Palolem beach Goa 15th- 22nd December 2010.

The semi sleeper bus to Goa was pretty decent and the Bollywood movie they showed was actually very enjoyable even though the sub titles were intermittent. After getting to the southern city of Margao we got a local bus further south for 1.5 hours to Palolem beach. Palolem is one of the most southerly and under developed beaches in the state. Although still relatively underdeveloped upon arrival the place had changed a lot since I was there in 2000. There were 5 times as many shops, beach huts, and restaurant s there as well as 5 times as many western travellers and plenty of families on holiday. Still the beach was still just as beautiful and pretty chilled even with constant enquiries from locals selling jewellery and sarongs amount other things…..

We checked into a local guest house that was just off the beach and very quiet. By the looks at some of the ramshackle beach huts that’s had popped up everywhere in the last decade it probably one of the nicest places to stay in the area. Headed straight down to the beach and dipped my feet in the water ..felt instant relief and calmness felt like id been trapped on the skeleton coast and just managed to find my way to water …was gonna enjoy winding down over the next 7 days. ( see photo). One point of interest here was the amount of locals I saw playing football on the beach and wearing European club football shirts….another change in India over the last decade…last time I was in Palolem it was only cricket being played on the beach.

With Kate and Nina usually off doing there own thing I spent most of the week hanging
with Kaveri and we became very close friends….he whole week basically consisted of getting up at noon, eating breakfast, swimming and lying on the beach then having dinner and a beer in the evening…..by the end of the week felt as clean as I ever have in my life…really enjoyed being able to wear flip flops all week in stead of past their wash date socks and shoes . The only minor annoyance/gripe I had that week was the amount of western partiers hanging around …the place really had the feel of a Mediterranean party beach at times rather than the local charm it displayed a decade earlier…..my whole Idea for coming to Goa for Xmas was to see Indians celebrating in festival style……the sight of 20 aussies in Santa suits eating an Xmas dinner one night convinced me I wasn’t going to find that in Palolem…..I decided I would head south to Kerala for Xmas instead as there was still a big Christian population there and it seemed to promise a more rustic charm….

First I offered to take Kaveri back up to Mumbai on an overnight bus before heading south again on my own . Its pretty common for attractive and modern Indian girls to be hassled and even groped by men when travelling alone so I did the proper thing and escorted her back home. After saying goodbye to Kate and Nina. We got the bus back to Mumbai where I said goodbye to Kaveri after making plans to meet up in the UK when she comes there to Uni next summer. Will really miss her company…. have never meet someone I have so much in common with and get on with so well, will be looking forward to meeting up in the summer for sure!

I then found another night bus heading south to Mangalore from Mumbai in the afternoon…my plan was to get a connecting bus from Mangalore the next day to the old Portuguese town of Kochi in southern Kerala in order to reach on Xmas eve …turned out to be the start of a journey of epic frustrations……..more on this soon….

Over all Goa was a great and very memorable time, without going into detail I can say it was one of the best weeks of my life and the perfect recovery period from the previous 5 weeks of Indian hustle and bustle. Left the beach feeling totally refreshed mentally, and ready for the last week and a half on the subcontinent…..lets see what other adventures India has left in it before I head to Taiwan and semi normality……