Goa, my weekend getaway

Have I mentioned that I was missing the ocean and that I needed to get away from Bangalore!  Well my choice to go to Goa was a good one.

Goa was ruled by the Portugese most of the time between 1510 and 1961, before India reclaimed it.  The Portugese influence is what makes Goa a unique and popular tourist destination. And there were a lot of tourists from what I could tell, and I wasn't even there during the peak season.  A lot of the tourists were Indian, but I did see a lot of North Americans and Europeans as well and from what I could tell some of them were actual residents.  Just so we are clear, Goa is actually a State in India and the capital is Panaji - which is where I stayed. 

The receptionist at work arranged the flights and the hotel for me.  The hotel was a little odd, certainly not as nice as where I am staying, but it was near the edge of town in the middle of a construction area with half finished buildings all around and a gravel road leading up to the hotel.  I very much enjoyed Panaji, mostly because I felt safe walking around the streets and where most of the streets actually had sidewalks. Since I have not had the opportunity too much in Bangalore to just go exploring on my own, I was very happy to spend most of the weekend doing just that.  My main game was to walk around with my map and try to see if I could get around without looking at it. After getting kind of lost on the first night, I was pretty good about getting myself around after that.   So Friday night, Saturday night and most of Sunday was spent just walking and exploring the town.  Miramar was a good beach about a 45 minute walk from my hotel.

Saturday morning I decided that I should try to see more of the area and more of the many many beaches.  I had thoughts about renting a scooter or even hiring a taxi for the day, but in the end signed on for a bus tour that would take me to several of the beaches and a few other things as well.  I thought it would be better to have some company than spending the day (and the weekend) by myself.  The first stop after picking everyone up at the various hotels was to get gas!  The taxi driver from the Goa airport did the same thing...  Don't they understand that they should fill up before they get passengers?  Anyway off we went and the next thing we did was drive to Coco beach and then jump on a boat.  The boat ride was very pleasant but chasing the dolphins I could have done without.  I ended up hanging out for the day with Varun, a young software developer and his parents.  I think he wanted the company so he didn't have spend all day with his parents alone.  His parents were actually very nice and and I enjoyed spending part of the day with them. So the rest of the day was spent driving around North Goa and looking at the little towns and stopping at a few beaches. The last beach - Calangute (see picture above) was the biggest and busiest beach and a bunch of us jumped in the water at this beach as we spent over 1.5 hours there. The water was unbelievably warm and looked very clean and I had a blast playing in the surf. 

 On Saturday when I was standing on one of the many beaches we went to, my phone rang?!  Not too many people know my cell number so I answered not sure who was on the other end.  It was Nandini, my receptionist who organized my trip.  She was frantic and wanted to know if I was OK.  She had received a text message from my hotel saying that I had not checked in.  Well I had checked in and everything was fine, but she did not know that and was worried that something had happened to me. She had called the airport to make sure I had actually gotten on my flight and had called the hotel again to see if they knew anything and apparently they did not confirm that I had indeed checked in and was seen alive and well.  It is too bad that she had to go through all of that, but it was nice to know that if something had happened to me, it would not have gone by unnoticed.

I did not end up taking many pictures as the battery in my camera died on Saturday, but at least I got a few!  I also didn't run while I was there, it was too hot for that for starters and I felt I was attracting enough attention as it was by just walking around.   If I would have stayed longer I would have found a beach to run on and also rented a scooter like a lot of the other tourists that I saw.  I can see why so many people come to this area for holidays.  Panaji has been the nicest place in India I have seen so far;  picturesque, fairly clean (by India standards), safe and of course by lots of water.