Before meeting Michael in the airport terminal, I knew 2 things about him immediately. The first was that he was young and worked in IT. As we were traveling from Hyderabad to Goa, this wasn't so difficult to surmise. The second was that he was little crazy. The Hawaiin shirt and sway to his walk were solid tip-offs. "You are going to Goa?" he said to me in his thick Russian accent. I told him I was and we chatted. He was from a city near Moscow with an air strip and often went parachuting, for fun. The cross-country twin prop pulled up to the terminal gate and he said, "Perhaps we will parachute from this airplane."
Michael, or traditionally "Misha" as Becca dub him, was on a 3 day holiday before returning to Moscow via Frankfurt over Dec. 25. Although, I learned over dinner the next night, this was not such a big deal as he celebrated the Orthodox Christmas in early January. We shared an empty row on the ultra-cheap Deccan airlines, where you pay 20 rupees for your peanuts and the guy by the exit row jokes around with the female attendant about opening the emergency exit on the tarmac.
We touched down over the endless miles of palm fringed beaches and green sea and split a cab with a salty Isreali woman who been coming to Goa every winter for 8 years. I'd booked a place at the Orange House in Anjuna, in the center of Goa, where hippies converged in the late 60s and have been partying ever since. The Orange House lived up to its name with a fresh coat and white trim, and the room had a spectacular balcony that looked out on "downtown" Anjuna - which consisted soley to of a Church (Goa has been Christian since Portuguese Colonial times) and 2 grocery stores Oxford & Orchard. The former being a nice upmarket option where, over the course of the week, I picked up fresh chocolate croissants, imported goat cheese and fresh focaccia pizza.
Without further ado, Misha rented a scooter and we were bumbling down unpaved roads toward Anjuna beach, with the steady thump of techno music growing louder as we approached. On our way, we passed through the bamboo skeleton of the Wednesday Flea Market, with empty stalls illuminated in the moonlight for a few kilometers, before the road emptied into the parking lot of the deserted Chaikoffsky's Cafe. Misha was ecstatic. He'd already found a Russian spot and was ready to wait all night for his countrymen to show up, but I convinced him to follow me to Curlie's - an Isreali hangout a few meters down the rocky, unlit beach (ouch!).
So we came up on this mad rave scene about 2 hours after touching down in Goa. The hippie legends appeared to be true, if mutated in this electronic form. There were a few hundred people dancing and laid out on straw mats on the beach, watching the moonlit waves, and collapsed in bambo chairs in a dusty, smoky haze. Actually, the scene was a little gross - I hate to rehash the stereotype but everybody looked liked they needed a shower. But I met a few interesting people, including Bobby, this British girl with dyed dark red hair and Edward, a Swedish guy with a puff-up haircut.
The place was predominantly Isrealis, but they were anti-social. It's the right of passage to come to India after serving in the Isreali military and they come mostly hell-bent on partying hard with themselves. Actually, they've caused quite a big problem with disrespect to the locals and even the Knesset has debated on how to improve Isreal's image in India. Later I did meet one really likeable Isreali though, Misha, and we played a few intense games of backgammon later that week.
My first night, I called it in early. Misha and I had had a few Kingfisher beers (worse than Bud, it's all that's available in most bars) and set out for a late night snack. We winded up at Tin Tin in Tibet, having the most amazing grilled tiger prawns with lime. They were giants, about 8 inches, and only $1.50!
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