GOA WAGA RAGA NAGA!

Goa-waga-raga-naga! So this is what all the fuss has been about? Travellers and old timers, freaks of yoga and meditation, Indian yuppies, trance heads, fat European tourists swilling beer on the beach and this year, lots of Russians – there's an odd combination of people that converge here to live up to the clichés of Goa life.

I’m in Arambol, north of Goa. It's like being at a permanent festival, so I guess you could say I feel pretty much at home. Ask me what I did yesterday and I'd have to think real hard about it. Been in Goa about three weeks, but its difficult to keep track of time. It took me two weeks to get off my arse to find the post office and getting to the internet cafe can become one of the most laborious tasks when all you want to do is just be. Days melt into each other and I'm floating through time with a silly grin stuck to my face. In the beginning I'd get spells where I'd freak out with thoughts that screamed, “I should be doing something constructive, not just sitting here smoking chillums all day!” It's actually hard work doing nothing, but take my word for it, it does get easier and regular counseling sessions that consist of gassing with all those in the same boat, do help. I don't know what I'm doing tonight, tomorrow or next week, so don't even bother asking me.

Goa is a special place
Arambol, the place I’m at right now is the place I want to be and I can see why people are here. It has a very special energy. I see myself in the eyes of the people that I attract. I feel a powerful connection with people. I'm a Blue Crystal Storm on the Mayan calendar, so perhaps that explains it. I'm a hurricane in this town when it comes to communication and people. Sometimes I don't even have to try, I only have to stand there and before I know it, I've made some kind of connection, be it sexual, spiritual, intelligent, heartfelt, emotional, friendly, creative or business. It's like looking into a mirror, generating a greater level of self-awareness and consciousness. It's what I was aiming for, and to discover this in Goa is a privilege and a pleasure.

Trance Parties
Trust me to land in Goa the year the Indian government decides to ban music after 10pm. A couple of so-called terrorists were caught in Vasco de Gama kitted out with Kalashnikovs etc… so military police have been combing the beaches with their funny-looking world war two rifles. The odd helicopter has also been seen hovering about. It'll probably blow over in a couple of months, but the local businesses have been affected. Agonda in the south was not so busy, but I guess it's nicer that way. Despite the beautiful beach, I didn't really take to Agonda much. It was too quiet and the people too cliquey and the sea too calm. I like Arambol, yeah!

Parties at clubs and beaches have still been going on though and I found myself at one on a beach at Shiva Valley recently. Music was so-so, with DJ chopping it up with too many changes, but it was full of plenty of trance nuts, speckled with groups of tourists making an effort to absorb the scene and of course, an abundance of rich young Indians from Mumbai, Banglore and Delhi.

It’s weird to see Indians of India playing up to the psytrance scene and all its happy clappy values about love and spirituality when they live in a country that is regressing in terms of poverty as much as it is progressing in terms of technology. I spoke to one guy about this but he didn't have much of a response, quite possibly because the poor thing was tripping off his nut as I interrogated him...

Hill Top and West End are the two major venues for psytrance parties. I've been to both. Sped off into the night on the back of a bike with a guy called Dave the other week to celebrate Russian New Year at the West End. It was a disaster. The only thrill was getting to the place at top speed, the wind practically ripping the features off my face the entire ride. Too many Russians, twisted and contorted with drugs, and a few yuppie Indians on too much speed. It was shite and I'm not going back. Stark difference in contrast to the pumping daytime party on Sunday afternoon at Hill Top with its sexy psytrance, cool outdoor venue and positive people vibes. Noticed the best parties finish earlier as they're not being run by the rackets that swamp Goa with drugs, arms and prostitutes, which means they probably can't afford to pay the local police extortionate sums of baksheesh (bribes) to break the license law. Investigations underway so watch this space...

Juggling Convention
Juggling convention took place the other week. We sat on beach and watched two globe-headed funksters balance crystal balls on their heads. A rasta boy played a dome-come-UFO-shaped steel instrument from Switzerland known as a Hang Drum, and the silhouettes of pois dancers and jugglers were beautiful as the sea sparkled in the orange glow of the setting sun. The finale was meant to take place the following day but was cancelled with organiser Tom arrested for refusing to pay baksheesh. It cost 70,000 rupees to bail him out. He preferred to have stayed another night in jail just to make a point, but he was a wanted man both in and outside jail – wanted on the outside in the positive context of course.

Permission for event had been granted by the chief superintendent but someone had gone to the top and the complaint filtered down the channels leading to his arrest. Indian police play the dirtiest games and this boils down to the ground-level contact they have with citizens. It's a power trip, even amongst car park attendants and the most miniscule of official positions, giving them importance in their petty government roles. There is a lack of trust and money is the only thing that talks if you want to get anything done. The Russian New Year party stormed on for 48 hours. Doesn't take a genius to figure out how and why. It's such a contrast to the love and spirituality that reigns in India, contradicting the values of Mother India and all that she stands for, contradicting everything that the world's biggest democracy stands for. How can India be the world's biggest democracy when the sheer size of her population serves as bait for corruption? Where is the democracy in that amongst the majority of the 1.2 billion people that are being manipulated with the most common official weapon, baksheesh? Where is the love in that? There is no connection between the spirituality that you can literally visualize rising from Indian soil and the extortionate level of corruption. Still, as a friend suggested, and I am inclined to agree with him, India still is the last safe haven on earth before the complete annihilation of the planet settles in.

Tom got out of jail just a few days ago and the artists of the juggling convention put on a grand finale just last night at the Psybar here in Arambol. A point was made and next year's juggling convention has already been arranged. Power to the people!

Anjuna
German girl Nora and myself hitched lift from boring, straight, event-less Agonda to Anjuna with some film director guy. Think he's meant to be famous, a fact that became a little obvious when he asked, “Do you know my name?” He might as well have said, “Do you know who I am?” I refused to feel stupid in his imposing, patronizing presence, although we did appreciate his offer of a roof over heads and of course the lift at the back of his open-top four wheel drive monster of a car.

Walking along the beach in Anjuna, I bump into my Portuguese friend, Tiago and his Slovakian girlfriend, Natalia. I worked with them at the Boom Festival last year, so it was a surreal moment, totally unexpected! Also bumped into Hugo, one of the photographers from Boom, plus met a crazy Finnish couple, Anika and Yari who became my surrogate parents. They have this dry, wicked sense of humour. We embarked upon a pretty cool adventure together when we walked back along the rocky coastline from Vagator to Anjuna, getting back just as the tide was coming in. Nuts, the pair of them! Advice: Try not to walk over three kilometers of giant rocks after smoking a jay.

Anjuna beach was packed with bodies and bars such as Janet and John's, and reminded me of the Costa del Sol, but in a more exotic environment. The beach didn’t really do it for me, so it became more a case of people rather than place. The interactive vibe between complete strangers from different walks of life is what really inspires me. I guess you could call me a people person. I love my space, but I also like to interact with people and my inquisitive nature has helped me to build some nice connections. Certain people became regular friends over a period of days and it felt like I’d known some of them for more than just those few days. I felt this way with Anika and Yaris in particular. Tiagi and Natalia, I only knew from working at the Boom, but it was magic to bump into them on the other side of the world and spend some quality time getting to know them even better.

The market in Anjuna was also good fun. I hung out with two beautiful German girls and we had fun with the stall holders, telling all their customers to “come look my shop.” It's a shopper's paradise and if you're on a budget like me, then it can be kinda hellish to walk past some 2000 stalls bursting with goodies. I bought some magic body paint and ankle chains.

Arambol – the cake at the end of the tunnel
A week in Anjuna was enough to satisfy my appetite. So here I am in Arambol, the final point in Goa that I was aiming to reach. It's like being at a permanent festival. Travelers rather than tourists seem to flock to this place. Dreadlocks, mohicans, mullets, hippy chicks and pretty trance girls all over the place, everyone sporting sinbad trousers, funky tops and bindis.

I've only been in Arambol a couple of days, yet I've already become a bonafide resident, living in a funky house with two highly spiritually fine-tuned people near a big purple house not far from the Magic Park. It's worked out perfectly in so many respects, I feel blessed that the opportunity came my way.

I don’t want to cheat myself of India by staying here continuously, so the plan is to keep Goa as a cool base from which I can bounce to places such as Anantapur and Tamil Nadu. My time in the south should be done by April, by which time I hope to head for Richikesh and Himachal Pradesh.

I've only been in Arambol a couple of days but I feel like I have done plenty, including finding the post office and taking a mud bath at the sweet water lake. Went there the other day with a guy called Paul from Cambridge and we sat around on the rocks smoking a joint, listening to the sound of the water, the birds and watching wildlife. It was bliss. Next mission is to get to Paradise Beach, which falls under the state of Maharashtra. It's meant to be stunning and I think a few of us will be heading that way on bikes in the next day or so.

According to my flatmate and her Mayan calendar, I'm a blue storm crystal, which is something resembling a hurricane, a whirl wind, a typhoon, that whizzes about at a speed that defies the laws of nature. So I guess I need to work with that energy. It may help me to find what I am looking for. To be happy is no easy feat. It has to be worked at. I think I'm in the best place to do this and I feel blessed by the gods that I am here to try and figure it all out.