Goa

Our long planned road trip finally materialized last weekend. The weekend itself co-operated by getting longer by adding on Good Friday and to the guys working for London- Easter Monday.

The four of us Manas, Maddy, Blondie and Me planned to take off Thurs night at about 2 and do most of the travel when the weather is still cool. But thanks to Maddy bum who was playing 250 and wasn’t traceable till morn we started at about 5am.

The journey was awesome, a couple of DCH stunts and surprisingly not taking any detours we hit Anjuna at about 4 in the afternoon. We got totally ripped off at the shack paying a bomb for the kingfish and the pomfret. Here Maddy did the second of his many Harry Houdini stunts and for sake of this blog ignore them from now on.

The sunset at Anjuna beach was beautiful and we took off for NV beach resort at Calangute. Maddy exhausted crashed as soon as we got the room while the rest of us hit the shacks at Baga. Kings, Feni and Fish accompanied with Blondies anecdotes made the day. The night ended with the shacks closing at 12(ref: Scarlet Murder) and we went to Titos and had about 6 desserts among the 3 of us.

Morning Maddy and me were swimming/floating/goofing around on the beach while the oldies were lazing about at a shack by the beach. We took off in the afternoon for Palolem with a quick stop in Panaji for some pizza. All this while the place was lashed with rain making it even more beautiful with the vegetation shimmering in fresh green. We went on this amazing ride through the countryside with Maddy navigating and Manas driving we ended up 35 km off our original destination. Thanks to a helpful bike guy we ended up hitting the beach just before sunset. Palolem is definitely one of the best beaches I have laid my eyes on .. Nestled between a bay and hills the white sandy beach just blows you away. There is a shack at the edge facing the western coast that gives you a beautiful view of sunset at sea. Sipping beer at the Sundowner is an experience onto itself. The fact that it is only accessible in low tide when the water is low enough to wade through makes it even more special. We had to get back to the beach as the tide started rising and the place was booked to the full so we couldn’t get acco. We ended up at Banyan Tree and had a couple of beers and all of us wanted to drive back next morning to enjoy the beautiful drive so manas and maddy crashed in one of the shacks and me and blondie slept in the car. We also ended up getting Temp Tatoos and funky shirts. The next morning we drove back through the back roads of goa. Briefly stopping at bits goa for breakfast where manas met his cousin. We headed back to Calangute for a quick shower and then off to Shapora fort for some DCH level snaps and Manas got some Goan merchandise and we set off back home. The drive was superb with all of us driving like F1 racers when the other three were the pit crew throwing in suggestions.

We ended up back safe and sound in Mumbai at midnight totally exhausted after a killer 10 hr drive.