Goin' to Goa

On the sleeper train to Goa

We had a brief stop along the way in lovely Ahmedabad, basically that meant a wait of about 7 hours. Not wanting to spend 7 hours at the station we booked into a seedy hotel downtown. To say it was grim would be an understatement but it meant we could crash for a few hours.
Back on the train, then arrival in a wet, humid and overcast Tivim at 8ish the following morning - will this monsoon ever end ? We took an autorickshaw to gorgeous, sleepy Chapora where we met up with Ros, Simon and the lad Alex. It was great to see some familiar faces, especially as they had brought some goodies from the UK. Ros's mum, Joy, was also there visiting them for a 2 week break.

Chilling on the balcony, Chapora

We spent a lot of time relaxing down the beach in Goa, swimming in the very warm sea. The beaches around Chapora are nice but nothing in comparison to the beach at Polalem where we spent a couple of nights - a kind of mini break from the holiday from the trip.

Sunbathing cows, Palolem beach

At Palolem we stayed in a hut literally right on the beach, but amazingly it was a beach hut with en suite bathroom - how things are changing....

Beach hut, Palolem

Another gorgeous beach we visited was across the Chapora River at Morjim which we went to on the little scooter we hired for the 2 weeks. We didn't stay too long there though as there was no shade and it was an incredibly hot and sunny day.

Cyclist, Morjim beach

We had lots of little day trips out, either on the scooter, or more often courtesy of Balchang and his wonderful taxi service. We visited the market at Mapsa, a typical Indian affair, and at Anjuna which is cool but definately geared up for the tourist rupee. On a day out to Arambol we took Alex to see the enormous banyan tree and bumped into our friend Depo who ran the laundry in Manali (in the summer) and was washing clothes down in Goa for the winter months.
The nights were usually spent down at Santos's bar (he's Balchang's brother) where many a cold, cheap Budveiser would be consumed. It was a pretty funny place to hang out, full of regulars, a bit like a soap opera !!

Usual Suspects, Santos' Bar

It was nice to spend the last 2 weeks of the Asian leg in Goa as the food there is fantastic and generally a lot healthier to eat than most other places in India. We had some gorgeous meals at the Tibetan Kitchen in Calangute and many nights we dined like kings on barbequed food we did ourselves in the back garden at Olga's. It was extremely hot and humid in Goa, even at night, and cooking round 'the flaming pit from hell' was hard work but the end result always made it worthwhile. A few afternoons were spent chilling down at the Boom Shanka restaurant down on Little Vagator beach. This was a nice little spot to enjoy a cold sunset beer.
Chapora was pretty quiet when we were there, it was early season so the madness of the Goa Trance scene hadn't kicked in yet. We did go to the Primrose a couple of nights and get a taste of what was soon to be....those nutters and that music, oh dear....
Alex was a star and kept us entertained for the 2 weeks. Each morning he would wake us by shouting across the balcony from his apartment to ours and by the end he had was quite keen on a good scrap with Nik. Ros looked after us while we were there - it was nice to have a mug of tea brought to the room each morning, and Simon also kept us very entertained with his constant chatter, crazy man....
The day we left was Alex's 2nd birthday and, after a great couple of weeks, we were very sad to be going. We knew that after 5 months the Asian leg of our journey was nearly over. Goa is a cool place to chill out and we'd met some nice people duirng our time there. The next stop, after yet another long train journey, would be Mumbai and we both knew there'd be no chilling out there.....

written by  jonnik on January 7, 2008 from Goa, India
from the travel blog: Jon & Kenty's Grrrrrand Tour
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