Belligerent Canine Meets Bare-Chested Woman On Beach In Goa

It was a warm, somnolent day on Baga beach, Goa, when my dog decided to transform from Lassie to Cujo. The lazy December sun looked down gently on the sands buzzing with winter vacationers.

Interspersed among the usual crowds of foreigners were dark-skinned locals, offering oil massages, chatting up flaxen-haired young things, and selling all kinds of trinkets (best described as ‘beach junk’) in at least five different languages.

Simba, the docile dog turned belligerent canine.

My husband and I were sitting on the sands with Simba, our mixed-breed mutt who had a dachshund and a German shepherd in the DNA mash-up (no idea how they managed that). We fondly referred to him as ‘the long and the short of it.’ He didn’t mind. Simba had better things to occupy himself with than such ethnic slurs.

We were enjoying the sun, the waves and the sand. The faint strains of reggae wafted over from Britto’s beach shack, a few meters away. Meanwhile, Simba ran into the waves, wet himself thoroughly and then ran back to roll in the sand. He was covered with the stuff from tip of nose to tip of tail, until we couldn’t tell where sand ended and dog began.

Simba covering himself in sand on Baga Beach

Always a sweet, happy mutt, he was especially excited on this visit to the beach. The crowds of foreigners and Indians milling around had got him a little worked up.

In those days, Baga was well-known for the topless foreign women who chose to make it their personal tanning booth. Pretty young (and also not-so-young) things that would probably not have dared or cared to bare back home, readily shed their bikini tops and lay down to tan themselves on Baga’s benevolent sands.

Back then, no one objected to such behaviour, and a lot of Indians appreciated it thoroughly. The cops ignored the impotent ‘No Nudity Allowed’ signs in favour of watching the topless girls, jostling for a better view with other Indian males.

Indian women like me were, depending on the width and depth of our personal perspectives, either mortified or indifferent to these goings-on.

A generously padded, curly-haired redhead – possibly an Irish woman seduced away from all dietary strictures by Goa’s wine and vindaloo ethos – walked across the beach in front of us.

She too was topless and it was hard not to notice that, as she scurried across the sand. For some reason, my otherwise sweet, docile Simba decided to take offence. He chased after her, nipping at her ankles.

For lack of an image of a topless redhead, here’s one of my brother instead

The lady (let’s call her Sadie) squealed at the sight of a furry, brown dog apparently determined to take a chunk out of her leg, and scurried even faster. I watched her work up the sand trying to avoid my mutt, and I wasn’t sure whether to be mortified or mirthful. A little bit of both, I decided.

I chased after Simba and leashed him. I had no idea what set him off – her size, state of undress or some other impulse known only to Dachshund-Alsatian crossovers. Either way, he had no way to communicate to me why a topless, white foreigner would merit such a reaction from him.

Sadie rode off into the sunset at a fairly decent clip, never to be seen or heard from again, while my husband and I returned to our spot on the sands laughing and wondering at Simba’s unaccustomed behaviour.

Perhaps he was overcompensating for the lack of policing from the cops gawking at women on a beach where toplessness was clearly not allowed.

Simba enjoying the water

For the rest of our vacation, we kept our canine fashion critic on the leash as long as there were foreign women around. It was a needless precaution, though – whatever had set Simba off, Sadie had taken with her.

Note: As this is a family website, we are unable to provide images of topless redheads. Not that we have any…

Also read: A Road Trip With Dogs To Murud Beach, Dapoli

This is a funny travel story about what transpired when a belligerent canine met a bare-chested woman on Baga Beach Goa. #traveldiary #travel #story #funny #humor #humour

Priya Florence Shah

24 thoughts on “Belligerent Canine Meets Bare-Chested Woman On Beach In Goa”

  1. A lovely nostalgic trip back in time when Goa truly was the land of Sun, surf and susegad before it was pillaged by commercialisation and the invasion of the great Indian tourist hordes. These days you can barely see the sand and is now replaced by what India has too many of.. Single horny Indian males! It’s what can now officially be called out for what it is, a sausage factory.

  2. Literally laughed out loud at Rohan’s “sausage factory” comment…! Visited Baga last year, can’t say it was my favourite part of India and there’s no chance in hell I would ever go topless there (not that I would anywhere other than the privacy of my own home, to be honest). Still got plenty of unwanted male attention, despite covering everything up! Your dog’s super cute by the way. Wouldn’t have minded some attention from him 🙂

  3. That’s a lovely dog. 🙂 To be honest, never knew much about beaches in India. My friends visit Goa from time to time, and all I hear is party party party. But travel bloggers like you show it to me in a different perspective.

  4. Hahaha, I wonder why he chose that particular woman to chase after, she must’ve been mortified, I can only imagine. I did not know they allowed dogs on Baga. Or topless women, for that matter. But like you said, it’s India and many things get overlooked, despite signs on the beach 🙂

    1. I know, poor thing 😛 Topless women on Baga have been a fixture for a very long time. The cops are very lax and don’t even bother to look the other way. LOL 🙂

  5. I would have loved to meet Simba. He seems to have been a jolly fellow. We went to Goa nearly a decade back – spent most of the time in Vagator and it was lovely. I loved the cliffs there.

  6. This is such a sweet (and funny) tale 🙂 I love personal posts like this, I think it’s what sets you apart from other travel bloggers 🙂 more posts like this please (and more pics of Simba!) x

  7. Followingtherivera

    Simba is such a cutie, and clearly playful too! It’s a good thing you didn’t publish photos of the topless redhead haha, that would have been a sight to see. Goa looks so beautiful too!

  8. This is such a funny story! I wonder what set poor Simba off? It’s so hard to know sometimes, at least it is with our dog. Luckily no one got bit or traumatized. 🙂

  9. Actually, I think that on many European beaches, topless is not considered ‘nudity’; nude is nudity.
    However, I enjoyed reading this, I like your witty style of writing.

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