Goa again: Being so huge, India has many faces. Goa is the least Indian of them all. This, I imagine, is owed to two factors: the tiny state's Portuguese colonial past; and the well established tourist trade. The locals' outward appearance bears evidence. I see two college students on the bus, sharply dressed, exquisitely groomed and thoughtfully animated. I easily imagine them in Iberian surroundings, their relaxed grace and dark looks distantly echoing the peninsula's mix of south European and Moorish breeding. The lads that run the beach-front cafes and restaurants, with their mix of darker and lighter skins, straight and curly hair, and their generally laid-back surfer dispositions look like they could pass themselves off as the Brazilian national football squad.

Indeed, a whole lot of places you go around here you can substitute floral dresses for saris, whitewashed churches for intricate and colourful temples, and confident smiles for averted gazes. If you were dropped here from a plane, would you know you were in India? This is what was going through my mind as I cycled inland, along palm fringed roads, weaving through winding clusters of villa-style houses with not a Hindu deity in sight, nor the piercing melodies of a Bollywood soundtrack to be heard. Road signs give no reliable clues either: Candolim, Panaji and Aguada one way; Anjuna the other, its collection of hostelries with names like Don João's, Rodrigues and Coutino's.