Subtitle Brits Abroad
Sub-sub title Silently Screaming
It happened. We went on the Package Holiday of Hell. It was stupidity. If we had thought a bit more, and had not spent the entire autumn being so bloody knackered, we could so easily have avoided it.
I recall the best holidays as being USA 99 and Cuba 01. Independence and spontaneity. And almost total avoidance of Brits abroad.
Not that I'm adopting a tone of moral superiority. I was one of those Brits Abroad. It left me with a distaste and a slight self-loathing. I filled in the Customer Dissatisfaction Surveys - No I really don't want to socialise with other holidaymakers from UK and Ireland when on holiday. Nothing personal: we conversed with some very nice, interesting, pleasant, and amusing people; I felt a strong rapport with one person. Even many of the people who 'weren't my type' were okay, not impacting on me except when I chose to people-watch. And utterly prejudiced - if I never hear another Liverpool-Runcorn-Warrington-Widnes accent again in my life, it will still be too soon.
Calangute is an absolute hole of a resort. Brash, overcrowded and over-commercialised. Horrible to move around on foot; worse to move around by vehicle - fortunately the taxis were extraordinarily cheap. And the restaurants were unbelievably excellent. After Seven, Roma and A Reverie were as good as, if not better, than any restaurant I have been in in London, New York etc, and, imported wine aside, so incredibly cheap. Beach shacks and small Tibetan restaurants provided food much better than almost any High Street in Britain. Surely there has to be more to a holiday than spending all day baking on a sun-lounger on a beach - interspersed with wave jumping in the most glorious swell off golden beaches - and all evening in (often) European-style restaurants. The highlight was the three nights we spent sleeping in a treehouse on Aswem Beach a (relatively) quiet tropical beach, really quite close to paradise.
Towards the end of the two weeks we jointly and separately kicked ourselves for not hiring a scooter and using it to explore the back lanes, to properly discover some of the most breathtakingly gorgeous scenery imaginable. We were put off by the traffic nightmare that was Calangute and Candolim, plus the absence of insurance and crash helmets. I became very jealous of the freedom that all the adventurous people had. But no camera is needed for me to recall the most beautiful sunset as we crossed the Chapora River.
I was fascinated at the seemingly wild cattle that wandered down every street and beach lugubriously minding their own business. More fascinating was watching the semi-wild dogs that scavenge in packs. Amazing to see how they patrolled their territory and communicated in a medley of barks, surely actively communicating messages with meaning. Longterm readers will know that I am not a dog person. And on this holiday I discovered something interesting about dogs.
Pet dogs take a dislike to me. I try to rationalise it as being a circle of fear - knowing that the dogs will sense my fear causes to me send them signals of fear. It has amazed and perplexed serious conscientious disciplined dog-owners for many years. Twice this happened in Goa; on both occasions the dogs were domesticated animals, one belonging to a specific family down the road from our hotel, one belonging to an aging European hippy who took it for walks on Aswem beach. Otherwise the wild, but human-dependent dogs roaming the streets and beaches ignored me as I was happy to ignore them. Now I have to find out the reason why. It could be a major breakthrough in the field of psychology...!
The most fascinating aspect was the pack instinct of the dogs. And of the humans. For years it has troubled me, not understanding why humans choose to crowd out other humans when there are acres of space from which to choose*
Episode 1: at the poolside bar. We had returned from a hard day tanning, and had paused for a quick drink before showering and changing for a hard evening's dining. Of a dozen or so tables, two were occupied, with a barrier empty table between them. We sat at the far edge of the group of tables, leaving a clear eight tables for all newcomers. Five minutes later a group arrived and chose to sit right next to us. Pointedly, I moved away from them. The previous night, both men in the group had provided mirth to most of the rest of the guests as they failed to walk across the floor without falling over (one finally split his head open and had to go to hospital). I had heard that earlier one of the men had physically threatened someone without any obvious provocation. (He had made the mistake of attacking a younger fitter man who hinted that he had put his youth behind him and wanted no trouble on holiday with his wife and children but could clearly look after himself)
Episode 2. On our one and only excursion, into the jungle to feed the monkeys and swim in the waterfalls, Jimmy and I were both taken ill, he with travel sickness, me with - you couldn't make it up - extreme constipation that suddenly manifested itself as waves of debilitating stomach cramps and nauseating fever. Too listless to progress further, we sat down on a rock, watched the waterfalls, and criticised the footwear of people that passed (when stumbling over rocks is it better to wear three inch platforms or flip flops? Is it better for your child to wear flip flops or three inch platforms?)
A woman passed by and realised that, in this entire jungle, this was obviously The Rock Where People Sit Down. So she sat down next to me and addressed me, really rather aggressively I thought (as another stomach cramp doubled me over and sent my temperature over 100), "They didn't tell us about this trek, did they?" I really don't like people putting words into my mouth; I also don't like the 'Blame Someone Else" culture, especially when I'm doubled over in excruciating pain and running a fever, so, haughtily, I replied, "Actually, they did..." and waggled my walking boots at her. She realised she had picked The Wrong Rock and The Wrong People To Sit With, and wriggled nervously away. Oh WTF, I hadn't chosen that rock for its sociability but because I was dying of what I had by then concluded was burst ovarian cysts, grumbling appendicitis, kidney failure, and possibly a f***ed pancreas mixed with a dose of hypochondria.
Episode 3: Asvem Beach. Quiet. Almost all of the visitors lying on sun-loungers, sleeping or reading, murmuring to their companions, interspersed with periodic visits to the sea for a spot of wave jumping. No thumpy-druggy-disco music. No great physical activity from anyone. One small patch of beach, with three rows of sun loungers. To the south, half a mile of deserted beach. To the north, mile upon mile of deserted beach. Arrive the group of loud people. The men immediately start to play football. Right in front of everybody's sun loungers. How bloody irritating. Thud, as the ball bounces on wet sand. Thud thud, shout. Scream. Be reasonable, I scolded myself, you cannot object to people playing football on a beach. Thud. Thud. Running footsteps. Shout. Scream. Rather hoping that one would come a cropper on the submerged rocks and concluding I was a grizzly old cow.
To lunch in the beach shack, and, unfortunately, they arrived soon after us, shouting their conversation of utter vacuous trite shite. On adjoining tables were a middle-aged hippyish looking couple; and a father with sons in late teenage. The latter group looked a bit non-middle-class, so the loudest of the loud party (who was wearing a pair of Speedos that were too physiologically correct for my liking, at lunchtime) approached the three guys and said
"Hey, where are you from, are you from Manchester?"
The sons never looked up from their books; coldly father said "Yes".
"Are you City or United?" asked Mr Loud.
"Does it matter?" replied father frostily and returned to his book (Jeremy Clarkson's biography). I later noticed a Manchester United tattoo, so, actually, it did matter. But not as much as chilling quietly with his sons, reading their books, having no wish to be adumbrated into the desperate socialising and attention-seeking of others. Please don't come over here, I prayed. But I think we, along with the aging hippies, were assessed and dismissed as weirdos.
Jimmy expressed his objection to their game of football, pointing out the long stretches of beaches in either direction. If the ball had hit him, he would have burst it and hit the nearest footballer (he says - I've never seen him hit anyone, despite his fervent promises...!). He concluded it was pure attention-seeking, and he was getting sick and tired of boring empty-headed people trying to include us into their group so that we could provide free entertainment to them.
I can only conclude that humans are no different from the semi-feral dogs, needing to roam with the pack, to mark out the communal territory. It's pure instinct. And my failing is that I never gravitate to the pack.
* I have never forgotten the summer of 76, Northumberland. Only our family could choose to holiday, during the long hot summer of drought, in the week when it rained. One day, there was a break in the rain, and, intrepidly we went down to the beach, and found our spot. Apart from us, and from the occasional dogwalker on the horizon, a massive expand of sand, as far as my eyes could see, was deserted for a number of hours. Until after lunch when another family arrived and sat down within feet of our family.
