What goes around comes around

Having just turned 24, I visited Goa for the first time. A few years prior to that, I came to know through books and friends that Goa was the place where Portuguese and Indian cultures had mixed more intensively. I figured we (Goa and me) had necessarily a lot in common since we were both the result of an indo-portuguese marriage. Naturally, by the time I set foot in Goa, my expectations about the place were running very high.

This marriage, although agitated and ending in a messy divorce, had originated beautiful fruits. Fruits of singular beauty - a beauty not always apparent but sensed and discovered. A beauty entangled with irresistable stories...the stories that spring fourth from the encounter between East and West.

The stories of this encounter - in which I include my own story - mesmerize me more and more. Although the stories often have a violent or painful backdrop, they also inlude precious moments of travelling, home coming and...biteer-sweet moments of homesickness.

Moments of adventure.

When I set foot in Goa for the first time, having just turned 24, I literally ran back inside the airport. Having realised there was no one to pick me up, I had to escape a mob of excited taxi drivers who, in the thick of the monsoon station, were really in need of customers.
Back inside the airport, I called my contact. He gave me the proper instructions and directions concerning the taxi voyage.

There was some suspicious stuff at the pre-paid counter...I later realised they overcharged me something like 30rps.

That first drive from Dabolim to Taleigão left a deep imprint in my memory...everything was covered with a layer of green so...green it almost hurt the eyes to look at. The sun shone vigorously through the clouds. The ambassador slowly cruised along the Zuari riverfront...

...I knew then that Goa would not only live up to my expectations but greatly surpass them.

It still does.