Goa: people watching
You can just see #1 here under that lady’s elbow. I think he was goal attack.
Now you know me, I love a bit of people watching, so I made sure I took copious notes on holiday to report back on all the wonderful (and weird) people we met.
Firstly, on the friends front, we actually made quite a gang of friends, which was really lovely. We shared sunset paddles on the beach whilst putting the world to rights drinking rum and fresh pineapple, and Wednesday night beach parties where we danced to dodgy 80s disco music in the beach shack whilst escaping the mad Goan fireworks whizzing up the beach (more of that later). The boys initially struck up a friendship with two lovely Finnish lads, O and O (different names, same initial – makes for a bit of confusion!) who were roughly the same age as them, with such good English that I initially didn’t realise they were from Finland. These two handsome blond lads led to us striking up conversations with their parents: S, who became a really good friend, and her husband J, an avid birdwatcher who got on famously with Hubby. Altogether a very nice family. S’s English was superb, and she had a cracking sense of humour. One day she was telling us that O&O had both been ill, and we couldn’t help laughing because she said they had been ‘womitting’. Well, after we’d explained (and apologised, S’s English being considerably more advanced than my Finnish), all mispronunciations became a standing joke. What a nice lady.
We also met a fantastic family from Nottingham, K, B and their beautiful daughter C. K, a wonderful dad with considerably more energy than us, was often in the pool with C and was always playing water polo with the boys. His wife B and I often compared shopping bargains and we all shared a Kingfisher by the pool occasionally. On Christmas day, B wore the most stunning sari I’ve ever seen and looked absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, being swathed in all that material in the 30 degree heat made her feel as though she was about to pass out, so she had to pop back to their bungalow and change. Their daughter C was only about fourteen but had inherited her good looks from her Mum and was gorgeous: tiny, dark eyed and shy with long jet black hair and the most beautiful smile. On one of the last days, the lovely K treated B to the biggest diamond I think I’ve ever seen. They’re going to email me when they get it valued here so watch this space.
Other highlights included: the biggest, fattest, sweatiest most disgusting Russian man you have ever seen, travelling with his very young teeny tiny Barbie doll type ‘partner’ who wore the smallest hotpants I think I’ve ever seen (yep, smaller than Kylie’s). The ‘Mafia guy’ as the waiters called him, and his child bride (now I know what you’re thinking but I’m sure they were deeply in love despite the enormous age -and size – gap) were travelling with her two young ‘friends’, the blonde one, ‘Trout’, with the odd, surgically enhanced lips who sunbathed naked on the beach (a definite no no in Goa – very disrespectful) and the other one, ‘Bum Cheek Girl’ who wore her bikini bottoms tucked up her bum like a thong. I’ll probably get bumped off in an apparent ‘accident’ now. I’m not being Russian-ist, but I have to say that they were, without doubt the rudest people I’d ever seen. I lost count of the amount of times I was tempted to hiss ‘thank you!’ in an angry Mummy-type fashion when they gruffly demanded drinks at the bar, or waved away an attentive waiter, or – worse – actually clicked their fingers in the air to attract a barman’s attention (especially when there were other people waiting to be served). Grrrr.
Then there was the doddery old lady who dressed in high heels and cocktail dresses every night, complete with an acre of somewhat droopy, wrinkly cleavage (her equally doddery husband interrupted a carol concert one evening by walking up to the girls while they were singing and pressing a 50 Rupee note into the hand of one of the stunned looking singers). We looked out for her every night to see what ‘Come Dancing’ dress she would grace us with. There was the lady with the bit of fake hair that she stuck on the back of her head like an odd, horse’s mane, the old lady who wore her long hair in a strange sausage made of scrunchies sticking out at right angles to the side of her head. Oh, and there was the stroppy Russian woman travelling with her long-suffering husband and son. The poor lad must have been about the same age as #2, but the bloody woman never left him alone and was always giving him a load of earache for something. It became a game with us to watch them and see if she ever smiled. Nope, not in two weeks did we see her face crack once. I’m not surprised the child didn’t smile either – I wouldn’t have done if I was made to wear dayglo speedos that came up to my tummy button and smothered in so much sun cream I looked like a cross-channel swimmer (she even put cream on his armpits for god’s sake). We tried to engage him in a bit of water polo in the pool, but he just shook his head solemnly. Eventually, at our insistence (he probably thought we were mad and decided to humour us rather than be held under ’til he drowned or whatever), he joined us shooting some hoops for a while and was soon happily splashing about and beaming. Feeling very magnanimous, we smiled at him every time we saw him from then on, only to be met with a stony face, and a glare from the old bag.
Ah, it makes me quite nostalgic just thinking about it. And, of course, makes me horrified at just how bloody nosey I am.
