Tag: Goa

Goa – Agonda: The relaxation

December 17, 2015 / olaf / 0 Comments

Arriving here was just a nice feeling, I knew where to go, Dersy was just great the last time, small huts right on the beach, an ocean facing restaurant for 30 people with one of the best chefs in Goa, so good food, very relaxed and super friendly staff made us stay for 4 days, but wanting to stay much longer. We were relaxing to the max, starting the day with a swim in the splendid waters of the Arabian sea, followed by meditation and a big fruit müsli, lassi and chai for breakfast – life can be very tough sometimes 😉
The day we arrived was also peak day of the Geminids meteorite shower, the moon – waxing crescent, setting early over the ocean left the sky dark – perfect time for observation. First we saw a couple here and there but it got more and more as the night commenced.

All of a sudden a power cut occurred, the surrounding lights and the ones from town went dark, but the lights in the sky were just blossoming, millions of stars out there, galaxies, nebula’s, the milky way what a show, I could just laugh as it was so beautiful!
We stopped counting at 101 shooting and falling stars, some were massive with a tail of smoke covering half of the sky, some tiny, just shooting for a millisecond, we saw two in a row and even tree in a row and soooo many more it was just an unforgettable spectacle those 8 hours, connected with the universe!

The beach itself is not crowded, just a few restaurants and shacks, all closing early, going with the rhythm of nature, when the sun comes up again you’ll see people jogging, meditating or doing yoga, just a perfect spot for relaxing. On each side you’ll find rocks to explore and the northern end has a river mouth from where you can see the fisher boots moving in early in the morning – not that we got up that early but I knew from my previous stay as Katja was helping the fisher men to get their boat from the ocean into the river beating the everlasting current.
The last day we rented a scooter and explored the area north we went to Cabo de Rama and walked along the ancient walls of the fort, although the walls are the only remains from the place it’s still worth the trip and the lookouts were pretty spectacular, overlooking the cliffs and the wide ocean. Later on we found a perfect spot – Mi Amore a small restaurant that just opened this year – to beat the midday heat, so we chilled in the shadow for a bit and saw nothing but perfect catalogue like beaches around – what a beauty! Another challenge was laying in front of us, I really needed to convince Florian to trust me as he was sitting on the backseat of the scooter when we were riding the 20 min dirt road up and down to Cola beach, thinking of it now, yeah it was a bit dangerous with all the sand and rocks and the steep hills but it was a fun drive and it was worth it, we saw another perfect beach, the ocean a bit too strong for a smooth splash though.

2 weeks in total relaxation mode, interesting talks, amazing food and some beer & good Old Monk, a 7 year old Rum you just get in the south and Goa has the cheapest alcohol to offer as there are no taxes.

Goa has been good to us, just the perfect continuation of the Hampi feel after the Hyderabadi party times…

Goa – Anjuna:Hippie tourism & the remaining beauty

December 13, 2015 / olaf / 0 Comments

In Anjuna I met Florian my former neighbor in Wiesbaden, we haven’t seen each other since 5 years and he happened to travel south India right now, perfect timing brotha!

First we explored the beach area, a lot of things happened in the last 5 years so we sat at one of the many beach side bars/restaurants and had a beer enjoying the ocean breeze and of course everywhere you’ll hear music on the beach, mostly goa trance as this kind of trance music originated right from this spot. Sometimes you’ll hear house or more chilled electro tunes, reggae sounds reached our ears too but it’s not that common, the faster electronic music seems to govern here, it must be bloody disturbing for the locals and we haven’t seen any on the beach same as hippie like looking people – they all live away from the beach if they’re still here, many went to different spots as Goa in our days is quite touristy, foreigners as well as Indians come to enjoy the comparably mild climate and the almighty ocean and they want to wander on the hippie trail to get a glimpse of what it was like back in the days, well it’s different now, we met some guys coming to Goa since 20+ years, at that time the beach was empty, no bars/restaurants the prices were cheap and the western people often not as nice as today, stealing food and other commodities from locals and fighting as they hadn’t had any money.

The beach is rocky, when I went into the warm waters the first time I hurt my shin bone, I didn’t see the big rock in the shady waters, this is all a result made by humans, sand was taken away from the beach for decades and used to bind with other meterials to build houses. This has stopped now – tourism is the most important income in Goa and they come for the beach! As a tourist you’ll feel it, shacks that sell clothes, sunglasses, and many more souvenirs can be found all along the back roads “Come look my shop”, “You promise you come tomorrow?!”, “Cheap price, only 100 rupees!” – the prices vary though, the slogans don’t ;). “Walking shop ladies” roam the beach during the day times selling jewellery and the light guy selling lasers, glowing sticks and other blinking stuff pop out at night, it’s a big business!

We even had a nice encounter with the police for smoking up on the northern hill during sunset, it was an awkward moment but it relaxed quite a bit as I calmly explained we don’t want any trouble and of course not want to be arrested we paid the baksheesh and went down to the beach, over there the police is paid by the restaurant owners so they don’t linger around and tourists are safe 😉

We enjoyed the easiness of life in Goa although it might not sound so.
One day we even rented a scooter and explored the beaches adject, Vagator, Calangute, Baga and Chapora none of them had the same look and feel as Anjuna, either they had no rocks or packed with all-inclusive tourists or they were a bit dirty, had no shade or sitting at the river mouth so you don’t want to swim in there… it felt like coming home when going back to “Our beach”

Whole Anjuna is a music festival, having 20+ bars/restaurants in any size, ranging from small wooden shacks to big 300+ people fitting concrete buildings, every spot is a stage, some more loud than the other, also some bigger festivals happen in between then the music won’t stop playing until the morning – usually the play until midnight. It’s nice to see and feel but after a week we just wanted to escape, the patterns were repeating and we had enough party, I knew that Agonda would be the antipode so we went, it just took 4 local buses and 5 hours to go 100 km further south…