Goan' native

Ok, let's make this quick. I've managed to crawl from out the lap of luxury and I estimate that I have about an hour before I start suffering serious withdrawal. Twenty yards away down a tarmac strip (perhaps the only one in town) a glittering sea beckons, shuttling playfully between golden sands and the fishing boats beyond...

There is one reason why this startling act of bravery and self-denial on my part is necessary - namely, to wrest this blog of mine back from a certain hijacker we all know and occasionally talk to and perhaps sometimes borrow money from: my father! It's my opinion that he got perhaps a little too comfortable in the driver's seat and so, first and foremost, I'd like to stamp my personality on things once again. Here, then, are a list of my favourite things: marmite, arguing, grumpy old people, wishy-washy theoretical debates, doing as little as possible on a beach in western India...

That's right, blog 17 or 18 or whichever number we're on finds this particular intrepid traveller fearlessly paddling his feet under a clear blue sky, clinging for dear life to an immensely dangerous bottle of beer. I'm in Goa, known variously as the Ibiza of India, the Mediterranean of the East, the Big Beach and the Which Part of England Are You From? Let me say this right out: Goa is utterly unlike the rest of India. For a start, it's Portuguese. While the rest of the nation was wading to freedom in Gandhi's salt march, this little enclave was fighting separately to rid itself of seventeenth-century conquerors, though probably in a much more easy-going way involving lilos and marijuana. Divided from British India by a range of forest-covered mountains called the Sahyadri (though only twelve hours by train today from British Bombay), Goa essentially houses a different culture, with an entirely different set of influences. Take, for instance, the local fascination with football. While the average Indian might, if pushed, meekly eject "Manchester United" or even "David Beckham", the Goans live and breathe football. I've given up explaining that, though I'm from near Manchester, I don't support man United, because it's quite obvious that the concept of anybody at all not supporting Man United is completely alien to them. Another thing: the place is full of churches. The majority of the Goan population proper, indeed, is Christian, but what with the influx of traders from all over India keen to work the tourists Christians now only number one third or so of all living in this tiny state.

So I've gone from one beach full of ageing hippies to another. Puri, where, as Dad can testify, the oddballs roamed free, to Goa, to where they run the bars and restaurants. En route I went to see another, prettier oddball named Dixie, where I had the chance to sample some lovely cuisine and even take a ten mile hike around the housing development estates of Raipur! Sadly, Goa isn't the kind of place that you get the glimpses into village life we got while walking home from the Hotel Babylon, where kids offered us a bitter fruit and the adults stared with obvious fascination on their faces. Your average Goan is jaded and underappreciative of your attempts to speak Hindi - and this, more than anything, is why I'm not in favour of the place. The rickshaws and taxis charge silly prices, because they're used to receiving silly money from silly people, here for their two weeks' worth of boozing. Although occasionally the natural Indian propensity for immediate, intimate conversation shines through - take Raj, for instance, cleaner at out group of huts, who is obsessed with any kind of woman and takes every opportunity to make inappropriate and highly personal remarks.

In general, with the exception of Raj, the Indians who work in the resorts are less childish in their attitudes to sex than others I have encountered elsewhere. Innured, maybe. Because that's right, Goa is of course a place where the bikini is king - a far cry from Puri, in British India, where the poor Indian women had to bathe in saris while their menfolk cavorted around in comfortable swimshorts. The Indian men from outside Goa stand out a bit more here. In fact, this is just another place where western and British-Indian attitudes towards the female body clash uncomfortably - the number of rape cases is reportedly rising in commercialised Goa. Hilariously, disgustingly, I've discovered that travel agents actually run coach tours from other parts of India for male Indians to see the western women on the beach. You see them everywhere, parties of men in suit trousers tottering along, sheepishly agog. It's certainly one of the sadder sides of cultural interchange.

In terms of monuments and landmarks, I hoped that Goa, being so different, might offer a fascinating glimpse of a civilisation to rival the British-built cities of Kolkata and Mumbai. It was a disappointment to discover that this isn't the case. Believe me, I entered Goa with every intention of gorging myself on cathedrals and old, cobbled towns, but our one day trip to Old Goa (the former capital) ended in disappointment with only a few half-hearted town halls and semi-dilapidated churches to add to our picture collections. It seems that conservation has been poor, and most of the religious finery is long since stolen.

Little left to do, then, but worship the sun instead. I met up with my uni buddies Gaz and Paul in Vagator, North Goa, a name synonymous with all-night parties. We found little to justify this reputation. Granted, there were a few fat white people with names like 'Kevin', but I'm sure that their ideas of a scene were different to ours. In fact, this brings me to the major downside of Goa - there are just too many bloody Brits. I'm all for meeting English abroad, indeed it can make for some quite pleasant conversations as you wryly compare notes on the culture gap. But when you've heard the fortieth barked request for 'three more beers', I'm telling you, you could quite easily go for the rest of your life without ever going home.

Vagator and surrounds, then, weren't really to our taste, but a few days ago we hopped down the coast to Palolem. If anything, this place is busier, but it lacks the loud bars and those clubs which look so depressing half-empty. The advantage of this place is that everything - literally, everything - is on the beach. Hotels, cafes, restaurants, shops, internet cafes. The three of us are staying in a hut about 100 yards from the sea - every morning/afternoon we wake up, stretch and walk out onto our little bamboo terrace, trying (not) to kick in the head whichever of us is sleeping on the floor. We go for breakfast, and gaze out to the where the surf tickles the shoreline. Days are spent on the beach, playing football or cricket. Yesterday, we caught a motorboat out to a tiny, deserted bay called Butterfly Beach. Nobody really around (except a chancer selling overpriced beer...India!) and for three hours we sported and sizzled. Been eating plenty of freshly-caught fish. All along the beach, at the better establishments, the catch is displayed and individually-priced. A suave waiter runs his hands over the fish, or picks them up and hefts them...300, 350 rupees.... Having selected, you choose your preferred method of preparation. The other day, i had a beautiful grilled silver mullet (must have been two feet long), while Paul plumped for tiger prawns from the tandoor. Tiger prawns large enough to choke a whale, that is.

Tomorrow, I think, we'll hire mopeds. As little as I trust myself on any road, anywhere, i've been observing these Indian drivers for three months now and I think I could just about hold my own (this is one thing that doesn't change as you cross the Sahyadri mountains - the driving!). At 300 ruperts a day it's a pretty expensive way of killing yourself, but by Goan prices this is probably quite reasonable and anyway, as I keep telling myself, it's a holiday. As in, it's a holiday-within-a-holiday. I've had a week now and I'm starting to itch a little for another of those chaotic Indian metropoles. Next, we're planning to head south to Kerala, the region of jungles and elephants and boat-rides into the heart of darkness, and then, who knows? I have the whole of southern India to explore. Better get my strength up first.