Goa...More than I expected

Can't claim I've been around much of it. My stay in Goa was short, the main reason was that I needed to do some emergency "beach" shopping for my suddenly emerging vacation in the Maldives.


Crew change went smoothly enough and soon we were on our way to our hotel in Panaji, which was chosen due to the possibility of decent shopping in the area. Although I was putting hopes on Nike, Adidas and the like, the local shops were the ones providing what I wanted :) (with strikingly cheap prices!). Hope they survive the washing though :s

The plan for the evening was a shisha/drinks on the beach followed by a meal. So after asking the locals we headed to Baga beach, have to say that it was different to what I imagined, what locals call beach shacks is much bigger than I had in mind. They're proper size restaurants/cafes built on the beach with tables stretching almost to the water. We had shisha, drinks and some snacks, got cold on the breezy beach, started feeling sleepy and went back to our hotel and basically fell asleep the moment we hit the beds. But Baga beach was nice, a good place to spend a nice (preferably a warmer one than ours though) evening with friends.

The plan for the next morning was to sleep till late, get up at 10-11, repack and check out at midday, then go for lunch in a Goan restaurant and off to the airport to catch our flight to Bangalore. This turned into day-shifters sleeping forever & night-shifters (including me) waking up at about 6 and not managing to fall asleep again, giving up at 9 and going out for some local sightseeing/photo-taking in Panaji's La Fontana at 10. The place is amazing, houses and churches in Portuguese style all over, small Hindu temples in the midst of that, the whole thing is on a hill sandwiched between what looks like a bit of the sea and a river , the feeling it gave was as if you're not in India yet there, the architecture says no but the people and the atmosphere say yes, a charming place, and I think the photos are proof enough.

And yes, we did eat in a delicious Goan restaurant and we did catch the flight, onboard which I'm writing this :). (written on 6jan2011)