This really is a very special place, an oasis of tranquillity in the maelstrom of India. Due to our rushed itinerary, we spent only two full days here, though we easily could have stayed a week or more. The faded colonial aspects of the old town give the place a timeless air; our suburban lodgings feel positively homey; the locals couldn't possibly be more easy-going, and the endless stretch of abandoned white sand at our doorstep is perfect for long, long walks. Our puritanical detractors scorn us for taking off on a two-year "vacation", though this is the first time our voyage has felt like a vacation in many months.
Yesterday we rode into town for lunch and ran into another French female couple we'd met on the road (staying at the same place as us in Udaipur). Unlike Liliane and Nadine, Nathalie and Astrid are most decidedly lesbians, though their usual French aloofness prevents them from being outspoken on the subject. Over plates of sizzling vegetables and nummy fish dishes, we discussed more innocuous subjects, like Gujarat food, art and the relative merits of Vadilal ice cream. I was up for a pedal around Diu island (or is it a presque-ile?), but Fred was not. He said he felt wiped out from the previous day's ride, thus letting me to explore on my own.
I headed west along the island's north coast, stopping to check out a crumbling church converted (just barely) into a cheap guest house. I followed little tracks just to see where they went, but always ended up back on the sublimely shaded main road. This was India in slow-motion, without any of the frenzied mayhem one finds elsewhere. Another thing that surprised me was how harmoniously the Muslim and Hindu populations seemed to coexist. At the eastern tip of the island I stumbled upon an outdoor mosque full of guys in haji hats, literally in the shade of a Shivite temple.
I took the shorter, southern route back to Diu town, riding along dramatic seascapes and battling the wind. I stopped at what is considered the finest beach on the island, nothing special really but full of exuberant Indian tourists from all over Gujarat state. One obviously drunken man leading what appeared to be a school group threw his arms around me and planted kisses all over my surprised face as his miniature charges giggled nervously. Others rode camels or played in the waves. All the white folks were at a place known as Sunset Point. I suppose it was the appropriate hour, though I couldn't help but think about how ghettoized it all was.
I ran into a young French (and straight) couple we'd seen somewhere before in the courtyard of a hideous hippie hotel made from freight containers and billed as a "resort." They were on bikes too and we rode back to town together. It was pitch black by the time I returned to our seaside digs, and both Fred and I were famished. We were all alone at dinner tonight, and Fred said he wasn't feeling any better, retiring to bed while I went over the border (for our hotel is on the Gujarat side) to a bar to drink with a friendly waiter from our hotel, Krishnan.
Krishnan told me that he was going to a wedding afterwards in his nearby village and invited me to go along with him. Game for something out of the ordinary, I accepted. I had been to weddings on my previous trip to India and remember them as bizarre and fun. Last night's wedding was more bizarre than fun. I followed Krishnan and his brother on their bikes through the moonless night. Their village was some distance away, and we stopped first at their family home, which doubles as a popsicle factory and outlet store. The father was fat and a little pompous while the mother was drop-dead beautiful.
We sat around a little awkwardly in their spare but comfortable living room for a while before setting off to the wedding reception, already well under way in the street just around the corner. The groom greeted us enthusiastically in educated English, then leapt back into a mass of sweating, dancing bodies. Unlike the other Indian weddings I'd attended, the men and women were mixed together, and some of the dancing was frankly erotic. The most popular dance, though, was a simple routine involving wooden sticks. I was seated next to a visiting uncle from Ahmedabad to watch the proceedings while the less refined relations --a few of them strikingly good-looking---stole glances at me and giggled.
A videographer (another of Krishnan's brothers) recorded the whole thing, often aiming his 10000-watt light in my direction. When the stick dance ended the music was cranked up even further and individuals got up for displays of virtuoso writhing. One cousin in particular was amazing to watch. He twisted and contorted his skinny frames in ways I'd never seen, in a sort of parody that made my neighbor exclaim with delight, "He's just like a woman!" He was quite popular with the crowd, who next wanted to see me do the same. I was way too self-conscious to comply, especially with a Klug light beaming down on me, and only one Indian whisky under my belt.
Of course this was all very disappointing to my friends, who shortly thereafter led me back to the Magico do Mar, this time with the headlamp of a motorbike to light the way. The next day we rode back over the bridge into Diu town, this time to be tourists. First stop was the fabulous old fort, built by the Portuguese centuries ago. Part of it is still used as a prison, which we were disappointed to learn was not open for visitation. We walked along the walls and enjoyed the views of the sea and the town for a couple of hours.
Afterwards we checked out a lame excuse for a museum in an old Catholic church (still another church now functions as the town hospital) before sitting down for a mediocre lunch in a travelers-style eatery, our fellow diners being the usual sort of bearded, beaded and bedecked Eurotrash. Fred still wasn't feeling terribly perky, so I spent the better part of the afternoon on a long, long walk up the beach, during which I didn't encounter a single soul --unless you count cows or goats, that is. For the sunset we had the staff of our hotel set up a table for us on the vast and abandoned stretch of sand and ordered some snacks.
The accompanying beer we had to go next door for, since the adjacent property was in Diu territory and we were still in dry Gujarat. Fortunately no one gave us trouble for consuming the beer on our beach, some five meters into the Gujarat side. It'll be our last beer for a while, too, since tomorrow we head back into the land of the teetotalers.