Ruth's Odyssey

Our intrepid travel correspondent, Ruth Bunclark, spent some time in India, here are her reports.

Part 2 - 21st February 2001

"We're in Calcutta! We caught a train on Saturday morning and arrived in Calcutta on Monday afternoon, its Wednesday and I still feel spaced out. Calcutta is pretty much what I expected, it defies description really, the train we caught was from the south-west and now we're in the north-east, so its very different here.

Next we're going to Varanasi, where the main attraction for travellers are the funeral pyres, you can also go on a boat trip, but the river is where they throw the burning corpses. not really looking forward to it, but its easier to get to Nepal from there. We're both really looking forward to that, yesterday we watched a film, vertical limit? or something, set in the Himalayas, I've always wanted to go. We're going on a short hike before we sign up for anything more adventurous, lots of people do 2 week ones, but I want to see if I'm strong enough first. Ah, memories of the d of e...." - Ruth Bunclark

Part 1 - 11th February 2001

"We left England 2 months ago. We flew to Bombay and were confronted with teaming Indian life; heat, pollution, chaos, decrepit buildings, pungent smells, beggars, dealers, rich people, destitute people, stray dogs, cows, rats and a few travellers. We caught the train down to Goa as fast as we could.

We stayed in Goa for 6 weeks, including the climactic high season of Christmas and New Year. We began in Baga, near Calingute, the epicentre of festivities. It was packed with people on two-week package holiday benders, hell-bent on having a good time. Taxis, rickshaws and tourists zoom around the treacherous roads looking for parties and adventure. Travellers live out their 'Easy Rider' fantasies on classic Enfield motorbikes with Hells Angels' handlebars. One person a day dies on the roads of Goa, in every resort we visited we saw people sporting bandages, bruises and broken limbs. Some of the clubs felt like a Freshers Week disco, but with sunburn and more exposed flesh.

There is another, more chilled out, aspect to Goa which converges in Anjuna. There was a trance party in the bamboo forest there on Christmas Eve. The only party I've ever been to with children begging on the dancefloor.

After a month, we travelled to the south of Goa, where beachlife consists of crabs and starfish. Palolem is the last resort of Goa, before the state border. It's hidden at the back of the Lonely Planet's guide to Goa. Blink and we could have missed it, although it's far from underpopulated. Calingute probably looked a bit like this before they chopped the trees down to build hotels. We couldn't leave. This is what we had hoped to find. A long crescent of white(ish) sand with a canopy of coco trees and a headland at either side.

One day we waded out to one of the headlands and came across a hippie in a hammock. He has lived in a commune in Palolem for the last 25 years teaching Reiki, Yoga and Meditation courses. When he and his friends arrived they were the only inhabitants on the deserted beach besides a few Goan fishermen. They have gradually been squeezed out to make room for enterprises catering for tourists they now inhabit an area hidden behind a rock, isolated from the main beach by a stretch of shallow water. Accommodation in Palolem currently consists of bamboo huts nestled amongst coconut groves, but Calingute style concrete development will no doubt follow. The hippies will find themselves squeezed even further out into the trees." - Ruth Bunclark

To find Ruth's destinations on the maps click on one of the Thumbnails -