Goa — In between dream and reality

10 Days

North Goa

Arriv­ing from the par­adise beach­es and bays in South Thai­land I had no huge expec­ta­tions towards Goa. Every­thing I had heard was point­ing out to par­ties, tourists, beau­ti­ful long beach­es and drugs.

When I took the seat in the plane from Mum­bai to Goa in the after­noon after a day full of activ­i­ty in Phuket and a trip of over 16 hours (2 flights and one 9 hours stop over in hec­tic Mum­bai where I had to go to Rishabs house to pick up my big back­pack­er) the only thing I want­ed to do was sleeping.

The lady next to me breathed deeply

but I didn´t react on that. After a while she start­ed a talk and I enjoyed it but I told her as well that I was very tired and that I need to close my eyes. When we had land­ed we went to the exit togeth­er, Muni­ra (her name) invit­ed me gen­er­ous­ly on a cof­fee and after the lit­tle dra­ma with the ATM and her cred­it card we took a taxi togeth­er to Aram­bol. We booked our acco­mo­da­tions almost next to each oth­er in advance and so it seemed to be even smarter to share a taxi. I noticed quite fast­ly that Muni­ra is sim­i­lar to me and I was already look­ing for­ward to see her the next day. She moved the next day to my home­s­tay and after anoth­er move to a big­ger bun­ga­low right next to the beach we felt like sis­ters (she also called me her Goa wife :D). Dur­ing the 6 days that I spent in Aram­bol many things hap­pened: I met my friends I got to know in Himachal Pradesh (Lukas, Hec­tor and Alex), I attend­ed the Ecsta­t­ic Dance for the first time (I´ll def­i­nite­ly do again!), I met very inter­est­ing peo­ple and enjoyed amaz­ing talks which I won´t for­get too fast and last but not least I danced one day at the Sun­splash fes­ti­val, the biggest Raegge fes­ti­val in India, for free!

After a love­ly Good Bye from my Goa wife Muni­ra I con­tin­ued my trip to the more qui­et South of Goa.

South Goa

I shared the taxi with 2 guys who I met before in the first acco­mo­da­tion. At my new acco­mo­da­tion I moved hap­pi­ly into the big room for only 8 euros a night. Unfor­tu­nate­ly I dis­cov­ered in the evening that THE bar is locat­ed next to my room. They played life music untill 11:30 pm. Despite the nice music my sleep wasn´t as good as it was used to be…

The next day I checked some cafés online and decid­ed for the Avo­ca­do Café where I spent ful­ly 4 hours. That was actu­al­ly all I did the first day. The fol­low­ing days I rent­ed a scoot­er and cruised along the coast in the North and South of Agonda.

Before I arrived at Cola Beach

which is in the North of Agon­da I had dri­ven such a bumpy road that the motor runned out so many times. But, when I arrived at the beach, I for­got about that: A delight­ful bay sur­round­ed by coconut trees wrapped around the ocean. Despite a cou­ple of peo­ple I enjoyed the atmos­phere, espe­cial­ly after man­ag­ing the hor­ri­ble sandy and rocky way to the beach on my own. After a cool down in the ocean and a walk at the coast and a lit­tle break I con­tin­ued my jour­ney to Fort Rama. The uncon­spic­u­ous entrance didn´t pre­sume on some­thing spec­tac­u­lar, but the walk around the fort is more then worthy!

After a short time I met a local

who accom­pa­nied me and showed me around the sure­ly most beau­ti­ful spots! Even though he hard­ly spoke Eng­lish (and I don´t speak Hin­di) I enjoyed this lit­tle togeth­er­ness and the sweet still­ness. At the end he showed me proud­ly his fisher­boat and I said good­bye to leave for sun­rise to a hid­den beach. In the late morn­ing I got a tip from an Argen­tin­ian lady for this beach. I real­ly need­ed to hur­ry because it was already very late and I still need­ed to find the entrance to the beach. Final­ly I arrived, speed­ed along the small path that changed into steps down to the beach. When I start­ed to lis­ten to the ocean I also per­ceived anoth­er sound of water:

I approached a water fall in the middle of the jungle.

Lit­er­al­ly with the right ear I lis­tened to the water fall and with the left ear I lis­tened to the ocean. Clear­ly this is a qual­i­tiy sign for par­adise!! I walked down fast­ly and could see the beach through the coconut trees, which con­firmed my impres­sion of a par­adise! A short, maybe 200 m long beach that was sur­round­ed by coconut trees and dec­o­rat­ed by smooth big rocks on which the water was bounced back. Only some bam­boo huts on a high­er plateau of the beach seemed to see me. A sat down on a stone and watched the sun going down into the ocean as a big orange-red fireball.

…After the sunset I had to hurry to hike up still in dawn.

The way up was quite steep and would take 15–20 min.

When I arrived at my acco­mo­da­tion I met the Argen­tinien lady from the day before and her friend for hav­ing Momos. Mjam­mi – as soon as the „Himalaya peo­ple“ cook Momos I can´t close my mouth any­more. After a nice talk they both joined me to Rick­ys shop, a Kash­miri guy who owns the old­est tai­lor and pre­cious stone shop in Agon­da. We talked around 3,4 hours and when I arrived around mid­night I felt asleep immediatly.

On the next day I cruised on my scoot­er to the south­ern Goa beach­es that were most recommended:

Galgaliba, Patnem and Palolem beach.

I enjoyed Gali­ga­ba beach for its soli­tude (I count­ed maybe 2,3 oth­er peo­ple as far as I could see AND some tur­tle nests). The oth­er 2 beach­es I didn´t like so much because they were very crowdy. For being ear­ly for surf­ing I woke uo ear­ly on the next day. I was very lucky because my surfteacher and I were the only per­sons in the water and the waves were pret­ty good com­pared to the pre­vi­ous days. I enjoyed final­ly being back on the board and keep­ing my bal­ance as long as pos­si­ble above the ocean. After a short time the teacher stopped help­ing by push­ing me and I pad­dled and surfed as long as my knees were aching. After around 2 h I left the ocean, ordered a deli­cious break­fast and relaxed the rest of the day. Before leav­ing to Hampi by night­bus I passed the guys I met dur­ing my „Agond­ex­pe­ri­ence“, ordered a Bagh­su cake „take away“ and said „Good Bye, Agon­da! We´ll sur­ley meet again!“.

“When I start­ed to lis­ten to the ocean I also per­ceived anoth­er sound of water: I approached a water fall in the mid­dle of the jun­gle. Lit­er­al­ly with the right ear I lis­tened to the water fall and with the left ear I lis­tened to the ocean. Clear­ly this is a qual­i­tiy sign for paradise!!”

Restaurant/Bar Tips 

Sights & Insider Tips 

Accomodation