If you thought Goa is all about beaches, you are wrong! Goa has something for all types of people. If you are the kind who wants to just laze around doing nothing, Goa is the place for you. If you want to party hard and rock the night, Goa is the place for you. If you are a fan of old Portuguese forts, Goa is the place for you. If you are a religious person, and want to do church-hopping Goa is the place to be! We decided on a mixture of these. We started our Day 2 with a visit to the famous churches of Goa. Click here for our Day 1 in the dream called Goa.

Dancing in the beach shack

To visit these churches, you will have to travel a good 30 kilometers from the Calangute area. We had our hired bikes and started out, braving the scorching sun, which grew hotter and hotter as the day progressed. The Old Goa, where these churches are located, is a small town, but with magnificient and imposing churches. The churches remind you of the glory of the past history – the Portuguese history.

Mammoth structures with impeccable architecture and soul-binding divinity – these churches will never fail to excite any person inclined to buildings. The only thing you will have to be careful and protective about, is the heat of the morning, which could easily make you tired walking around these huge structures. The long and stunning hallways of these churches leave one wondering how they were built in the first place, centuries back! We spent all the time in the morning watching the churches, and had lunch at a small restaurant in Old Goa. As would always be the case, we ate fish, fish and more fish. The fish never fails to amaze in Goa, which is another of the reasons why we felt so bad leaving the paradise.

Returning from our trip to the churches, we had very little strength left in us for the day. We had earlier planned to visit the Vagator beach, about which we had heard a lot, but on the last moment, decided against it. We took bath in the Calangute beach till we were tired, and till we had enough and more of the beach. It was an exciting experience. The waves are a bit strong towards the Baga beach, but it is not a subject of worry, since there are umpteen people in these beaches, and the Lifeguard is always there to help you in case there should be any problem.

Dil Chahata Hai fort

The evening was again time for a sumptuous beach dinner of chicken, prawns and fishes, not to mention the bottles of beers that went in. There was a live karaoke party in the restaurant (beach shack) and we were listening to all kinds of songs we had never heard till then. Buffalo soldier… song was the best of the lot – with a cheerful old guy singing, and he was indeed very good. People (read gals) in the restaurants also were excited by the song. There is no limit for excitement in Goa. They came towards our shack and started dancing alongside, adding to the mood of revelry. We enjoyed the whole of the night and went home tired and exhausted well after midnight, and again had a dreamy sleep. I had given instructions to everyone to be ready for the next day’s adventures at Vagator, and not to delay the start at any cost.

We greeted our last day in Goa, again with lot of expectations. I just changed my mind, and decided that we will ride to Arambol beach rather than Vagator, and visit the Vagator beach if we had enough time while returning from Arambol. The ride to Arambol was quite long. May be it is around a 35 kms from Calangute. But, the beach is well worth the travel. We rode and rode and rode and finally came to the spectacular beach called Arambol. It was paradise on earth.

Bikini babes and stunning damsels marked the Arambol beach. We had never seen so many hot ladies in bikinis, that we soon decided to ditch any other plan for the day, and just remain in the Arambol beach, and that was not a bad plan at all. One remarkable thing about Arambol beach is, the waters are so shallow that you can go quite a distance into the sea, and still the water remains at waist level. The waves are not too strong at all, and it would be a completely enjoyable experience. To spice up things, a great looking female and a guy got into water, and all our eyes lit up, and we wondered – Is this India…? We enjoyed our bath in the waters for another 2 hours or so. Time flew by, and we never wanted to leave, but we had to, since it was our last day, and we had to board our train late that night.

Actually, there is a small fresh water lake near the Arambol beach, which is a nice place to take bath in… but we had to walk quite a distance (about 2 kms) to reach this. It would have been a nice walk skirting the beach, and the place was at a visible distance only, but again as we had to leave that day, we decided to reserve the lake for our next trip. We took more eyefuls of the bikini babes, and had lunch again at a nice beach side restaurant at Arambol beach. Chickens, fishes and prawns again. On our way back, we saw that almost the whole of our day had been spent in Arambol alone, and no one regretted it. It was the best of the beaches. Not too crowdy, shallow enough, white and clear sand, and to top it all, bikini babes. A nice way to end our trip.

We came back to our room in Calangute, took a short nap, then woke up, bade farewell to our nice host, and started back to Panjim. Rahul bought some wine to be taken back to friends. We also bought a special cake called Bebinca, which Rahul said would taste great. But I warn you, it tasted just like normal halwa, and was grossly overpriced. So, beware.

We had some fruit juice near the station, and then boarded our train to Bangalore. It was one of my best journeys. All of our hearts were refusing to wake up from the dream called Goa… All we were discussing was about when we would make our next trip to Goa…

Vinoth is getting married, and I am moving to my own house in Bangalore… Balayya has shifted to Banashankari. So, practically we are all heading in different directions. But we have decided to come together (at least the bachelors) in December of 2009 to make our next week-long trip to the dream called Goa. Let us see if we make it to our dreams…

Click here for our Day 1 in the dream called Goa.

As the Madras-Vasco Express that runs through Bangalore stops at the Castle Rock railway station late in the morning, you can get ready for some exciting and fun-filled mountain journey. After this station, you enter a fascinating dream called Goa, which you will know as the train starts its ascent through chains and chains of green-laden hills and dark roaring tunnels.

Vagator beach in Goa

Little did I know of this lovely Indian state till Srikanth, a friend of mine, came back from Goa to tempt us all with vivid descriptions and animated accounts of his three days in Goa. After listening to his account, we were all longing to hit the beaches as soon as possible. It catapulted the imaginations of us all beyond bounds, and soon I was on board the Madras-Vasco Express with 5 of my friends to an unforgettable journey to the destination – Goa.

In the train

By the time the train reached the Vasco-da-gama station, it was late afternoon. It would be a good idea to rent bikes to get around Goa, since the beaches and places to visit are spread quite apart. However, Vasco is a business city rather than a touristy one, and so it would be rather easy to take the Kadamba shuttle service from Vasco to Panjim. The Kadamba bus stand is just at a stone-throw distance opposite to the Vasco railway station. Just avoid the taxi touts and head straight to the bus stand to catch the shuttle. It is a 30 km journey which can take about 45 minutes. We got the last of the seats in the shuttle, and left Vasco to reach our first destination – Panjim.

Vinoth and Balayya

Panjim is written as ‘Panaji’ in English for reasons unknown to me; however the locals call it Panjim, (or exactly ‘Ponjie’). Panjim is a quiet and leisurely town, which is also the capital of Goa. The Kadamba bus stand is towards the northern part of the city, and has local buses that can take you to a lot of villages around the place. Also remember that this Kadamba bus stand is the place where you will have to come back to catch the shuttle service back to Vasco on your return journey. We had already booked our rooms in Alfa Guest House in Calangute beach, and decided to take bikes from here. We just had to ask around, and soon got three motor bikes, which we planned to use for the next three days in Goa. (It was the end of January when we went and we paid Rs.200 per day for each bike for three days).

The next half-an-hour of our journey was on the motor bikes. We rode through wide roads, narrow roads, climbed up, rode down, honked, overtook vehicles and enjoyed our ride, when we finally reached Calangute. It was a Saturday afternoon, and already we could make out that it was a world in itself. Indians and others, young and old, male and female, a lot of people were happily, either briskly or lazily, walking up and down the road leading to Calangute beach. It was a care-free life, away from offices, meetings, deadlines, appraisals and bonuses. A life full of excitement, or a life embroidered in peace – you get to meet both of these worlds in Goa. No wonder Calangute beach is called the queen of the beaches in Goa. We just spent some time in the room refreshing ourselves after the long journey, and soon hit the beach.

The dance party

It is a pleasure to walk on the Calangute-Baga stretch of beaches. Though crowded, these beaches have a lot to life in them. There are these umpteen numbers of touts who want you to take up one of the innumerable water-sport activities in the beach. There is parasailing, banana rides, water-scooters, dolphin-watching rides, and the list goes on. Every 10 feet, you get greeted by someone asking you to take one of these rides. We were tired and wanted to put off all that stuff for the next day. Being young and single bachelor men we were, we just liked the large crowd of the fairer sex in Calangute, both Indian and other, clad in beachwear and basking in the sun. We took eyefuls and kept strolling along the beach. Soon we found a place to get into water. We did just that, and enjoyed the cool waters of the beach, which was the reason we had come over five hundred kilometers from Bangalore to this wonderland.

Me, Rahul and Sim

A good thing about the beaches in Goa is that there are lifeguards stationed in every beach in the state. A bad thing for us is that their services end at around 6.30 pm, and they ask the tourists to leave the waters and come ashore. It was already near sunset that we entered the waters, and we thought it is wise to listen to them and came out after sunset. We decided to spend more time in the waters the next day. We just continued our bird-watching routine, and reached our guest house, and got ready for the night.

The night is the best time of the day to be on the Calangute/Baga stretch of beaches. There is a party mood lingering on the beach, and a long chain of beach shacks, each playing inviting music and live bands, make the mood even more enthusiastic and charged. There are tables put facing the beach and it is simply great to have a seaside candlelight dinner with your sweetheart, provided you have one. The unfortunate bunch of men we were, we had to be contented with each others’ company, not to mention the company of chilled beer.

Ravikiran

We chose a shack called Lucky Star which had a lot of people already (a lot of people means, the food and music is good J). A live band made sure all of the guests were on their feet, and a group of gorgeous females around made sure the night was good. Add it to the mouth watering, delicious food – chicken lollypops, kebabs, fish and rice… it was an unforgettable night. We also smoked an apple flavored hookah, which was the first time I did that, and it was a cute experience. We had gala time until around midnight, and reluctantly walked away from the beach to our rooms.

The first day in Goa ended in a rocking night and a dreamy sleep. The waters of the sea kept washing our thoughts through the night, and that we were already tired gave us a good night’s sleep.

To be continued…

For the continuation of this story, click here…