A to B - Bombay to Goa
Hopeful queuing produces tickets for the night train to Panjin. We leave Bombay's strangely St Pancras like station, on an overnight sleeper train and arrive at the Goan capital and rest the night. In the morning, we catch the bus, ford a river on a dingy ferry, and trundle into Arambol on the local bus, 4 hours later.

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We have to start with the view from our room. The multihued sunset between supple palms and dolphins leaping in mutual celebration. Indian movie music reaches our ears while the musky smells of the local insense trader hangs in the air.

The fishing village of Arambol, north Goa, reached by bus-bus-boat-bus from Panjim retains its working feel with slender wooden fishing boats lining the sweeping white sand of the main beach. On the fringe, groves of palm trees shelter the old Portuguese houses, homes for families with naked children running with semi-wild pigs.

Cafes and restaurants now jostle for space along the same shore line. The importance (imposition?) of tourism a juxtaposition never fully at ease with the traditional life. Tourists at this paradise at least however comprise returning devotees, old hippies and younger travellers seeking the original laid-back Goan vibe, not wanting to turn yet another peaceful village into packaged holidays blandness.

A rocky path leads to a second beach, coved by red volcanic rock with a clear water lake. Beyond the lake is hacked a pathway trough the deepening jungle. There can be found the sulphurous clay which once smeared on the body dries to lurid fluorescent green.

Hawkers comb the beach selling clothes and bags bright as their dresses, persistent to the edge of harassment but always with a smile and sense of fun. Fishing and our stories of the ones that got away contrast with the fishermen’s illegal nets indiscriminately sweeping the sea with an inescapable embrace. And yet their gestures remain ancestral, their boats copies of the past.

At night, the scene transforms to a swaying daisy chain of restaurant fairy lights inciting us to sample the richly spiced dishes and freshly caught shark.

And some nights, when all the stars are alien and the twisted crescent moon cups its own shadow, a spark streaks across the bay, an electrical charge energising the tip of the breaking surf.

Under these heavenly skies, old travellers remember the seventies when electricity and cars were unknown here. Every Wednesday, they still head for market day at Anjuna which foams with an abundance of stalls. Rich north Indian jewellery competes with intensely printed cloths, Goan dance tapes, loose cotton clothing, Tibetan resonant bowls and the haggling hordes. At sun set the market shifts to the Shore Bar with heavy trance music pounding with waves. Revellers gather on rough matting served "chai" by local women while exchanging experiences.

Returning at night, clinging to the back of a taxi bike along raw roads. Smells swiping our uncovered faces and the sky envelops with its dark sequin silk. The words of our palm reading guru lingered in mind and soul. Maddening trance music in the engines rhythm.

Arambol imprinted its own pace on us, transforming our twichiness into tranquillity.

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