but it's my own space. I decided to walk down to the beach and check out the scene. One of the reasons I picked this place is because it was only a 10-minute walk to the beach.

I've heard a lot about Goa from Indians all over India talking about how awesome Goa is. Oddly enough, I had heard the same thing from Bangladeshis about Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. As it turns out, much like how the best beach in Bangladesh is still... in Bangladesh, the best beach in India is still... in India. I got down to the beach and it was basically empty. It turns out Anjuna beach isn't a sandy beach, it's a rocky one. Not what I had in mind. Against my better judgement, I climbed up a big, slippery rock, but it turned out fine. Then I walked around for a bit, bought myself some ice cream (obviously), and headed back to my hostel for a nap.

You're looking at the big rock I climbed.
"Big" being a relative term.

I was having flashbacks to the miserableness of Calcutta. I really didn't feel well but as my wise friend and former colleague KW once told me, "you have to feed your army" or you won't get better, so I decided to go in search of food. I left the hostel a little before sunset, headed toward the Dominos Pizza I saw on the way here. I couldn't remember exactly how far it was, but it was packed with foreigners when I passed it earlier, so I figured that would be a good place to meet some people. You can ALWAYS count of foreigners to gravitate back to the comforts of the western world.

It turns out, Dominos was farther than I thought and it took me about 30 minutes to get there. As I was walking, I realized I was going down a skinny, dirt road and the sun was quickly setting. Which meant that on the way back, I was probably going to get hit by some sort of speeding vehicle and/or animal. I was going to die... for some Dominos Pizza. Worth it? At this point, I clearly wasn't thinking straight anymore.

I got to Dominos and it was completely devoid of any other patrons. Of course. I refused to travel all the way to India and eat a meal alone at a Dominos Pizza, so I told myself I was just going to get a snack and find real food later. I ordered some cheesy breadsticks and 15 minutes later I was out the door.

It was basically pitch black on my way back. I ran into a white dude and said hi, and he said hi back in an American accent. What? So I asked him if he was, by chance, American, and he said yes! The very first American I've met on my entire trip! We chatted for a bit, he was coming back from being in the Peace Corps for a couple years in Africa and now was just taking some time to travel. He had met some rando the night before who invited him out for some authentic Goan food, so he invited me to tag along, which obviously I did.

A few minutes later, this dude, KR, shows up on his motorcycle and takes us both to this restaurant about a five-minute drive away. This guy was a character: he's done a lot of traveling in his life and visits Goa pretty often. I'm pretty sure he's some sort of Indian, but hard to say.

We get to the restaurant and there's a menagerie of stray animals, including but not limited to a pack of dogs, several cats, and a pair of ducks. DUCKS.

Goan food is pretty solid if you're into fish. We had a great meal, some great conversation, and KR even picked up the tab for us two strangers. What a nice guy! Afterward he dropped us off and I headed back to the hostel, glad that I hadn't just spent the entire day alone in my room.

Go on to Goa Part 3: Calangute Beach and Yes, It's Still Fully Clothed

Indian Ocean, Check!

I have officially touched three oceans now: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian. Cox's Bazar is a beach area and it's where you go when you want to vacation in BD. IT also holds the title for world's longest natural sandy sea beach, which I think is kind of a dubious claim, but what do I know? It's a four-hour drive south from Chittagong to Cox's Bazar and we started our drive at 5am. While we were out there, we saw a bunch of properties owned by MRA that in a few years will all be insane beach resorts. One of those places was a little coconut grove where we one of the caretakers climbed a tree, picked some fresh coconuts, and then opened them up for us to drink. Oh, and I pet a cow! Because there was a cow there too. Because that's a thing here in some places. Cows.

Cox's Bazar was my first time going to a beach in a Muslim country, and you guessed it, everyone was fully clothed. Even in the water, everyone was fully clothed. We spent far too little time at the beach, but we were on a tight schedule. After the beach, we went to a restaurant where you pick a life fish from a tank and voila, lunch! I don't remember what kind of fish I had, but I think it might have been the best fish I've ever eaten in my entire life, and I've eaten a LOT of fish in my life.

The Cox's Bazar airport is about the size of my thumb but it get's the job done. We arrived back in Dhaka after an hour-ish flight. That night my dad and I had dinner at BBQ tonight, which had amazing kebabs. When we returned to the guest house, MRA was having a house party! Which meant that I was at a party with my dad! Bizzaro world. Earlier in the week my dad had discovered that there was a crazy disco light in the living room, which at the time was like "uhh...... okay" but now made complete sense. For the 20-ish minutes I hung out with MRA, his friends, and my dad I felt like a total fish out of water, but I held my own and then quietly Irish Goodbye'd my way into the bedroom to sleep.