Anjuna Beach

We headed for Anjuna beach and the famous Wednesday market today. Our bus was filled to the gills, was not air-conditioned, and kept stopping every few minutes to pick up more people. It was a fairly short ride – about an hour – so it wasn’t too bad. We arrived in Anjuna village drenched in sweat, and made our way to the market area through some back roads and fields.

The market is not what it used to be 25 years ago, when it was mostly western hippies selling stuff, playing western music, and generally having a good time. It has grown into a huge bazaar, with merchants coming from the neighbouring states to peddle their wares, and not a western salesperson in sight. It was still fun to look around and bargain hard. We were looking for some souvenirs and found everything that we were looking for, and bought them at a fraction of what they started asking. It definitely helped that I spoke Hindi with the sales people. At one store I asked the owner in Hindi to wait until the other foreigners had left before he gave me the Indian price. He laughed and told me Rs. 550, and I overheard his wife telling the “foreigners” Rs. 1200 for the same piece! We still ended up paying Rs. 400 for that piece, so these guys are making quite a profit from this market.

By noon the heat was getting almost unbearable, so we headed off to the beach, which was right next to the market. The waves were quite strong and the water was warm, but we cooled off a little and played in the waves for a while.

We had lunch at a restaurant on the beach, and even used their shower facilities to clean up before lunch. We had Goa’s famous fish curry with rice – yummy! It was so funny to see cows on the beach, actually using the umbrellas that hotels had set up for their guests! We noticed that one cow investigating the beach blanket of a couple who was having lunch in the same restaurant, and they ran out and tried to shoo it away. It was pretty funny, especially since it was happening to someone else!

The bus driver from this morning had told us he would be at our stop around 2:45 on his way back to Panjim, so we made our way to the bus stop. Sure enough, the bus came around, but he stopped every few minutes to try and get more passengers and it was getting a little annoying. We made it back to Panjim after an hour and a half and found comfort in the air-conditioned hotel room. Maybe tomorrow we will take a rickshaw or taxi instead of the bus. We’ll see.

NM