In Post-Soviet Goa, No One Can Hear You Psy: Part Two

The Anjuna Flea Market felt like the final day of the Woodford Folk Festival, if Woodford was whacked up to the eyeballs on chai-flavoured peptides.

Refresh your brain on Kris Swales' first Goa adventure here.

The Market is still trading on the glories of days gone by, when the hippie trailblazers used it as the place to flog what they'd found on their travels. The tourist season is petering out, the aisles aren't as full as the stall holders would like, and some of their arm-grabbing sales tactics are quite forceful. Some unremarkable Goa trance CDs were being sold at the stalls. At least I was on the right track.

I spotted the Canberra Raiders' mascot Victor The Viking, and snapped a photo of him as proof that it wasn't a flashback to that time I took acid at a Fitzroy band squat and ended up bearing more than a passing resemblance to Jeff Goldblum mid-metamorphosis in The Fly.

The distant sound of live drums led me to the beach and Cafe Looda. A band was rocking out on a platform underneath a thatched roof with the ocean as their backdrop, roaring through a post-grunge cover of Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away as sung by an actually-kinda-sexy middle-aged Tinkerbell. Because really, who else would a Goa covers band be fronted by?

I continued south along a fairly dirty and chopped-up beach, over some rocks and hastily laid timber planks, and arrived at scene mainstay Curlie's. If Goa beach shacks ever enter the superclub era, Curlie's will be seen as their Godfather. It's a multi-level establishment with deck chairs at ocean level, stairs up to a mass of tables and chairs serviced by a well-stocked bar and restaurant serving all sorts of cuisine, then upstairs to a lounge and rave cave which is just like a turn of the century chill room back home - and with all the trappings.

I picked the brains of my waiter, a longtime local - seems I missed a beach party at next door's Shiva Valley shack by a day (MISSED GIG COUNT: 2!). He told me in his American-tinged English ("I watch a lot of Hollywood movies") that "it didn't go as they'd planned" anyway, some mixed explanation about school exams being on and parents being sentimental and "it's all just bullshit man". O-kaaaaaay.

He did assure me that the regular Thursday night thang at Curlie's would be on tomorrow, so it was straight into the diary. At last, my Goa psy pilgrimage was nearing completion...

After hearing some low slung house (sans DJs) piping out of the other beach shacks, it was back to Cafe Looda, where Every Live Funk Band You've Ever Heard suddenly morphed into Goa's Ozric Tentacles with the addition of tabla and electric sitar. I went in for a closer look and heard a familiar accent.

Swales: "Am I in the Australian section?"

Kiwis: "No, Kiwis!"

The group of three were all late-twenties - the PR agent who'd tossed in her Auckland gig to volunteer in a school two beaches south in Calungate, and the couple taking seven weeks off from the job on the cruise run between Miami and the Caribbean. The couple were staying in extravagant six star accom with a 60-inch LED, here because of Goa's rep as Indian party central. He spruiks for luxury watch and jewellery brands on the ship, and sends the passengers off to the best places to buy on the islands like some sort of Anthony Robbins of cruise liner retail.

Their destination after this was Club Cubana, and he said I was welcome provided I didn't act "creepy". Umm, don't let the world's worst moustache put you off dude, I just haven't come to India to work on my personal hygiene.

You certainly can't miss Cubana from a distance, with a spiralling spotlight dominating the night sky from its vantage point on top of a hill 2km back from Anjuna. I paid the 800 rupees (roughly $15) for entry as part of a 'couple' with the single girl, who walked in for free. ('Stags' and local guys are nowhere to be seen). I eventually worked out that the door fee includes free booze, and as much of it as I could drink. RSA, eat a bag of dicks.

Club Cubana looks like it was once a magnificent villa that has been dropped into the middle of the jungle treehouse of the Lost Boys in PJ Hogan's Peter Pan, had three terracotta balconies (one with pool) attached to it and covered with lounges, then been converted into a den of western pleasure with a few local ladies there to witness the cultural event. (It's also the only destination on this trip that I didn't bring my camera.)

When we found our way to the dancefloor it was pretty stock main room house fare. There's a Somebody That I Used To Know remix that everyone sings; the DJ drops Havana Brown's We Run The Night, and I dance because it would be un-Australian not to.

Shit started to get weird. The couple started to fight about the sweet nothings that couples fight about while travelling. The tiny, stunning, dangerous blonde half of the couple and I did a mock-choreographed dance to Beyonce's Single Ladies, then she tried to foist me upon a Russian dancing nearby, who promptly disappeared up the staircase wrapped around the dancefloor to the mezzanine level.

The single girl of the group was there to win on, fended off multiple suitors, then got a message across to me from the guy half that she definitely wasn't going home with me. I was all like "I really don't care man, I'm just here to check out the club and have a good time" and it wasn't a complete lie.

A barely barely-legal Russian girl interpretive fuck-danced beside us, grabbing a Bud from the guy half and swigging it messily before returning to her solo drunken reverie.

It was around 1am. The mood had shifted, the music was tripe, there were now 1500-plus in the club, and it was decided a retreat was in order. Our original shared taxi pulled over when the driver refused the agreed 400 rupee fare to take us all home to different beaches. My new friends argued the toss over what amounted to $1, we get booted out and blacklisted by every other taxi driver in earshot, and the kiwis said "sorry Kris, you're on your own" and disappeared into the night.

I paid 500 rupees for the route that cost me 400 to get here, and waved goodbye to Club Cubana's final night of the 2013 season.

Curlie's, I sincerely hope your Thursday night vibe is more inspiring...