And so it was decided, on Feb 27th, 28th and March 1st, we were going back to Goa... We meant me and 7 other friends. We started from Majestic Bangalore, in KSRTC Volvo and were excited as kids...
After all Goa is the ultimate bachelor destination in India. My last two Goa trips, though a bit of disasters were really memorable. My first trip was with my parents(now don't stare at me) way back in 2002 and then a cash strapped trip with my college mates in 2004. Then this was that dream trip, with good amount of cash to burn and a team of bachelors along... Yohoo we were rocking.With a broken window and owl in the bus, we finally reached Panaji at around 12 in the afternoon(it was supposed to reach at 8 in the morning but with an accident fiasco, we ended up reaching late).
Our resort was a good 18km from Panaji near Calangute beach. We finally landed in Red Lion resorts. Though the resort had a grumpy manager and an Ok kinda room, we din care much, after all the room was jus for the late night.
That afternoon we went around the place and had a perfect goan lunch @Hotel Sussegaddo(dunno what that means) . Great food and great service. After a bit of rest, we headed to the beach for the evening.A really crowded beach, Calangute is the most popular beach among the package tour guys. If you want a peaceful beach evening, stay out of Calangute. After a round of volley ball, we headed to the waters, had great fun and headed back to the resort. with a tattoo in my hand :D... Back in the roads for dinner, we planned to hit the discotheques post dinner.
Set on the beach, Lobos is a great place for food and music, with "Kingfisher Voice of Goa" singing hauntingly melodious songs, we had a over great dinner. The time was then over 1130 PM... We decided to drop our discotheque plans and we headed out for a walk by the beach. Calangute and Baga beach is a continuous stretch of beach and makes a great walking route. Even at that time of the day, beaches were full and baga beach was bustling with life and energy with beer flowing like water. We saw young couples making out in the open beach(I am serious!!!! ) and cute couples cuddling up in single mattresses by the beach... A great walk with friends chatting stuffs that only bachelors talk. A small cup of coffee from the Nescafe at the Calangute beach and few games of cards, finished that day in style...
The next day we headed out to go around Goa, we wanted to go to the Arambol beach and Dil chahta hai fort. We started scouting for bikes, but to our dismay all the bikes seemed booked and we finally managed to get 3 god forsaken Honda Activas andd 1 devil forsaken Avenger. It was a great ride for about 40 kms... We stopped over at Anjuna beach, the famous hippie beach. The beach with increasing water levels was not exciting enough. We continued our ride through the beautiful beach side roads of Goa to Arambol beach. After a brief stop over for lunch at Sea view restaurant some two kms before Arambol beach. We finally reached the beach. I should say it was one of the few beaches that has captivated me a lot. The only other beach that i liked was Varkala beach in kerala(will come up with a separate post for that).
Shallow and relatively less crowded beach, this white sand was famous among the 70s and 80s hippie crowd. We had a great fun in waters and finally it was time for us to leave to the Chapora fort (Dil chahtha hai fort).We wanted to see the sun set at Chapora fort and we were racing with the sun to reach the fort(we finally did reach only after the sun set). We had to do a steep climb before reaching the fort.The fort was nothing spectacular except for the view of the Vagator beach.After posing for photographs as Aamir and friends,we headed back. It was very dark and there we managed to get down without tumbling down. After reaching back to our resort, we got ready for dinner and party.We went to the nearby famous "Infantria" restaurant.Known to be a famous Goan restaurant, the food here was good but a bit on a expensive side. We met a Scottish couple there , who claimed they had been to almost all parts of the world including Tunisia, Morocco and blah.. blahh.... Yet another late night after dinner, we dropped our party plan and headed back to resort. After a pack of games, we slept off.
Early next morning we went to the Calangute beach to try our hands with water sports. We bargained for a package of water sports at around 400 rupees. We did para-sailing(was good), rafting, water scooter and two other boring stuff. Post that. we started off the Panaji for a quick shopping and for seeing the city. The day being "Holi" was a holiday. And we had a free ride in the city. Beware!!! please have a helmet while riding in Panaji, the police there work overtime to fine ppl a cool 100 bucks for not wearing one.
After posing for photographs by the riverside and statues we headed back to Calangute. We had some time to roam around the Tibetan markets at Calangute. These place sell items at around 300 % of their costs. with good bargaining you might get a good curios to take back as souvenirs.After having packed our bags, we started back to Panaji, this time to board our buses. We got into KSRTC Volvo back to Bangalore at around 6. At sharp 7 we reached back Bangalore. Leaving behind a memorable Goa. Lotsa unfinished activities still...Goa I will be back again
What not to miss in Goa:;Beaches, Bikinis and Goan food. For veggies, try out Veg Xacuti its a real good Goan dish. And also not the least try out the 7 rupees,Goa milk corporation's Lassi. A really yummy thing.
Goan cashews are very famous, But i did not find them exciting either taste wise or cost wise, so bought some Goa cashew chocolates(not really yummy).
Best way to go around: Honda Activa, there is one every where in every direction(I think this is one huge factor for success of Honda Activa). The rentals range from 150-450 based on the demand.
2 comments:
Thanks dude.. informative.. :)
Nice post dude..
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