Goa: Itineraries

A Top Day in Goa

Depending on the events of last night, I attempt to get up early and head to a local fish market so I can watch the frenzy caused by the early-morning catch. Once the last fish has been sold and is on its way to participate in the great Goan tradition of fish rice curry, I head out for breakfast. Perfect time for it too: newspaper bundles are being cut open, the air is warming up, and my people-watching pleasures are increasing with every passing minute. Clean-cut children make for school as bedraggled party-goers try to find their way home in the starkness of daylight. First meal of the day: traditional idli (steamed rice cake) and chai in a street-side hole-in-the-wall restaurant, or perhaps not so traditional but equally delicious banana honey pancakes and milky instant coffee in a beach shack. I spend the rest of the morning pretending to read The Times while watching the world wake up, wind up and then wind down again as the midday heat starts to thicken the air. I do as the locals do and don't even fight the diffusion of heavy heat into my pores. I just let it lull me into a dense delirium under the shade of a banyan tree. Or, if it's too hot even for a nap, I wander into the sea and dry off in the sun afterwards. When the drink-swim-nap pattern wears thin I head into the great inland. Cranking my scooter up to a blistering 40km/h, I slice through rice fields and cross rivers on ferries on an epic quest for whatever I find. When the shadows get longer and my petrol runs low, I find an old fort where I can watch the sun take its final bow behind the Arabian Sea. Then the stress of the darkness will hit me - what do I want for dinner? Relief comes quick - it's Saturday night which means there's no choice but to head for a Night Bazaar and sample enough food to constitute a meal and revel in the microcosm of global culture that is a Goan market.

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