Goa

After we left Malvan, our next stop was Goa. We stayed in Agonda Beach in south Goa, away from all the party/rave crowds that infest the northern beaches. This is the view from our hut at the northern end of Agonda Beach.

Not only did we get a lovely hut right on the beach, but we also got this lovely Royal Enfield Bullet bike to ride around on while we were there. Goa is pretty much the only place in India where you can easily rent a bike.

You can’t see it too well in this photo, but on this side there is a sari guard over the rear wheel and a little foot platform, designed so that Indian women wearing saris can ride sidesaddle.

We went for a little walk along the beach and came across this little beach hut where some kids were playing:

That night we headed out on the bike to Khola Beach, which is a few km north of Agonda and quite difficult to get to. You have to find the turnoff to a 4km stretch of very bumpy dirt road that leads you to the top of the cliff where you can walk down to the beach. There was a lovely bar and restaurant there where we sat and had some beers and some snacks while we watched the sunset.

The next day we headed down the coast 100km to a place called Gokarna, over the border in Karnataka. We were planning to stay there after Goa but we thought we’d make a day trip to scope out the beaches and see where we wanted to go. We passed some lovely spots along the way:

We first arrived at Gokarna beach itself which was crowded with cars and people padding in the water. There are 4 other nearby beaches which are harder to get to, so we thought we might get a little bit more peace and quiet at one of those. Om Beach was also very very crowded so we didn’t stay long. Two other beaches were only accessible by walking all the way around Om Beach’s three bays and then a few km around the headlands – not something I wanted to do in the blazing afternoon sun, so we turned around and headed back to find Kudle beach, which is pretty much only accessible by bike to the headland and then on foot down a path to the beach. It was worth it though:

We had a beer at one of the restaurants and watched another lovely sunset:

I should mention at this point that Goa is one state where alcohol is easily available. Here is a liquor store where we stopped to buy some vodka.

The sprite bottle in the left of frame is the cocktail of fruit juice and vodka that Gopal is mixing up for us. Beer was also easily available wherever we went. Here is part of one night’s dinner: beer and delicious tender golden fried calamari:

The third day we were there we headed north from Agonda and checked out an old Portuguese fort. We could see a beach from there with no obvious access so we decided to head there for sunset that night. But first we needed some petrol, so we had a lovely drive through some small towns and villages out to the main road. It was obvious from the colours on the ground that they were still celebrating Holi in this area, which was further confirmed when we saw this guy at the petrol station:

We basically pulled up next to this guy just so I could take his picture, which feels incredibly rude to me, but Gopal assures me is perfectly fine and normal in India. The guys didn’t seem at all disturbed by it – he just calmly posed for the picture as if was the most normal thing in the world.

We made it back to the beach:

And found the path down the cliff to the beach just in time for one more spectacular sunset: