The sheikh rearranged his white robes as he mulled the logistics. He said he could get me to Anjuna in his tuk-tuk for 400 rupees but wouldn't be driving, as he had to get back to the mosque for prayers. He passed the key to another driver, a Hindu, to stand in for him. The three of us were sheltered from the blast of the midday sun by the shadow of the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
"You all get along here?" I asked as my case was manhandled into the back seat. The sheikh replied with an earnest smile: "Of course! This is Goa…"
The phrase would be repeated several times during the next three weeks as the stock local answer for every newcomer's question: is it OK to drink this beer on the street? Are those dairy cows really sunbathing on the beach? Is that a dolphin leaping from the sea? Are you sure this eye-watering, jaw-dropping earthly paradise is going to be improved by spangly Christmas decorations?
"Of course! This is Goa..."
Goa is indeed a very special place. The state is about the size of Kent and is India's smallest – and also the richest, measured by per-capita GDP. Indian surveys regularly rank it first for "quality of life".
Despite decades of tourism, which has wrecked some areas, it still boasts what are undoubtedly among the best beaches in the country, if not all of Asia. Although visitors are advised to take malaria pills as a precaution, tropical diseases are relatively rare. For Europeans, who find it incredibly cheap, winter sun is guaranteed: between November and March the daytime temperature tends to be around 32C (in these months there is barely cloud, let alone rain). Agricultural labourers from neighbouring Maharashtra and Karnataka thank Goa's tourism industry for lucrative seasonal employment in the period when there is no work in the fields.
As it was never a British colony, Goa has a distinct culture – it was grabbed by the Portuguese in the early days of European colonisation (India only wrestled it off them by waging a two-day war in 1961). There is a large population of Catholics, so churches are as common as Hindu temples (and, unlike in many parts of India, the two congregations attend each other's places of worship and also intermarry). And as the sheikh said, Goa is one of the places lucky enough to have averted sectarian violence.
I was heading north up the coast from Panaji, the state capital, to a fishing village named Mandrem. This was on the strict instructions of my old friend Neerja, who has worked in Bollywood for years.
"It's where we go to get away from the bustle of Mumbai," she told me. "And from you bloody tourists!"
Before the trip, I'd heard that Goa had been ruined. The wide-eyed beach parties of 20 years ago were long gone: now it was all package tours and Russians, full English breakfasts and ice buckets with bottles of vodka – or so the story went. Neerja had said that all this is pretty much true of the central resorts of Calangute, Candolim, and Baga – all within easy reach of the airport and to be given a wide berth. But the coast of Goa is surprisingly long and varied. Parts of the far north and far south are – say it quietly – almost unspoilt.
On the first day in Mandrem, it was nature that made the biggest impact. The clean, endless, golden-white beach fringed with coconut palms; little waders with upturned beaks; small crabs scuttling into holes to avoid being washed out in the wake; herons with green feet; kingfishers proudly showing off their plumage; sea eagles riding on thermals; fish shoaling where a small river meets the sea; a nest of Olive Ridley turtle eggs, and their security guard dozing in the sun.
I stayed at Jai Ganesh, a very unassuming guesthouse set back from the beach, run by a young local couple who offer home cooking and the best dhal on the planet. The room was cool because it was brick rather than bamboo, windowless, and came with the fan from Apocalypse Now (the effect was completed one afternoon when we were buzzed by a pair of Indian Army Hind attack helicopters). The main feature was a bright-green frog resident in the toilet – its favourite perch was under the lid, waiting for a mosquito for dinner.
But it soon became obvious that Mandrem is not a well-kept secret. It has returning holidaymakers who come for retreats teaching Vipassana meditation, or to go kite-surfing, watch the sunset while sipping cocktails at a lounge bar named Shanti, and to gawp in a nearby boutique owned by Jade Jagger.
A small contingent is a very posh lot indeed – rich, beautiful, creative types from Delhi, St Petersburg and Tel Aviv. But the majority are regular people on a budget looking for heat, light and relaxation: there were middle-aged women travelling alone from Brighton and Nottingham; Scandinavian families with young children; an American NGO worker recovering from Afghanistan.
All were there to rest and not to pose. And it was cold drinks in the shade with these characters that turned out to be the most relaxing – and sometimes fascinating – pursuit in Mandrem. Apart from socialising, there is little else to do other than stroll and swim. Sooner or later, everyone is mesmerised by the view and becomes content with doing very little.
That said, there are increasing numbers of visitors, especially north Europeans, who migrate to Goa for stays of several months each winter and bring their jobs with them. Working remotely is feasible because Wi-Fi is ubiquitous (though it stops without warning during power cuts, which occur daily – sometimes for hours at a time).
Given time and the desire for variation, it is worth making the trip to southern Goa's answer to the Mandrem area – a cluster of three beaches named Palolem, Patnem and Agonda – on the Konkan Railway (konkanrailway.com) from Pernem in the north to Canacona in the south.
Instead of Mandrem's endless straight sands that disappear off into the horizon, Palolem is in a bay formed by headlands less than three miles apart (the resulting beach, a photogenic arc, was used as a location in The Bourne Supremacy). It is also quite crowded, though not uncomfortably so. There is a wide range of accommodation, from huts made from bamboo matting that outside the December peak can be haggled down to 600 rupees (£7.50) a night to plush beachfront studios made of black wood for 10 times more. I stayed right on the beach, at Rose Buds Beach Huts – in a simple wooden shack that had a cold shower, a creaky fan in the ceiling and staff with a brutal sense of banter.
Small boats bearing Hindu and Catholic symbols bring in fresh fish every day. Seafront restaurants serve local catches, including pomfret, kingfish and red snapper, any way you want it. The best meal of the stay was at Papillon (papillonpalolem.com), with a table on the beach.
Patnem beach, a 20-minute walk over Palolem's southern headland, offers a less-developed alternative. Agonda, 15 minutes' drive north, is also a much quieter affair, with little to do other than wind down. There was a colony of furry fruit bats, hanging upside down from a eucalyptus tree, each one keeping cool with the odd flap of a black-skinned wing, turning their snouts up at the noisy squabbles of grey langur monkeys below.
While it is true that Mandrem and Palolem/Agonda/Patnem are the most peaceful patches of the far north and south, it must be said that few are insulated from the partygoers who have made Goa notorious. One lunchtime at a shack on Mandrem beach, I was chomping through a thali of curries when a friendly Moscovite calling himself Kosmo insisted on talking me through the finer details of what it is like to come down from a three-day MDMA binge, and why so many of his compatriots are doing this every winter. With a direct flight from Moscow to Goa, it can feel like a place where you are going to learn less about today's India and more about today's Russia. Apparently the mafia have arrived, and there is tension with the locals – but the Russians I met all decried the small number who are giving the rest a bad name.
On the last night in Palolem I sat with my travelling companions at a wicker table on the beach, sipping watermelon juice, looking up at the night sky. For us Europeans, the crescent moon looked like it had become so relaxed that it had toppled over, so that both of its points were poking straight upwards. One of us said it looked like the top of a minaret. One of us said it looked like a gleaming white grin.
Essentials
Qatar Airways flies from London Heathrow to Goa Dabolim, including a short interchange at Doha. Return tickets cost from £686. There is a car service from the airport to all beaches. Outside the peak period of late December to early January, it isn't necessary to book accommodation in advance. Basic double rooms with cold shower and fan start at 600 rupees (£7.50) per night
