Just some vibes
December 26
“Taxi?” said the stranger at the airport. After a 30+ hour journey across several continents, Bianca and I had finally touched down. Now we were confronted by our first cross-cultural test. Who was this dude? A helpful agent or someone with an alternate agenda?
His question was innocent enough to be disarming, but through the fog of intercontinental jetlag, my scam-radar was turned on high alert. Back home, no one would approach you inside an airport to ask you if you need a cab. If someone does so, then they’re breaking the law, and that's how you know they're up to no good. So what was I to make of this fellow who seemed rather helpful?
“Yes…” I said tentatively.
“This way,” he said and then proceeded to grab my luggage.
His hand was on my luggage.
“It’s okay,” I said grabbing the handle myself. “I got it. Thank you.”
I felt terribly impolite, but I did not know who he was or why he was being so helpful. I had read somewhere that stuff like this could happen at some international airports, so it was better to nip it in the bud.
We followed the stranger, and as soon as we spotted the taxi service stand inside the terminal, we thanked him for his assistance and made our way to a stand where a few local men were milling about talking to some service agents behind a window in a small office. We lined up even though there was no apparent line, and then someone approached us and ushered us to a side door.
“I’ll stay here with the luggage,” I said to Bianca, who then stepped into the office to arrange the trip. After a couple of minutes, she came back out, followed by a young guy, who quickly reached for our luggage, and before I could stop him, he was hauling our bags across the terminal and out the front door. He motioned to one of the drivers, and he in turn opened the trunk. After putting our stuff in the trunk, he stood smiling at me as I was perusing some travel documents. I realized I needed to give him a tip. I had no idea how much to give him, so I gave him a couple of dollars and made a mental note to do more research on tipping abroad.
Bianca, and I got in the cab and looked at each other like deer caught in the headlights.
HELLO INDIA!
A wizened old man in a ragged shirt hopped on the driver seat, started the car, and without uttering a single word, he began to drive. I looked over at Bianca with raised eyebrow, and she shrugged.
Quickly perusing through my well organized folder full of travel documents, I fished out the document with address and map to our destination. Leaning forward, I said to the driver, “would you like to see the directions?”
As if suddenly realizing we were there, he stopped the car and looked down at the paper I held towards him.
“We’re going to Agonda,” I said. “This is the address.”
He examined the paper this way and that as if it were some cryptic manuscripts with undecipherable glyphs. Then handing it back to me, he said, “we ask later.”
He hunched over the steering wheel, beeped a couple of times, and began driving again.
“What did he say?” Bianca asked me in Spanish (our secret code language).
I shrugged and shook my head. "I think he'll ask for directions when we get there."
"Oh, I see."
On the dashboard, he had set up a small shrine with images of an Indian sage, a statuette of Ganesh and beads dangling from the mirror. I sat back and looked at the road and the surrounding environment unfolding as we joined the quick dynamic flow of vehicles.
"We're finally here," I said.
I felt elated even through the cognitive haze. After a long sleepless journey across several continents in planes, trains, and automobiles, we had made it! Hot damn, we were in Goa!
Home was a distant memory.
Vancouver airport carvings
Bright colored buildings and houses designed in various styles blended in a mix of local and European colonial motifs. Iberian architecture. Portuguese. Palm fronds shimmered and swayed under the bright hot sun. Trucks whizzed by, painted all over with Indian scripts and religious symbols. On the streets, women dressed in colorful saris and flowing tunics, braided hair shining sleek and raven black under the sun.
I sat back and tried take it all in.
As he joined the flow of highway traffic, the taxi driver began beeping. There weren’t any cars close to us, so I wasn’t sure who or what he was beeping at. He drove the car along the solid white line in the middle of the road. Hm. In the distance, I could see oncoming traffic, but the driver seemed unfazed and kept the car steady down the middle, even though it was clear that a collision was imminent. At the last minute, he veered back into our driving lane, and the cars swooshed by at great speed.
He then veered back to the middle of the road, muttering to himself.
Bianca and I looked at each other. Eyes wide open.
Then as the next wave of cars came towards us, the driver swerved back to the driving lane, then back again to the middle of the road, over and over.
The Goan traffic followed its own chaotic logic. At times, we could see up to five oncoming cars spread along the road, sometimes bouncing along the side, racing towards us, and at the last minute before collision, merging back to their respective lanes. If any of the cars failed to join the single lane, then the flow slowed long enough for the drivers to sort it out with plenty of twists, turns, and beeps.
We came up behind a truck, and our driver engaged in a cat-and-mouse game as he tried to overtake it along the narrow winding road without hitting oncoming traffic- veering this way and that, he finally managed to drive around it, beeping continuously while pedestrians and stray pooches quickly jumped out of the way. So it went as we roared on, truck after truck, there was no end to the complexity of the traffic rhythm, the splashes of green in motion, little trucks, big trucks, a scene of chaotic brush strokes, greatly enhanced by the variable of street-smart dogs, sage cows and their sprightly young ones, taxis, tuk-tuks, and motorcycles all jostling for position on the road. Our driver looked positively focused, hunched over the wheel and peering through the windshield, trying to get some advantage in the flow. He was devilishly skillful behind the wheel, but my heart was sure taking a beating.
I tried to sit back, relax, and enjoy the exotic landscape. Palm trees swaying in the breeze; flooded rice fields where women worked in colorful garments; the extravagant architecture with its myriad designs; ads painted on the quirky walls- a mix of English and Indian writing advertising the latest phone tech, sim cards, and other electronic goods. An eclectic mix of the modern and the ancient.
Yet, I couldn’t relax and enjoy the scenery. I was transfixed by the traffic mayhem around us. I gazed at the road ahead, every meter of it making me wonder about the transience of existence and whether or not my own would come to a crashing halt on this hot tropical road.
At last, we turned down a smaller side road surrounded by tall grasses, palms, and other varieties of trees. Aside from the odd bike or rickshaw, there was barely any traffic. Good thing too given how tight it was. Coming up to a bridge, we crossed along a narrow paved road that opened up into a most magnificent sight.
Was this Agonda?
I don’t know what I was expecting Agonda to look like, but this was definitely not it. What a wild place!
This is going to be a long strange trip, I thought.
Looking over at Bianca, I could see she was also thinking the same.
Alright India, here we are now, entertain us.
Goa, India
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