Our Trip to Goa: Hippies, Hospitals, Heat Rash ....

and beaches... we can't forget Goa's beaches.

Never fear dear readers, neither of us had to be admitted to the hospital while we were in Goa - but unfortunately one of our new friends was ... but we'll get to that in a second.

Goa is like a little fantasy-land in India* with beautiful beaches, a relaxed local population, and imported western foods!!! We ate leafy green salads multiple times - and didn't get sick! We had pesto pasta and fancy cheeses! Having sauteed tofu and tempeh over brown rice with Thai peanut sauce and steamed vegetables felt more like the Laughing Seed in Asheville, North Carolina than anywhere else in India.... it was like we were in California!

Hippies
Actually, the number of foreign ex-pats and tourists also made it feel a lot like California. We met travelers from Australia, France, the US, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Libya, etc....

We were there to spend time with our friend Neptune and his mom Gypsie ... and their community of fellow ex-pats, Goa's die-hard hippies. Some of these folks have had their home base in Goa since the 1970's ... some are more recent transplants ... but all of them share a love of hanging out at the beach and enjoying a life without strict rules or expectations... maybe now is the time for the beach ... maybe now would be a great time for a nap... maybe now would be a good time to eat... maybe now would be a great time to watch the sunset.

Many of them are retired or if they are still working they focus their energies on things like the Wednesday Market or Saturday Night Market ... or performances they've scheduled in Goa or around India (like Neptune) ... but let's just say their hours are definitely not 9 to 5.

Wednesday Market in Goa

For those of you that don't know, Allen and Neptune met at circus camp (Camp Winnarainbow), a performance art camp for kids, almost six years ago. They bonded over their mutual love of juggling, unicycle riding, tabla, and performing (read: generally being hams). Neptune was actually born and raised in Goa - though, as the son of a self-proclaimed gypsy, he has spent a lot of time traveling around the world and generally would escape India's monsoon months in California at circus camp... thus a more natural performer you have never seen!

The skill he is particularly famous for is unicycle riding - I swear, this boy rides the unicycle like it is a part of him ... add his mad juggling and poi skills and you have the making of a pretty serious act. In fact, he gets work all over India as word of his performances have spread. He even put together an impromtu performance for his own birthday party!

The audience awaits...

Mad skills!

We had so much fun just hanging out with these folks. It was such a different pace of life from our "normal life" in Lucknow! Still on India-Standard-Time (read: Things happen when they happen) ... but so much less stressful or hectic. This really was the perfect break from ... well, from India, really.

Hospitals
Reality did find a way to sneak itself into this trip: a fellow friend of Neptune's, who was also from out of town, got really really sick on our second day in Goa. Things had started off so sweetly, all of us playing at the beach ... hanging out at a beach-side chai stall till sunset ... but by the next morning she had a fever of 104 degrees and wasn't able to hold water. Despite early visits to the doctor, after three days she wasn't getting any better. So the decision was finally made to take her to a local hospital where we learned she had food poisoning and an intestinal infection (something she had probably picked up weeks earlier and was only now hitting her). She was told to stay for at least three days, but potentially up to five days... which totally blew everyone away when we heard it... spending three days in an Indian hospital! Wow!

So we did our best to keep her spirits up ... Neptune frequently spent the night at the hospital with her and we called her sister who came from Bangalore to also keep an eye on her ... we brought her iPods, a computer, and the first two Harry Potters ... but, we couldn't really change the fact that she needed to be resting in a hospital under the supervised care of professionals.

So this is now our second experience with Indian hospitals and I gotta say, I'm still not very impressed. The first hospital was larger, newer and amazingly cleaner (despite the bugs) ... The hospital our friend in was staying at was older, dingier, and had definitely seen better days. But where the second hospital really shined was in its attentive staff: the nurses really took care of her, telling jokes and even offer to sleep in the same room with her while she slept. The staff generally was interested in keeping her comfortable - which was such a blessing.

That said, we were all really struck by how she paid her hospital bill at the end of her stay. She had a conversation with the head doctor about how much she would be charged. He gave her a hand written receipt that added up (surprisingly evenly) to 6,000 rupees. She said that was much too much for her to pay, but could he give her a "round number" in the 5,000 rupee range. And he agreed to a 10% discount and they settled for 5,400 rupees. We had no idea you could also haggle your hospital bills down! We told her the price seemed decent, given she had stayed there at least three nights and was getting so much saline and antibiotic solutions - Allen's four hour stay back in September cost us about 2,000 rupees. She said that was because of the color of our skin and the fact that we hadn't bargained (I should explain that she's from Bangalore). She said that the doctors generally size up a patient and ask for what they think the patient can pay. She thought that if she had been Goan then the price would have been much lower. I have to keep reminding myself this is a free country and the "rules" can be applied in an arbitrary fashion given the circumstances.

Totally unbelievable.

Heat Rash
Yes, yes, my heat rash was back with a vengeance. Though in all fairness, it was pretty stupid of us on the first day to get to the beach around 11:30am and stay out all day until sunset. Allen and I are pretty convinced that I suffer from what we're calling "boiling frog syndrome" - the change in temperature is too drastic for my skin and so I get something more than just heat rash ... yes, there is some aspect of it that starts off as heat rash ... but when I start getting rash like bumps on the back of my hands, for instance, it isn't about too much sweat...

We figured out ways to minimize my discomfort, the most important being that we would hit the beach early and get out of there before 11am and would spend the entire day indoors taking frequent cold water shower to cool off.

By the time we left Goa (of course) my bumps/rash was basically under control. We figure that if I had had another week or so they would have been completely gone. Oh well, next time I guess we won't be so stupid on our first day.


So all in all we would say our trip to Goa was a success ... not without its excitement ... but it was amazing being in fantasy-land for a week. Thank you to all our friends there who made this trip so wonderful for us!
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* Sorry Mom and Dad for not taking you to south India, which we can confirm is "India Lite"