As I decided to stay in Orissa for a few days longer, I cancelled my trips to Hyderabad and Bangalore – on the one hand a shame, because I would have loved to see them both, but I’m also glad I did not go because I needed the rest. So I flew straight from Bhubaneswar to Goa where I had arranged to meet some friends who happened to be travelling in India too! We all met at the airport and then made our way to Panaji (or Panajim) the capital of the tiny state of Goa.
It being the off season, everything in Goa – which is already known to be a relaxed and sleepy state – was even more relaxed and sleepy. We quickly found a place to stay, relaxed for a bit and then went out to do a little exploring and grab some food. It was great to be hanging out with friends (i.e. people I’ve known for a while) again and we had a good time just hanging out.
Mapusa and Calangute
After sleeping for approximately 15 hours, and extending our stay at the hostel we made our way to the little market town of Mapusa taking the easily accessibly public buses. The drive through the countryside was beautiful, with everything being lusciously green due to the monsoons. We arrived in Mapusa and quickly found the market, which was a market for everything from chickens to random artefacts. Walking around here was quite comfortable and it was easy bargaining with the stall owners, as they clearly did not have the customers like in the high season – so they’re happy to sell anything and getting the prices of things down significantly just involved saying that you were not interested in the first place. 
I went to look at some wall hangings and asked the lady out of interest what she would sell it to me for, of course she started at something like 2000 rupees, but I just said no and kept looking at others and without my even saying anything she kept lowering the price until at the end she was willing to sell them to me for 300 rupees, which is a fair price. Compared to the bargaining in more touristy areas, this was quite fun and easy.
After walking around the market for a while we went to get a drink and then took a bus to the beach at Calangute, one of the popular beaches of northern Goa. We chilled out there for a while, people watching and got ourselves a bit food and drink and just relaxed until a huge rainstorm just came our way. It was beautiful to see it coming in from the sea and everyone rushed to find shelter. Our waiter took our things and ran inside, boxing other people out of the way so that we could have a nice table in the tiny indoor part of the bar – we all found that rather amusing.
So we waited out the storm in the tarpaulin covered beach bar hut and when it stopped people started to go outside again, just to turn around as one and come rushing back in, because another wave of rain was coming! When the storm finally subsided we made our way back to the bus station to catch a bus back to Panaji where we had dinner at a very nice little Portuguese restaurant. Old Goa
After another good night of sleep and prolonging our stay in Panaji yet again, we took a bus to Old Goa, the old capital of Goa, where now hardly any people live. The city is quite small but full of old Portuguese churches and monasteries. There are three main churches there: St. Francis of Asissi, Se Catherine and Bom Jesus. Se Catherine is one of the main pilgrimage sites for Indian Christians, and is considered a very important church. My favourite church is the now unused St. Francis of Asissi church which had some amazing intricate detailing which I found beautiful. There were also some amazing ruins in Old Goa of a Church and convent that had been destroyed and is now totally moss covered and looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie – quite cool.
Palolem
After finally checking out from the hostel in Panaji – where every day they asked us if we were going to check out, and we just responded with “no, one more day extra”, it kind of became a running joke – we made our way to Palolem in southern Goa, where we found a nice guest house right on the beach and we just relaxed there for a few nights, enjoying the sea, the food and the quiet low season atmosphere – perfect relaxation.
No comments:
Post a Comment