Let’s go cycling

Day 24- 29 in India…beach hopping 🙂

Well…Goa is rather different to everywhere else we’ve been so far in India.
As soon as we crossed the border the change was evident.

Green roadsides, barely any rubbish and strict road regulations enforced. Quite noticeably, the number of bars/liquor shops now outnumber most other retail outlets- very unlike the three previous states we’ve traversed! No more dingy looking “men only” bars- Goa seems to pride itself on offering a wide range of spirits at most restaurants.

Arriving in Goa we were suddenly no longer a spectacle by virtue of our skin colour…although we do still seem to be quite an oddity for our mode of travel 😛

After not speaking to another westerner since we arrived in India a month ago, in Palolem we were faced with not only a few western tourists but foreign owned expat businesses. And western food…a bit of comfort for my tummy which is starting to kick up about the constant diet of Indian spices…

But that didn’t last long. Up the coast a bit further and the foreigners disappeared. Calangute Beach was a manic place, full of touts and thousands upon thousands of Indian tourists all vying for a spot on the beach despite the fact that the real tourist season is a few weeks away yet.  We’ve beach-hopped up the coast thinking we’d spend a bit of leisurely time in Goa but Calangute was not the place!

A few km further up and we found a lovely quiet spot near Anjuna Beach. Garden setting…pool… away from the nightlife (are we getting old???)… and the perfect spot to stop for a couple of days and catch up on a bit of bookwork a and route planning, not to mention a bit of lazing around. Well me anyway- Neil’s not very good at lazing but there’s plenty to explore in the vicinity!

Goa is coming to the end of the monsoon season, the sand is returning and there is much activity on the beachfronts. Most of the permanent structures are still protected from the monsoon rains and salt spray, completely swaddled in giant tarpaulins. On other beaches the entire deck structure for the beach bars and restaurants are being built from scratch.

We can only imagine what it will be like here once the throngs of tourists arrive!

Food and drink can be surprisingly expensive in Goa- hidden charges at over 30% on the waterfront and the most touristy places, without any forewarning! Definitely a trap for the unwary (that’s us…).

We did figure out that we just needed to traipse a block or so from the beachfront to find very reasonable places to eat with no added taxes.  Go figure!

And that’s our little experience of Goa…now on to the state of Maharashtra and towards the madness of Mumbai…