TONY’S TRIP TO SOUTH INDIA
Second leg: Bombay to Goa

BY TONY MYERS FRPS

Following some lengthy negotiations with our taxi/travel company somewhere in the middle of Bombay about who would be paying for the various items like the petrol, the driver’s overnight accommodation, and more importantly the route, we set of south for Goa. We would be following the South India coastal road, and returning North East via Madras. Fortunately we were able to put all this in writing with the signature of the owner as an agreement between us, something which later proved to be invaluable.

Tony Myers: Leaving Bombay Pollution behind

It took about an hour to actually clear the huge city of Bombay, with its population of 16 million. I couldn’t help thinking about what was going to happen over the next 16 days. After all the planning, this was the main thing I’d been hoping for, the excitement of photographing a totally different culture, one that I had no previous experience of whatsoever.

After a few hours travelling we decided to stop for lunch at what appeared to be the Indian equivalent of motorway café. We ordered our food with the guidance of our driver, Mustava, who was turning out to be a really nice helpful guy, and sat outside under a sun-shade watching the world going by. This included numerous oxen-drawn carts which somehow managed to cut across six lanes of traffic without any sign of a collision, just a huge barrage of horns which had no effect at all on the cart drivers!

Tony Myers: Our transport around India

After a while Nick and I seemed to be the centre of attention. What with Nick’s red hair and my white hair, we must have looked like aliens from outer space! It wasn’t long before we had a small group of Indians just gazing at us. I decided then to take some group photographs which they gave me their total co-operation with.

We set off, after a mixture of Indian curry and boiled eggs, heading south for Goa. Progress was very slow over the very poor roads so we were lucky to cover more than 30 miles in an hour and decided that we wouldn’t make Goa that night. It had soon become very dark so we decided to look for a suitable hotel. Suddenly we became totally dazzled by oncoming headlights and seemed to going into a head-on crash! We had to run off the road not knowing where we were going to stop, just bouncing along on a very bumpy track trying to stop the car from rolling off the road completely. When the car stopped we all just sat there with that “glad to be alive” feeling. It had been a close escape.

Tony Myers: Working-cart

We soon found a suitable hotel and, after checking in, found ourselves mixed in with a wedding party. As we were carrying cameras, they had directed us to the wedding group! However, after some explanations we were soon off to the hotel bar where we enjoyed few very welcome pints of Kingfisher lager, the best local brew, before retiring after another very eventful day.

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