Agonda beach, Goa

Rock formations at the south end of Agonda beach

Agonda beach is a 2km stretch of white sand, bookended by rocky headlands. At the north end a small river enters the sea. In the days of my visit the surf was gentle and the hottest day was a comfortable 30 degrees celcius.

On New Year’s Eve of 2015, after dinner and easy conversation with a couple I was alone. Some other traveling acquaintances had chosen to go to a night club in the jungle. I had declined. Along the entire stretch of sand, bar after bar had strung up festive lights and decorations. Most of them had dinner and drink specials. Most of them were empty.

A few diners enjoyed a romantic dinner, while most of the wait and bar staff talked amongst themselves and stared out at the night and the passers-by. I was walking where the lights faded, in the darkness near the shoreline, shuffling in the sand, thinking of the events of the past year with a feeling of melancholy.

Sunset, Agonda beach, Goa

So this is it? I wondered to myself. Is this how I’ll spend the last hours of 2014, alone on a beach at night in Goa? I had agreed to meet up up with the couple from dinner later at which ever beach bar seemed the liveliest. Now they were nowhere to be found and I didn’t recognize anyone else amongst the few stragglers wandering the beach. I’d purposefully chosen a beach known to be quiet to spend New Year’s eve, but now I was wondering if I should have chosen differently.

No hurry.

Well, then, fine, I thought. The year's end is an arbitrary date and the parties tend to disappoint with huge build-up and anti-climax and what’s wrong with using the time to take stock of things? Contemplate the last 12 months for a while before turning my full attention to the present. Besides, there wasn’t really anywhere else I wanted to celebrate at the moment, not Berlin, not Munich, not Vancouver, not Victoria, not London, not Telegraph Creek, not Oslo, not Edmonton, not Nelson, not Mumbai, not Pune. In fact, there really wasn’t any place else I wanted to be right at that moment than on Agonda beach in Goa.

Looking to the future.

Perfect, I thought, so be it, and continued my stroll, letting the surf surge up over my flipflops.

And then, a few hundred meters up the beach I saw a bar set up on the sand. One of the restaurants had not only decorated their restaurant and turned up the sound system with some danceable beats but they had staked their claim right down on the sand between the restaurant and the water where anyone passing by would stray. As I came closer I saw that some people were dancing on the beach around a bonfire. Others were preparing fireworks and paper lanterns. The barkeeper opened me an iced beer. I joined the dancers and the fireworks started to go off directly over our heads, exploding color and light while the meter high paper lanterns billowed and then floated out over the water until they disappeared.

More people came to join us. Some more logs were thrown on the fire, the sound swelled and dancers merged with the beat.

Some games, you cannot participate in.

Within a few minutes all the people I’d met over the last few days had shown up, smiling, laughing, raising a glass. No one had gone anywhere else and this was the place to be on New Year’s at Agonda beach. 

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Truthfully I missed all of the places mentioned and still more I missed the people there. Yet, as I couldn't be at all places at once then I was happy to be right where I was.