Where Were You When . . .

So the day after Christmas we set off in search of the Olive Ridleys. We hire a taxi and set out for Galgibag beach, one of the more remote beaches on the west coast, where turtle nestings had been reported. On the way, Donna stops at a church. I sit on a bench in the church courtyard and catch some Kodak moments with the local children (left).

An elderly woman comes up and sits down beside me. She starts off with the usual which country you are from? Then, she looks at me sternly and says: Be careful. People are wicked here. It is not like in foreign countries. Watch your camera, your wallet. They will try to steal. And the police are the worst. They will land you in trouble.

I thank her for the advice and promise I will be very careful. It isn't anything I hadn't heard before. I've heard that the cops in Goa are notoriously corrupt; they routinely pay to be stationed there, because the level of corruption makes it a very lucrative assignment for them.

We resume our search for the turtle beach. The driver stops several times to ask for directions, and he finally pulls into one that he thinks is the right one. We wander up and down the beach, but there are no turtles in sight. A local villager, paddling in a weathered rowboat, waves to us, and we ask him if he knows where the turtles are.

The tide appears to be low, and at one point I venture out to a rocky area, teeming with giant crabs, starfish, and other fascinating marine life. When I glance up a couple minutes later, a wave has come in and I see only the tops of the rocks. I wait for a moment for the water to go back out again, but it doesn't.

As most of you know, I will happily take part in any air sport -- jump out of an airplane, bungee jump, hot air balloon, parasail. But, if you throw me in the deep end of a pool, I am convinced I will die. So I have a moment of panic as the rocks around get more and more submerged. Finally, I make a mad dash for the shore, crawling from rock to rock.

We cover the entire length of the beach without any turtle sightings, so we decide to head back to the pier. The tide is coming in so rapidly now, that we can't walk straight down the beach, we have to walk diagonally to stay out of the water.

When we get back, there is a small group of locals standing on the pier looking intensely out at the water.

We tell them we are ready to go back across.

Local villagers stare out at the unusual tides

--Is there another way that we can get across, back to the other side?
--May be possible -- vehicle, taxi.

I'm thinking: Here it comes. They are going to charge us exorbitant rates to taxi us back to the mainland.

A much larger crowd has gathered on the pier now, and there is a lot of commotion, intense discussion, pointing, and running around. I'm starting to think that if they are really scamming us, they are very good actors, because it's starting to seem real to me.

--They have never seen the tide this high. They cannot take the boat across right now. It is too dangerous. These are lovely people. They are good people. But they cannot take you across right now.

--Is there any other way we can get back to the mainland?
--There is a small bridge. You might be able to hitchhike out.
--Hitchhike!

I would never hitchhike in the U.S., much less in a foreign land where I don't know the language!

--Where do we go? Where is the road?
--Come - I will be your guide, Michael says.

We follow this eccentric (perhaps a little tipsy?) character into the village, where, beaming, he tells the locals I am their guide today! At the first intersection, he flags down a truck, convinces the driver to give us a lift, and tells us to pile into the back of the truck. The trip takes about 20 minutes around the perimeter of the village, and over a very narrow one-car bridge. It's the bumpiest ride I've ever been on, but transportation never felt so good!

The truck drops us off a few minutes walk from our traxi. We happily give the driver as well as our our guide Michael a few bills, and they both disappear. Donna and I nickname our Ozzie guide "Michael the Archangel." He seemed to appear out of nowhere; it all felt surreal somehow, as if we were in a play, and the script read, "Michael: enter stage left." He told us he did some business in the area, but we were hard-pressed to imagine what kind of business he could possibly be doing on a remote fishing village.

Michael and the truck