Goa's Hippie-Era Holdover Is a Shopping Dream

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And market-goers find themselves swaying to the beat as they hopoff their motorbikes or step down from their cabs. A graying,ponytailed disc jockey interrupts the tune and calls out: "Allyou lucky hippies, shop well. We are here to rock India,baby."
So right at 7 p.m. on a steamy Saturday night, hundreds ofholiday-making Indian families joined hundreds ofBirkenstock-wearing young tourists to wander the myriad stallsselling hemp-fabric hammocks, dreadlock extensions, sitars andsaris, along with classes for aromatherapy analysis, reiki andcolonic hydrotherapy.
Shiny glass bangles, miniature statues of Hindu deities, giantstuffed elephants bejeweled with mirrors and bright Rajasthanifabrics, T-shirts bearing images of Mahatma Gandhi with marijuana plants sprouting from his head. To Sam Andersen,29, the market was one of the highlights of this palm-fringed beachdestination. The compulsive shopper from England started sweating.
She could barely contain her desire to "buy everything"because "it's so much fun here that you start to reallybelieve you need the Incredible Hulk sarong and matching towel,which has the Hulk but also is printed with the Hindu godGanesh."
"So brilliant," her friend said, examining a pair ofsandals, which had straps shaped like giant red lips. The shoedesigner wasn't bargaining -- there were plenty of customerslooking for funky footwear.
"We make people too happy," said Arathi Menon, anapprentice for a Goan shoe designer who was selling theaforementioned "kissing feet" style along with floppyyellow, green and orange boots that look hobbit-like.
The Saturday night market is an outgrowth of a smaller flea marketstarted in the 1960s in Goa by broke hippies. Today there areseveral night markets and a Wednesday market in the hippie enclaveof Anjuna beach with thousands of stalls.
"The hippies wanted to stay in Goa, bum around India for aslong as they could," said Alfred Wolfgang, 60, speakingthrough a mouthful of brownie. At the market's food stands, he washolding forth about the history of the place to a younger crowd."So they sold their bluejeans, they made lasagna, they played Beatles songs. They did what they could at the flea market to be able toearn a little more and stay a little more."
Gregarious, with thick, caterpillar-like eyebrows, Wolfgang is fromLong Island. He came to party in Goa decades ago, got hooked on theplace, and started making brownies and selling them at the fleamarket.
"The first Indian family to taste them back then -- and thatwas before globalization -- well, they ordered just one and endedup leaving with the entire tray," he said, himself orderinganother brownie from a young German couple who were selling themalongside milky coffee.
Wolfgang has long quit the sweets business and instead importsespresso machines to high-end customers in Mumbai and New Delhi.