Oct 25th – 31st, 2013

I grew up in Bombay. I attended school and college in Bombay and yet I had never been to Goa – a mere 40 minutes away by plane. So, when the opportunity came along to visit Goa, I jumped on it. Even though it meant that we had to leave Seattle at 6am the morning after our last day of work and cut short some of our travel time in Europe. And wow, was it worth it!

We flew business class from Copenhagen to Mumbai (just 30,000 miles each thanks to Mr. Mago’s research #balleronabudget ) with a pit stop in London to see my cousins Pooja and Zen, and my beautiful little niece Maya! Sending the evening with my aunt and uncle who flew in the same aaaevening was a bonus! My awesome parents came to the Mumbai airport during our four hour stopover to pick up our pea coats and wool sweaters which we wouldn’t need for a few months (yay!). They also brought us fresh coconut water 🙂

We reached Panjim the next morning. Raj had spent two months in Panjim back in 2005 for an IT training. So, our 24 hours there were spent walking along some of the same streets and going to some of the same bars and restaurants that Raj and his friend Dominic would frequent. I heard stories about where Raj stayed, how hard he studied, the places he liked to eat at and the bars he went to to meet pretty girls. Dominic – your name came up every few minutes! Here are a couple of pictures of the famous Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception church in Panjim. Funnily enough, Raj had never seen the inside of this church before. Isn’t it interesting how we barely ‘travel’ through the places we live in?

We headed south from Panjim to the Park Hyatt for the primary reason of our trip to Goa – our dear friend Sharad’s brother’s wedding. The wedding was soooo grand and Sharad’s friends and family so very receptive. Our experience over the two days at the Park Hyatt was the most luxury Raj and I expect to see over the course of our time off. We were greeted with fresh coconut water and had an outdoor shower attached to our room –wowza!

We spent this amazing luxurious time eating, hanging with Sharad’s friends and family, eating, drinking, eating, getting dressed for the wedding events, eating, hanging by the pool… Raj and I gained at least a couple of pounds each during the two days, making up for all that walking around in Europe. Thank you Tania, Rahul, Ridhima, Manuj, Devika, Niharika and Karan for new friendships and fun conversations! Thank you Sharad and family for including us on this beautiful occasion. We wish Tarun and Divya our very best and hope to see them back in the States soon!

After all this luxury, we had to get back to serious, budget conscious, backpacking 😉 We took this quite literally by taking a local bus from a bus station close to the Hyatt to Palolem in south Goa. The bus ride was ‘fun-ish’ – the suspension of bus was surprisingly good even though we were sitting on the seat directly above one of the rear wheels, a couple got in with a 14 inch TV wrapped up in a bed sheet, a lady in front of us kept yelling hello to folks on the streets – she seemed to know a lot of them, and of course the driver put on some jhintak Bollywood music on the blaring speaker. Like I said, the ride was fun-ish 🙂

Palolem was everything I imagined Goa to be and more. The expected – coconut trees, soft sandy beach, amazing weather, sunsets, Goan fish curry! The unexpected – huts lining the beach front, hammocks, ocean front restaurants, chill-as-can-be vibe, dogs, cows, dolphins! We rented a room right on the beach for just 700 rupees (approximately US$11.50) a night, complete with a patio and hammock, about 50 feet away from the Arabian Sea. The next three days were the definition of chill – it was exactly what we needed after the hustle of Europe, long flights and the non-stop partying at the wedding. Our days included porridge breakfasts, writing postcards, exploring the beach, reading fiction, listening to music on the patio, talking to the friendly locals, Kingfisher beer and multiple dips in the shallow water. It was pretty darn perfect!

The stray dogs and cows on the beach were hilarious! The dogs would invariably sit under our tables at the ocean front restaurants looking up at us with their beautiful eyes while wagging their tails. If we didn’t feed them for a while, they wouldn’t leave but instead sleep under the table hoping for a bit of morsel to fall on the floor – too cute! I had a fear of stray dogs as a kid but the dogs here were extremely friendly and got a lot of love from the tourists and locals alike. While hanging on the beach one time, I saw a dog plop down by a woman lying on the beach placing his butt right by her head. She gently slapped his butt with her flip-flop but he only moved an inch! Another time, a cow decided to make a meal out of a woman’s sarong – the woman’s partner ran behind the cow trying to shoo him/her away with a bag. The cow turned away for a couple seconds and then tried to discreetly get back to his/her meal. The cows and the dogs got into fights with each other a couple of times with one group chasing the other, much to everyone’s entertainment as long as the fight was happening at a distance. Pretty cool sights that one doesn’t see everyday 🙂

The highlight of our time here was when we took a break from the laziness and rented a kayak to watch the sunset from the water. Instead of watching the sun go down, we saw a group of four dolphins playing in the goldish-pink water. They came close to our boat, as close as 50m away, which was both scary and exciting at the same time. When we got back to the beach, the dude we rented the boat from told us that we were very lucky to spot the dolphins – a dolphin watching excursion that went farther into the ocean at the same time as us didn’t spot a single dolphin. We are fortunate for this beautiful experience!

So long Goa! I’ll definitely be back!