Destination: Goa : India’s Portugal : Inexpensive Pleasures in an Oceanfront State Bathed in European Culture and Attitude

Every morning here in Goa, we follow our chutney with a cashew liqueur, whisper a grace to Lord Shiva and St. Francis Xavier and plunge headlong into the emerald waters of the Arabian Sea.

“The Portuguese left much behind when they left Goa in 1961,” explained my government guide, who introduced himself only as Boagem. “They left their language, their faith, their style and their culture, and most of all, their spirit.”

In a country where men wear loincloths to the bank and robes to the beach, where cows are pampered and humans must fend for themselves, the Indian state of Goa plays the game by different rules. It’s where Indians go to party.

Goa is a narrow strip along India’s southwest coast comprising 82 miles of squeaky-clean beaches, of sidewalk cafes, of spectacularly beautiful baroque basilicas, of Hindu temples dedicated to Shiva the Destroyer, as well as to Durga, goddess of peace. You can rent jet skis or go windsurfing here, or you can steep yourself in another culture, in fact two of them. All for peanuts.

An all-day bus tour of the state, including churches, temples and beaches--and a chance to meet Indians at play--cost me $1.60. Oh, yes, I did have to pay for my own lunch. But checking out the menu at a beachfront cafe in Colva Beach, I could find no entree over $1, including steak and fresh fish. I gave my waiter a 30-cent tip and made a friend for life. Afterward, I paid $3 for a garish shirt that would have cost me at least $60 in Hawaii.

Goa is so cheap that it draws large numbers of Europe’s thriftiest tourists, the British. A brochure published in Britain says, “In the best five-star hotel in Goa, a steak fillet with all the trimmings will set you back well under three pounds.”

Unlike the British, I was here as part of a broader trip to India, a planned respite from the noise and squalor of India’s big cities. My wife stayed home because she was sure she would hate India. For the most part she was probably right. But she would have loved Goa.

I stayed at the Fort Aguada Resort, a world-class luxury hotel built in a 17th-Century Portuguese fort. The rate was $100 a night and for this I got a huge room just feet away from the crashing surf, a daily basket of tropical fruit and a welcoming gift of fresh cashews and a bottle of excellent port. Everything in the mini-bar was free.

For Europeans on cheap package vacations, life in Goa centers around their hotels. The British in particular stay for as long as two weeks at a time in Goa’s luxury resorts. With water sports, giant bottles of Indian beer and BBC, CNN and MTV coming in by satellite, there’s more than enough to keep them busy.

Indians come to the luxury resorts here, south of Bombay, but not necessarily with purity of heart. While the men of Goa are liberated and wear swim trunks, the women wear full-length saris even at the beach. Indian men roam the beaches for hours staring at Western female visitors in bikinis--or less. Signs on Goa’s beaches warn that nudity and drug use are prohibited, a reminder of the hippie invasion of the ‘60s.

The government runs an all-day $1.60 leering expedition, known officially as the North Goa Tour, in which all the stops are at beaches. Toplessness is rare these days, but Indian men go pop-eyed even at the sight of Western women in shorts, let alone bikinis. Indian women, even in enlightened Goa, rarely expose so much as an ankle.

The South Goa tour, however, focuses on churches and Hindu temples. My fellow passengers were Indian families visiting from other Indian states. Unlike Americans on bus tours, they did not bond with one another. They spoke to me, but not to each other. They did not sing, “Here Is to the Bus Driver” or other camp songs, not even “Can’t Get to Heaven in a Rockin’ Chair.”

*

When we stopped at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, where St. Francis Xavier is buried, the Indians took off their shoes. Actually only part of St. Francis is buried there. Two toes of his preserved body were bitten off in 1554 by a devout Portuguese woman, and part of St. Francis’ right hand was shipped to the Vatican in 1615. St. Francis’ semi-preserved head and shoulders are displayed in a silver casket in the 16th-Century church, which also contains the events of his life in brightly colored paintings.

Old Goa is the heart of the original Portuguese settlement in India, dating from 1510, and Goa’s first capital. St. Francis roamed Asia as a missionary and won tens of thousands of souls for Christianity between 1541 and his death in 1552.

The Portuguese took Goa from the local Muslims for mixed motives, from Christ to spices. Christ won for a while, and St. Francis Xavier even persuaded Lisbon to introduce the Inquisition, which held on until 1812. Meanwhile, trade boomed. By 1600, Old Goa had 75,000 people, more than Madrid, nearly as many as Lisbon.

During those golden years, faith began to decline. Old Goa became better known for its bordellos than its cathedrals. Goan Royal Hospital records show that, by the early 1600s, 500 Portuguese men were dying each year of venereal diseases. Local married women, according to church records, “drugged their husbands, the better to enjoy their lovers.”

Indifference to the church went hand in hand with a spirit of tolerance unknown in much of the colonial world, and that tolerance continued even after the Indian government took Goa bloodlessly in 1961.

The time of piety left its largest landmark at the baroque Se Cathedral, built from 1562 to 1652, and the largest Catholic church in Asia. On my bus tour, my fellow sightseers pointed and marveled at an oil painting there of the patron saint of travelers, a work that Americans I met called St. Christopher in Shorts. The Indians were agog. Hindu gods do peculiar things--they cut off their children’s heads, smoke ganja and ride geese and rats--but they never wear shorts.

*

At our next stop was the first of two Hindu temples remarkable for the Roman Catholic influence on their architecture. Each has a free-standing tower, much like a campanile in Italy. Shri Mangueshi Temple, a little gem with blue pillars, crystal chandeliers and large silver idols, is dedicated to Shiva, one of the three major Hindu gods. He is in charge of war, famine, death and destruction and despite these penchants is highly regarded in Goa.

As the day progressed, we stopped at the pagoda-like Shri Shantadurga Temple, built for Durga, and at three beaches, as well as the laid-back seaside town of Miramar, where a food and drink fair was in full swing. In a traffic island in the middle of the road, a family clearly high on drugs and feeling no pain asked me to take their picture.

My favorite stop was at 12-mile-long Colva Beach, where we paused for lunch. The Indians went to the packed and stifling Silver Sands restaurant, but I found an outdoor cafe near the water that looked better to me. The eight-page menu at the Falcon ran from chicken vindaloo to steak to fresh tuna sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with garlic, chili and ginger. All were under $1. I ordered the tuna and a King’s Black Label beer, made in Goa . . . and 8.75% alcohol. The beer elsewhere in India is less than 5% alcohol.

Our last beach stop was Dona Paula, named for the daughter of a long-ago Portuguese viceroy. It’s the water sports capital of India, with jet skiing, para-sailing, snorkeling, scuba diving and windsurfing, all in a carnival atmosphere with ice cream parlors, tavernas and the Indian equivalent of a swap meet.

For some of us, the highlight of the South Goa tour was the conclusion, when we returned after a steamy day in the low 90s, and no air-conditioning on the bus, to our hotel rooms for bottled water and a cold shower, followed by a Goan buffet. At the Fort Aguada Resort Hotel, the buffet was a $9 splurge.

At the seafood station, I had a choice of clams, tiger prawns, mussels and a local flounder-like fish, the pomfret. Although tap water is iffy in Goa, fresh shellfish from the clear waters of the Arabian Sea off the coast caused no problems for anyone I talked to, even the easily sickened British.

Indian specials included vegetable curry, chicken tandoori and lak paneer-- a delicately seasoned spinach and cheese casserole.

On the charcoal grill, a chef was barbecuing hamburgers and brochettes of beef. And at the dessert table, I watched as vacationing Britons loaded up their plates with fruit trifle, creme caramel, Swiss chocolate rolls and strawberry ice cream. I tried an Indian dessert called gajar ka halwa, made of carrots, sweet spices and milk, and I went back for seconds.

The buffet is served at the water’s edge. A local band plays music from an international repertoire, including that old Indian classic “Hava Nagila.”

Life is good at the resort hotels--besides the Fort Aguada and the Oberoi, I visited the Taj Holiday Village and the Aguada Hermitage--and it’s tempting to plant yourself there and see little else of this picturesque and exotic state. Goa is filled with palm trees, mango groves, rice paddies and majestic forests of ebony and teak. It smells like vanilla and bananas.

*

Fortunately, the resorts make it easy for you to escape. The Fort Aguada doorman, for example, negotiated reasonable taxi fares for me and charged them to my room, making it unnecessary for me to deal with unfamiliar currencies or exchange any money with the drivers.

Luxury hotels pick guests up and drop them off at the airport at no charge. This policy does not protect the traveler against an occasional gouge. My own “free” ride to the airport cost me $10--the amount the driver demanded before he would turn on the air-conditioning. A better deal, and a better time, was my $6 round-trip taxi ride to the Goan state capital, called Panaji by ethnic Indians and Panjim by the Portuguese, 35 minutes each way from the Fort Aguada. The trip would take 10 or 15 minutes if not for all the cow-dodging. Although Goa is 31% Catholic, it is 68% Hindu (the rest are mainly Muslims) and cows are allowed to roam the roads. Street scenes were colorfully chaotic, with frantically buzzing bikes and scooters, as well as armies of women carrying heavy loads on their heads.

Panaji, on the banks of the Mandovi River, is a great strolling town and the only city I saw in two weeks in India with no beggars, no street hustlers and no touts. It was also the only one with Mediterranean-style piazzas and pastel-washed villas with balconies, pillared porches and red-tiled roofs.

I took a sunset cruise on the Mandovi, enjoying a live band, for $1.60. As the boat, the Santa Monica, left its jetty, I saw the tall twin towers of the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception silhouetted against the sky. And at nightfall, the lights of the Campal, the riverfront boulevard, illuminated the capital.

While this was advertised as an evening of Indian folk music, the songs one night included “Old McDonald Had a Farm,” “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain,” “All Day, All Night, Mary Ann” and “Red River Valley.” The band topped off the evening with “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.”

GUIDEBOOK

Way to Goa

Getting there: Fly British Airways, Lufthansa, Delta or Singapore Airlines to Bombay, then Indian Airlines to Goa. An advance- purchase, round-trip ticket from LAX to Bombay costs about $1,400 to $1,900. The Bombay-Goa leg is $46 one way.

Where to play: Best place to rent equipment for water sports is at water’s edge, Dona Paula. Sunset cruise and all-day North Goa and South Goa Tour, Goa Tourism Development Corp., $1.60, in Goa; telephone locally 46515. Port made in Goa is excellent, but avoid the wine called Red Riviera.

Where to stay: Oberoi Bogmalo Beach in Bogmalo, (telephone 800-662-3764; $95-$115 double); Aguada Hermitage, Goa (tel. 800- 448-8355; $70-$304 double); Taj Holiday Village, Goa (tel. 800- 448-8355; $80-$110 double); Fort Aguada Beach Resort, Goa (tel. 800-448-8355; $100-$130 double).

When to go: Goa is warm and dry all year except during the monsoon season, June to September.

For more information: Contact the Government of India Tourist Office, 3550 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90010; (213) 380-8855; for a brochure on Goa, a map of India and brochures on any other region of the country you request.