Beaches

For the last 3 weeks or so I have been living on various beaches, sleeping in huts that are made of paper and enjoying the ocean...
The beach, or rather the waves have been more fun than I can remember and I keep diving into them, getting knocked over and floating on my back when it is a little calmer.  One of the neatest things I have seen, or maybe noticed for the first time, is how the water comes at you.  It might be due to the very gradual slope of the beach, but after you stand knee deep for a while, a wave will come and after it you are waist or chest deep.  It is like a wall of water (not tsunami size, just under a meter) coming at you.  It is a neat effect to look at, very similar to canoeing up to a beaver dam, you can see the higher level of water just behind the dam, sitting there....
Hopefully your imagination can make that as neat for you as it is for me... If not imagine something else really cool and dwell on that for a bit...  Ill give you a sec!



Ok, so this whole area is something of a little Italy... there are pizza and pasta restaurants everywhere and the 'western' food is better quality than the Indian...  One has to work hard for a tasty Indian meal here.

The first beach area was Gokarna, where there are 4 beaches, one more remote than the next, lots of guest houses, restuarants, hippies, and Indian men there too look at all the female white skin they can take in.   It is a little gross and I am happy to not have to worry about it...I may never be able to give birth but I can rest on the beach without some dirty man sneaking pictures of me.

From Gokarna I (along with Sarah my pretend wife in public to help her with these men)  went to Goa.  This is a Portuguese colony, and the architecture sure proved it!  We started in one of the main cities whose name I forget and it was beautiful. It was like colonial Mexico, and it was clean!  People were friendly and not staring and a good time was had.

*Tangent
I was reminded that on the way to Goa we had a few hour stop over in Bangalore, and a funny thing happened... I was walking on a pedestrian overpass, and an Indian guy was walking towards me and he touched my chest and then my face!  It was a little weird, but apparently not too rare, I just wish I had been quicker to touch his face too.... I think that is the best way to deal with it, although normally it is just stares and it is fun to stare back...
*end tangent


We headed to Anjuna beach, which had some party music...got to dance to the trance which was lots of fun...This was where the 'Goa Trance' scene started and fluo-dreaded hippies dance-stomped across the planet!  It was my own personal haj that is now comlete... (sorry no glo sticks)

After Anjuna we went to Arombol, a quieter beach but quite similar, and I got divorced!  My pretend wife headed on her way and I stayed to enjoy some more Tom Robbins books and the sea....