A Mumbai metro train took me to Churchgate where I changed for Victoria Terminus, as downtown Bombay as you get. Being a Sunday, the ticket office was closed, so I got bus tickets from a friendly scalper and paid double. He kindly showed me to a bus stop on Mahatma Gandhi Avenue - as good a place as any to begin a trip - where, for three hours, myself and a handful of others waited. Three of the men in the group were completely drunk, well-dressed in their fifties/sixties, lurching around in a stupor, collapsing into plastic roadside chairs serving as a waiting room on the broad, shaded sidewalk. Urchins hollered and chucked small rocks into the trees to dislodge the ripening fruit. One mango dropped from high branches and one of the boys caught it with the deftness of an outfield cricketer.
Eventually, a minivan taxi turned up and took us plus luggage to a busy highway, drunkards belching in the back, dropping us off next to a fast food stall which we happily dived into. Egg rolls all round. The drunkards ate ravenously, crumbs flying in every direction, conversation boisterous and slurred. A little schoolgirl in blue uniform, pigtails dancing to their own tune, pushed her bike past, surveying the scene with a raised eyebrow.
My ‘bed’ was above a rear wheel and so I bounced all over the place as we passed through the endless Bombay suburbs, home to 60 million people, wandering sacred cows slowing us down, construction going up wherever you looked. Sleep came on a smooth section of highway and we woke collectively at dawn when the driver rather cruelly blew a whistle and pulled into a deserted lay-by, not a tea stand in sight. Smoking in mist, we looked down on a cloud covered Goan vista of low wooded hills and darker, deeper undergrowth in the valleys, home to any manner of asp, creepy-crawly or beast. That’s where we were headed.
The bus came to a stop in Margao, and, at about eight in the morning, kicked through the dust to find a hotel in Benaulim, which came soon enough in the form of the $10 a night Star of the Sea resort – a basic place with cool pool and an entertaining Nepalese restaurant staff.
In the afternoon, after a nap and a swim, I went across the street to an Ayurveda clinic, got looked at by a doctor who was a bit too involved in the money side of things for my liking, and booked a 7 day course of treatment. Pain here we come; relief, hopefully, somewhere along the way.
After the hour and a half long appointment, buttocks kneaded, I staggered back across the dusty street, dodged the t-shirt salesmen, and showered off the oil before jumping into the pool. Swimming lengths in the peace of dusk, I heard an English voice say, “Good evening to you, sir!” Looking up I saw Johnny, a comic sideshow and dipsomaniac from Worthing, Sussex, swaying on static feet. Why he would attempt conversation with a stranger clearly otherwise engaged in swimming in the pool is something only he will ever know, and he continued chatting regardless.
“Spent 41 years at Glaxo Smith Kline,” he told me proudly, chest puffed out. “Don’t like to talk about it, but I was there for 41 years. Spent those 41years standing up, I did. Didn’t sit down once. Never had a day off."
It went on like this even when I was at the other end. “Don’t like to talk about it, but I worked in a charity shop last year. Kept me out of the pub, though I don’t like to …”
For the rest of my stay, he would appear from nowhere to give updates on his state of inebriation, completely uninterested in anything anyone else had to say. The waiters kept their distance and the other guests ran a mile. At times like this, it feels great to be sober.
Eventually, a minivan taxi turned up and took us plus luggage to a busy highway, drunkards belching in the back, dropping us off next to a fast food stall which we happily dived into. Egg rolls all round. The drunkards ate ravenously, crumbs flying in every direction, conversation boisterous and slurred. A little schoolgirl in blue uniform, pigtails dancing to their own tune, pushed her bike past, surveying the scene with a raised eyebrow.
My ‘bed’ was above a rear wheel and so I bounced all over the place as we passed through the endless Bombay suburbs, home to 60 million people, wandering sacred cows slowing us down, construction going up wherever you looked. Sleep came on a smooth section of highway and we woke collectively at dawn when the driver rather cruelly blew a whistle and pulled into a deserted lay-by, not a tea stand in sight. Smoking in mist, we looked down on a cloud covered Goan vista of low wooded hills and darker, deeper undergrowth in the valleys, home to any manner of asp, creepy-crawly or beast. That’s where we were headed.
The bus came to a stop in Margao, and, at about eight in the morning, kicked through the dust to find a hotel in Benaulim, which came soon enough in the form of the $10 a night Star of the Sea resort – a basic place with cool pool and an entertaining Nepalese restaurant staff.
In the afternoon, after a nap and a swim, I went across the street to an Ayurveda clinic, got looked at by a doctor who was a bit too involved in the money side of things for my liking, and booked a 7 day course of treatment. Pain here we come; relief, hopefully, somewhere along the way.
After the hour and a half long appointment, buttocks kneaded, I staggered back across the dusty street, dodged the t-shirt salesmen, and showered off the oil before jumping into the pool. Swimming lengths in the peace of dusk, I heard an English voice say, “Good evening to you, sir!” Looking up I saw Johnny, a comic sideshow and dipsomaniac from Worthing, Sussex, swaying on static feet. Why he would attempt conversation with a stranger clearly otherwise engaged in swimming in the pool is something only he will ever know, and he continued chatting regardless.
“Spent 41 years at Glaxo Smith Kline,” he told me proudly, chest puffed out. “Don’t like to talk about it, but I was there for 41 years. Spent those 41years standing up, I did. Didn’t sit down once. Never had a day off."
It went on like this even when I was at the other end. “Don’t like to talk about it, but I worked in a charity shop last year. Kept me out of the pub, though I don’t like to …”
For the rest of my stay, he would appear from nowhere to give updates on his state of inebriation, completely uninterested in anything anyone else had to say. The waiters kept their distance and the other guests ran a mile. At times like this, it feels great to be sober.