Many generations have fought for the title of being the one that deflowered Goa. It all began at the very graphic level of cherry-popping on the beaches by Portuguese colonists in the mid-16th century, as reported back to Lisbon by wide-eyed merchants and mariners. The explorer, Sir Richard Burton, followed in the tracks of those earlier hedonists, and perhaps he was one of the first British lotus-eaters to cavort joyously with local lads in the lapping water of the Arabian Sea. Then there was the metaphorical loss of virginity when the Goans, their sensibilities informed by the Catholic legacy of the Portuguese, the pantheon of Hindu gods, and the constrictions of Sunni Islam, found themselves host to the hippy arrivals of the sixties; this influx prone to a slightly different kind of trance-like naked dancing on the beaches. Then came the symbolic deflowering when locals like Thomas, who had the green coconut stall at the end of the path to Little Vagator Beach, pushed his coconut cart to the back, rigged up a refrigeration unit to a car battery, and stuck a huge sign up on his coconut palm shade tree advertising the frighteningly sweet lemonade Limca to the passing raggy-taggys.

Raggy-taggys is what the Goans have been calling the hippys ever since the first ones hit Colva Beach in the 60s.  It is that Goan knack for finding words both onomatopoeic and immediately visual for everything from bhang to crocheted bikinis – the former being ‘puff’, the latter ‘ladee teabags’. There are those who say that the raggy-taggys are part of a modern malaise that has hit just about every coconut-petticoated strip in Southeast and South Asia but, whatever criticisms have been levelled at them, they do have very good taste in beaches.

Their passion for the place morphed into the hyped age of Goa Trance: heaving beach raves that peaked in the 90s. With the techno party crowd came charter flights and Goa was given the official travel snob tag of having been ‘spoilt’.
Yet still it draws the punters in. When the week-end supplements claim to have all the inside gen what are they really saying? All the stuff that everyone already knows: the busy beaches; markets where the raggy-taggys sell their beaded and plaited thingies among the local collection of sarongs. When the full moon raves happen (now there’s a challenge). Where the girl from Estonia with the unfeasibly long hair does an amazing aura massage. And finally, with a slightly sniffy nod to the fact that there are some people who are honest enough to call themselves tourists rather than insisting on being travellers, there is usually a rundown on the higher end resorts that prickle the coastline. What they are unlikely to describe is the indigenous nature of India’s 25th state, and how an exquisitely beautiful hybrid culture hums in the background of the beach and sandy buttock ballyhoo. It is the same syndrome as on Ibiza where the short but throbbing rave strip acts as a curious protection for the magnificent island interior beyond.

For every one of Goa’s M25 beaches like Baga and Candolim there is an almost empty one where you can find a hut to rent and wake up to wide open beach horizons. For each of the pumping crush bars in Baga there is a shack on a northern beach where you can eat grilled fish and shellfish under silent stars. There is the way the scene changes all the time whilst the core remains unchanged: this season’s ripples passing over deep water. Right now it is the turn of the French, a Paris-sur-mer crowd owning and cooking at some of the best restaurants in the smaller towns, and on the beaches. This lithe and polished movement has acted as a sort of artisan seedbed from which a new generation of lifestyle stores and cafés are nudging pockets of the coast distinctly upmarket. One of these is the bookshop-café on the beach road in Candolim carrying everything from the entire collection of Just William books to the latest Khushwant Singh, or the handmade chocolate shop—such a strange sight to see people in bikinis at the tables outside rolling their eyes, truffles in hand.
And then there is perhaps Goa’s greatest protection: the fact that travellers, tourists, and Indians on holiday cling to the 62 miles of coastline. The interior is as exquisite as it ever was with its mass of white Portuguese churches; jungled hills hiding temples beside a clear river, a place where a new form of Hinduism began, one without caste or the rule of Brahmins; the back-road villages of shaded veranda’d houses. If you go quietly on a bicycle, rather than hooning about on a moped, you may find one of the rare places where you can pay to have supper in a village house. Here is real Goan food, either the piquant Hindu or gentler Catholic kind, as against what is served up in most restaurants as Goan food, but is almost invariably made by Nepalese cooks with a heavy hand in the coconut oil pot and chilli sack.

Even on the apparently ‘spoilt’ beaches what can be so terrible about sitting at a bamboo-built café in the late afternoon? Think of that time of day when the promenaders on the beach are thrown into silhouette against coruscating light on the sea, when you can have masala chai with a piece of ‘appal crumbal’ cake, its sweetness made sublime by the taste of salt in your mouth. A group of Buddhist monks walks past, their robes rolled down to their navels, their monastic red singlets on show. What kind of loss of virginity is this?

Just some of those that might not be in ‘insiders’ inside guide’:

Bhakti Kutir in the south of Goa on Palolem Beach, an organic resort with huts that are shaded all day, regular yoga classes, and a very good organic restaurant where the international high-end hippy crowd compare eco-product notes over wheat grass juice and surprisingly both meat and fish. www.bhaktikutir.com

Siolim House in the north is in Siolim village, a place that has not changed in its unusually harmonious Catholic/Hindu nature because it is not right on the coast. The house is a restored Portuguese palácio and about as high-end as small private hotels get—the bathrooms are as huge as the bedrooms and all is mix of cool air, space and light. www.siolimhouse.com The same attention has been given to Solar in Old Goa, light and air on a larger scale from the golden era of Portuguese power in Goa in 16th century. A perfect place to go for seriously elegant lunch or tea after required viewing of the wizened bits of St Francis Xavier in the Basilica of Bom Jesu and Se Cathedral in the old city. www.solargoa.in

Yab Yum on Asvem beach in the north, a brand new collection of eleven huts and little villas. The smaller ones are a mix of yurt and elegant mud hut, if that does not sound too much of an oxymoron. There is no restaurant so the place is very quiet, and each one looks out through palms to the sea. Email: info@go-bang.com

Ku beside Morjim Beach in the north is another new venture, built with design genius by a French and Spanish couple who have created a home, restaurant, and guest house among the paddy fields; a place on stilts set among carp ponds, the light softened through Japanese rice paper screens. Only lunch is served to those who are not staying in one of the two guest rooms. Ku is a one off, hard to find, harder to imagine. Email: ku.morjim@rediffmail.com

Le Restaurant Français on Baga Road opposite Casa Goa, and La Plage on Aswem Beach. Morgan cooks, Florence and Serge are front of house. The restaurant in Baga is where the French movement began to take root, La Plage was once the beach escape for the trio until they decided to turn it into the chicest beach café in the world. You do not go to Goa and necessarily expect to eat great food. Le Restaurant Français makes people wobble into culinary hyperbole. May the kitchen gods keep Morgan content to stay in Goa. Tel: + 91 98221 21712

Literati in Gaura Waddo in Calangute is the book shop and café of the Just William originals and superb homemade cakes and coffee.

Chocolatti, near Whispering Palms Hotel on Fort Aguada Road in Candolim is the place of dreamy truffles and another café too.

Aurobelle on Aswem Beach next to La Plage. Jane Naeke makes and sells her floaty dresses and little chiffon numbers in Goa in the winter, and in Ibiza in the summer for a fraction of what they go for in the frou frou boutique places on heat streets in London and Paris.

Originally published in Wexas Traveller spring 2006 edition