So, the pace of life in Goa is very slow. This is most excellent when you want to decompress, as I did during my first week here, but it can verge on becoming a bit dull if you linger... 3 weeks definitely qualifies as lingering. Plus, I hurt my hamstring during an especially vigorous Kurmasana assist, so I've been somewhat indifferent to my Ashtanga practice since. Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting back to a city early next week when we fly to Pune-- and from there I fly to Chennai on 2 February and on to Shanghai on 1 March.
Meanwhile, planning an activity every day in addition to yoga practice has become mandatory so that the days don't degenerate into tedium. Sunday me and my friend-- who henceforth will be referred to as "Princess" -- were looking for something to do, as not only did we not have an extra activity planned, but we were both taking a day off from our yoga practice. So we decided to start off with a leisurely lunch and then figure it out from there. We left the guesthouse and began walking to a nearby restaurant, and were almost immediately accosted by an Indian dude in his early 20s who assured us that he wasn't selling anything, but was in fact giving out free prizes as part of a promotion for a resort located in Baga, one town over from Anjuna. I opened my prize, a free one hour cruise. No biggie. However, Princess opened up her prize and discovered that she had won one of 4 things-- 7 days in Bali, 7 days accommodation (in Goa, Thailand or Bali), an iPod or one other minor prize. The young Indian's face lit up, and he claimed that we had just made his day because he was going to get paid for this and wow! was he excited. Sensing a scam but wanting to kill time, we complied and he immediately escorted us into a taxi and took us to the resort.
On the way to the resort, he began hammering us with questions, and was a bit dismayed when he discovered that Princess and I were only friends, he had obviously assumed that we were a couple. He kept asking the question, as if he couldn't believe the answer. "She's very difficult", I mumbled, by way of explanation. Princess laughed. Our young Indian salesman insisted that he pretend to be a couple, and furthermore that we not mention that we were going to other places in India and instead say that we were only on vacation for 3 weeks, exclusively in Goa, that we were not backpackers, that I was working full-time and that we had been going out for 4 years. He kept revisiting these details, quite concerned that we were able to lie accurately and convincingly-- most likely his job would be on the line if management discovered the lie.
We had to fill out some paperwork when we got to the resort, which was indeed very nice and plush by Goan standards, much more opulent than our guesthouse. Then our guide showed up to give us our tour, and just as we began, I remembered that a friend of mine who had just left Goa had mentioned that he and his GF had gone on a tour in which they were given a time share presentation, which of course meant that the carrot they were dangling in front of us-- Princess' prize-- was probably bullshit and that this whole charade was a waste of time. Still, it was relatively painless and the hour we were mandated to spend with the guide passed fairly quickly, with the occasional lie invented on the spot to season the chit-chat. He gave us some vague details about their product, which was essentially a time share that promised to give us excellent rates on resorts all over the world. Eventually our guide, realizing he was getting absolutely nowhere with us, did his best to cut the interview short. We were starting to get hungry and soon what had started out as an amusing diversion was getting old. After another series of bureaucratic exercises, we got to the end of the line where we were to find out what Princess had won. The prize brochure had one of those scratchable entries like with the lotto, and to our amazement and borderline disgust, one of the Indian dudes working for the resort brandished a grotesquely long fingernail and scratched off the covering to reveal Princess' prize-- 7 days accommodation in Thailand, Goa or Bali. Which was probably the standard prize, they most likely assumed that most people-- due to constraints on claiming the prize-- would never bother to collect.
We got into the cab home, driven by the affable Udai, who had an extra finger on the side of his right thumb and for some reason decided to drive us home through this tiny village that probably had no running water, which aside from the cars on the tiny road, could have looked almost exactly the same 200 years ago. From opulence to third world poverty and then back to the beach -- all included within our vacation package!!1! We finally made it to lunch, and the afternoon was almost derailed when I realized I had lost my cell phone in the cab, but then on our way home we ran into the twentysomething Indian dude who gave us the original resort pitch, and he took me back to the resort and to eleven-fingered Udai, who returned my cell phone for the low, low price of 100 rupees.
Time killed: 3 hours.
K is going to be upset when she reads this.. knowing you are already calling someone else Princess!
Posted by: Geetu | January 24, 2008 at 07:30 AM