Just like my favourite country, Thailand, I have returned to Goa many times under very different circumstances, and seasons. Also, this hot tourist destination in South India is where I sampled my second-favourite Pad Thai.
After eight long years of working with a newspaper called The Telegraph in Kolkata, I quit in 2018 and moved to Goa — for a total of 10 days. I was bored, and needed a change. I spoke to the owner of hostel in north Goa’s Arambol and arranged to work on the property as a volunteer. Unfortunately, the owner and my expectations about the engagement did not match and I left after a week or so.
Some parts of the week were nice though.
I went in September, when it was still the low season. I don’t know why people don’t go to Goa during the rainy season. But perhaps it’s good they don’t know because that makes Goa doubly attractive to me this time of the year. If you ask me, the monsoon is the best time to visit this popular South Indian coastal state, for there are less tourists around, stay prices are one-third of high season, or even lower, and the villages are incredible shades of green with the rain washing away dust and grime from leaves. Sure, you might a shower, or several when you plan to venture out of your stay, but just take your waterproof or an umbrella go about your life!
On most evenings, I went for walks through the nearby villages. I loved walking to this huge banyan tree in the middle of a narrow, relatively quiet road connecting two busy roads.
One of the days, an old friend of mine, who was a dentist in Bangalore, came over with his then-girlfriend, also a dentist. (Until he got married several years later, he had a string of girlfriends — all of them dentists! His wife didn’t turn out to be a dentist, though!) We went to Arambol beach together in the evening, and also went hiking in the drizzle to a nearby freshwater lake.
I went back to Goa the next year, again during the rainy season, and I distinctly remember the fantastic road surrounded by green that I drove through on the way back to central Goa from the very underwhelming Doodhsagar Falls. The scenary around the road remimded me of The Shire in Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
Some three years later, on another monsoon, a friend and I were biking around North Goa and into Maharashtra on a now-rainy-now-sunny day. On a bridge over a river that separated the two states, we got down for some pictures. A police SUV stood across the road on the other side of the bridge. One of the cops gestured to us to cross the road and come to their side. I initially thought they were asking us not to stand on the bridge, and ride away, but I soon realised that wasn’t it.
They were asking us to go to their side and look towards the bank of the river.
“Muggermach! Crocodile,” one of the policemen, visibly excited, told us in both Hindi and English, pointing far ahead.
Sure enough, a fine specimen was lazing on the muddy bank in the sun that has just come out after a spell of light rain. It was far, but clear enough to hazard a guess that the animal was certainly over 10 feet in length.
But I digress. Back in 2018, when my arrangement with the hostel owner did not work out as planned, I did not feel like staying back in Goa, and bought a ticket to Delhi, where I had plenty of friends, and where I knew I would feel better. My flight was still a couple of days away, and during this time, I stayed at a cheap hotel close to Miramar beach.
The Casuarina trees near the beach there reminded me of Digha, a popular seaside town located a little less than 200 kilometers from Kolkata, my hometown. For dinner on my second day, the plan was to just walk down the main road and get into a restaurant that looked nice. I noticed the colourful signage of a restaurant — I forget the name now — inside a lane on my left. I went ahead.
It had quite a few people inside. I checked the menu at the entrance, and it seemed to offer several Southeast Asian cuisines. Still undecided on what to eat, but certain that I was going to eat here, as I stepped towards the door, I encountered a couple leaving. Seeing me about to enter, the woman said, “Try their Thai food. It’s amazing!”
That’s all I needed to know. And that’s the most authentic review you’ll ever get — from a person just leaving a restaurant you’re about to enter. I knew I was going to order Pad Thai.
I may be biased towards Mama Poo’s Pad Thai (which I had on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand), but bias or no bias, I can say with certainty that this Goa one was among the best Pad Thais I’ve ever had. If I had to rank it, I’d rank it my second-best.
Indebted might be too loaded a word, but when I left after my meal, that was what I felt towards the woman who had suggested I try the Thai food. So, when I encountered a group of people entering the restaurant as I was leaving, I thought I should pass on the favour.
“Try their Thai. It’s great,” I told this hungry group with a smile as I walked out.
[This is a modified extract from Arnab Nandy’s ebook,
My History of Pad Thai, available on Amazon Kindle]
