Having finished work early on Friday night, ate dinner, then managed about 3 hours sleep until we set off to the airport for the 7am flight to Goa. The flight lasts an hour, and despite a slightly terrifying bit when the pilot pulled out of the landing at the very last minute, we landed safely and headed into the town of Panjim.
Hotel was rather basic, but since it’s primary function was storing the bags, wasn’t an issue (and I’ve possibly been a bit spoilt by the hotel in Bangalore). We managed to leave the bags in one room and headed to the beach. Stopped en route to pick up some beers, which are perfectly legal to drink in the car.
Arrived, having seen some wonderful scenery on the way and acclimatising to the humidity which Bangalore doesn’t have.
The beach was like any typical British ex pat resort, lots of bars all in English, all the usual tat for sale. There were far more people begging/selling food/offering massages etc. which gets very irritating, especially after 3 hours sleep and you’re trying to sleep in the shade.
We went to lunch in one of these shacks, and were recommended to try the kingfish as it was a local speciality. Not being a fan of fish I reluctantly agreed and whilst it was nice, it still tasted just like any other fish I’ve ever tried.
After this, we went para-sailing, which I’ll have to add the photos later due to them being on my colleague’s camera but was great fun. Also did a lot of swimming through the waves, which was actually pretty good fun!
We were treated to a glorious sunset, which finished off the daytime beautifully
After that, we went shopping, which was more irritating than anything. A lot of the shop keepers notice the pale skin tone and put the prices right up, and what they were selling is really really cheap rubbish. They say the key to bartering is to decide what it’s worth before you start, but I doubt they’d go to paying me to take if from them. Didn’t buy anything, even my usual trinket reminder of being there.
It was then a dash back to the hotel, for as much sleep as we could manage in an hour and a half, balanced with the need to have a shower and get ready. Also needed to check into the room, and get sorted, which took longer than I though, so managed about 15 minutes sleep, coupled with maybe the hour of dozing I got on the beach. Felt sick all the way to the club, which was some new super club, very exclusive, and I thought it would be really pretentious and horrid. I was pleasantly surprised, and it was actually rather pleasant. It had been custom built, and had this great sculpture which became clearer as you walked along the drive towards the entrance
The highlight of the evening however, was walking across the floor and a man stopping me and saying something about ‘Ruski’ which allowed me to use one of my Russian words of ‘nyet’, after which he asked my colleague and me to join them. One of them who spoke excellent English, explained that he thought I was Russian because I had a beard and looked like a big strong man (was a little worried, but both of them had rather attractive wives so figured I wasn’t being chatted up) but they were so friendly. I was given the nickname the Russian Fighting Bear and told if I was ever in Siberia, I should go look them up. Many drinks later, and having lost the other two colleagues who’d come out, we got a taxi back to the hotel, arriving about 5am and having been up for 25 hours, crawled into bed.
After I woke up, we headed to town, round another awful market (but fortunately not one full of people hassling you) then back to the airport and Bangalore
We also re-united with our missing colleagues, one of which rolled in from the casino at 11am. The casinos are based on cruise ships and look pretty impressive, didn’t venture onto one though!
