The Best Reason to Drink Kingfisher I've Ever Heard Of.

One of the most memorable things about Goa is how beautiful some of the beaches are. Take Palolem for instance. It's been in countless movies including The Bourne Supremacy...the scene where Jason Bourne is escaping from his life and spending it in a beach hut, that was shot there. I love that movie. (Even the scene when his girlfriend's Jeep crashes over Nerul bridge into the Mandovi River where she drowns, that was shot near the place where we went Cat-fishing. Funnily enough, I watched that film on the plane coming home from our trip. Weird.)

Somebody told me, not sure if it's true, but the reason that there are no high-rise hotels on the beaches here is that Indira Gandhi decreed a law that no permanent developments should be made within 300 feet of the coast. Brilliant! At Palolem, all they've got are wooden huts on stilts hiding among palm trees. It's idyllic. However, they were beginning to spread huts onto the peninsula toward Patnem. Can't imagine what it's like now. If you look at the shot I took of the school girls, that's Palolem.

Imagine this though: you've got such beauty and then it's marred by mountains of plastic bottles chucked into heaps a way back from the beach. Tourists worry about the water here and so buy it bottled to be safe. It winds up being chucked all over the place and there isn't any infrastructure for collecting it. Seems the authorities just can't get it together to collect it all up and do something with the stuff, so there it stays, festering in the sun, whilst passing pigs and cows scavenge. Some restaurants do offer boiled water instead but I think visitors are still suspicious. You're advised not to eat salad here because of the water it's been washed in. We spent a lot of time drinking Kingfisher Beer instead (woe is me!). It's brewed in Goa and the company's owner has a massive house near Candolim we were told by our cab driver.