Goa again!

I recently went on my eighth Goa trip in the last six years. It was a short trip, Thurs to Sun and the aim was, as always, to party, have fun and explore a few new places. I have to admit something before I begin- I am a complete “beach holiday person”. Nine out of the ten vacations I have taken over the last few years have been towards the sea. Goa started off as the favourite beach destination for me. But I was so blown away by the beauty of Thailand and its beach destinations that I had made up my mind not to go to Goa only for the view. The sand was not white enough and the water not blue enough.  The recent sales offered by airlines of India since the beginning of the year provided an attractive opportunity to make a quick, short trip to Goa with two of my best friends again, and I took it with open hands. Incidentally, my first trip to Goa was with the same two guys. The big change was all of us had the company of our spouses this time.

I had made up my mind to stay at a hotel which was not in Baga/Calangute/Candolim. All my personal visits to Goa earlier had me staying at these three places and I wanted to keep my base at a different location this time to prevent me from going to the same familiar (although still awesome) places that I tend to frequent in Goa. Club Cavalla, Britos, St Anthony's, Titos and Mambos are all awesome. But I wanted to see the Kata and Karon beach equivalents of Goa as well and not just the Patong beach this time. So, I stayed at a The Tamarind in Anjuna, a small, pretty property. 

I was visiting Goa in season (though at the fag end) after a very long gap and wanted to check out Baga beach and see some familiar sights to start off with. So after checking in on Thu afternoon, we proceeded to Baga beach and tried a new shack this time – Athens. It is the third shack when you walk on the beach towards Calangute from Britos. The first change I noticed is that all shacks have started serving the hookah. Goa is probably the only remaining place in India where the law allows hookah to be served. And cheers to that! Another Thailand transfer is the vendors selling glow bands and flying paper lanterns. The paper lanterns find a buyer in all couples; especially the honeymooners and we had a guy trolling us while we were sending ours off into the sky. I could just smell the sarcasm dripping off his mouth when he said “Hope this makes all your dreams come true”! We had some amazing starters and drinks on the beach at Athens and moved on the St Anthony’s after some time for food. Only to realise that Thu night was Karaoke night and in Goa, unlike in Chennai, the place does not need to hire a professional to keep interjecting in between with songs since enough guests don’t sing. Here, everyone and their uncle wanted to sing ten songs, back to back. The food was good but the bad singing kind of killed the evening, and we moved on for some rest at the hotel by 1 AM.

We had been researching a lot about new places in Goa, and decided to go to Our Shack on Vagator beach the next day. I had never been to Vagator beach earlier. After hiring a couple of bikes, and asking directions, we landed on Vagator beach only to find it bereft of any shacks. On checking with the lifeguard we found that the happening part of Vagator was called Little Vagator beach, and that’s where all the shacks were. It was in fact, a short walk away with a small cliff separating it from the side that we were on. Interestingly, water sports were allowed only on this part with the standard speed boat, para-sailing and jet ski on offer. Little Vagator however, was full of shacks with mostly non Indian tourists. I found out that this part was very popular with Russian and Israeli tourists. The beach was beautiful and much less crowded with no over enthusiastic vendors approaching you. This beach also has the very popular Greek restaurant, Thalassa. Our Shack was the poshest (read overpriced) shack on this beach and had the best view overlooking the sea.

We lazed around at the shack till evening having some beers and food, which was avoidable (My advice: have some drinks here and move on to one of the shacks nearby for food) and decided to move on to the famous Disco Valley shack by evening to enjoy some good Goan fish and the beautiful sunset. We sat at one of their machaan seating and the sunset from there was nothing short of breathtaking. This shack was the centre of Goa trance parties over the years, but has evolved in to more quieter place these days with a couple of parties every year.

Being a Fri night, we decided to check out a new party place in Goa called Love, Passion, Karma in Candolim. I did not have big expectations from it, knowing what the scene was like in the other popular nightclubs, but this place was HUGE! We reached at around 11:30 and stayed till about 3:30. The place,e being beside a river (or lake, not too sure) had a great outdoor seating area and a big indoor dance floor. The music that night was not really great although I ended up having a great time being with friends. People do completely let go in Goa and the cleaner at the place had a really busy time getting all the puke cleaned up!

But the discovery of the trip was Ashwem beach and the awesome development (although very limited compared to Baga/Anjuna etc.) which has happened around this part. We visited a place called Sunset Ashram, which is a sort of beach side party place where you can have great food, take a dip in the pool or go to the beach alongside. The place converts to a club at night with a DJ playing music. It has just come up and events happen every fortnight or so. This part of Goa will remind you of the beaches of Thailand (Koh Samui, especially with similar beach side party places). There is a new "party hotel" alongside called Bardos which is modelled probably on the "Ark Bar" at Koh Samui where you can laze all day and end the night with an awesome party. There was La Plage, a french restaurant, and Marbellas, a beach resort nearby, which I have heard a lot about, but we had to keep them aside for another trip.

We ventured to Anjuna beach next, to Curlies shack in particular for some food and the sunset. Food was awesome, although the place was really crowded. And the sunset, oh the sunset, was something words can't do justice to. Check it out for yourself.

Great end to the day with the only dampener about Curlies being the service and the overall arrogant attitude of the staff. Next stop was the Arpora night market, which was an experience in itself. Surprisingly, this was my first visit there and I realized what I had been missing. The place was a smorgasbord of all the things that make Goa unique - the hippies, the Russians, the Israelis, the flea markets, live music, open air EDM parties, international cuisine food stalls, goth girls running goth shops, Gujarati/Marwari ladies running trinket stalls, magic shows...I could go on and on.We had plans to go to Cabbana for the night, but by the time we reached our hotel to freshen up, most of us were too tired to think about partying that night. 

We started the next day early, it being our last day. The hotel's breakfast being pretty ordinary, we had decided to go to Infateria at Calangute and had a long, leisurely and hearty breakfast, and made plans for our next trip there. We did make an interesting observation. There is a certain pattern that people follow when visiting Goa repeatedly over a period of time. On Baga/Calangute, you would mostly see college kids, new visitors to Goa who are just discovering the place. After a couple of visits, people discover Anjuna and more beautiful but less crowded beaches north of Anjuna. These are frequented by couples mostly, without kids. As the years progress and there are additions to the family, people start moving towards properties around South Goa, which have good child support in place. So the general population here would be couples with kids, forty plus couples coming to have a quiet time and keeping to the resorts mostly without venturing beyond. And Goa just adapts to make itself your destination every time...Until next time...