DEAR VICE - GOA GOES ON

Dear Vice,
The party won't stop in Goa, regardless of the recent crackdown that followed the murder of that British girl. At least that's what Italian expat Enzo thinks as he stretches out on the beach in a fetching linen cock-and-balls pouch. He has been here for six years, looks like an old leather saddlebag, and "fuckin' hates India." He complains about the spicy food, the mustachioed men, the steaming piles of garbage, the inefficiency and the power cuts, much like the other westerners out here. They flock to the stretch of lush coastline between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, not in pursuit of the real India, as they would have you believe, but in search of hot sun, cheap sex, bad drugs, ugly sarongs and unregulated raving.

I've been in Arambol, north Goa, for three days now, which is enough time to find the best place to get a full English breakfast and to realize that most foreigners come here to lose themselves rather than find themselves.

It appears to be pretty easy to lose yourself physically, with an array of different disguises available in most shops along the main strip, "Glastonbury Street." You can buy patchwork dungaree dresses, a rainbow assortment of Thai fisherman pants, and a dizzying array of clip-on dreadlocks. In such a get-up, nobody will ever know that you're really a trainee cashier at the HSBC in Crawley on a two-week Thompson Holidays package tour. If you find the classic tie-dyed headscarf too conventional, there's a French guy who sits by the side of the road weaving pointed pixie hats made from banana leaves.

It also seems pretty easy to lose yourself mentally, should you choose to help yourself to the large assortment of hallucinogenic drugs on offer here. I met one bloke called Steve, an electrician from Essex, who has been waiting under his mosquito net for his mate Martin to return for over a week. "Where did you last see him?" I asked. "Well," he said thoughtfully, scratching his chin. "He took some dodgy acid at a rave out at Jog Falls. The last time I saw him was when he jumped out of a moving car and ran naked into the jungle screaming he was 'On his way home!' Thing is, he hasn't got his passport, any money or any clothes!"

Of course, there are also many people here who have no intention of losing themselves at all. They arrive at Goa Airport in pairs - "Paul n' Dawn," "Dave n' Peggy," or "Pete n' Sue" - a bit like different flavours of Walkers crisps. They all look like something Lakeside Shopping Centre just coughed up, wheeling suitcases filled with M&S kaftans through the airport arrivals gate, straight past the swarm of Indians ("No! Don't touch please! Please get away from my wife!"), and into air-conditioned minibuses, which then whisk them off to high-walled, all-inclusive holiday resorts for some well-earned sunburn, chicken and chips, and cheap beer.

The real India is always hovering in the wings, if you look hard enough. Behind the sand dunes there's a maze of dark, dusty alleyways. There live the people who wash your dishes, massage your feet, fry your bacon, mix your smoothies and weave your braids. But you don't go to Goa to see the real India.

SARAH HARRIS