Written on June 23,2013.
Goa Diaries
I had a Goa date finally. Every guy who has watched Dil Chahta Hai during his youth dreams of a kick-ass Goa escapade before getting married. The day I passed the college (or the day I started earning), Goa was on my bucket list. So, it was the topic of loud discussion of many daaru parties,tête-à-tête with old school and college friends, pillow talk with girlfriend(s). Sadly, none of the plans materialized for around 4 years. Sometimes I think the number of such random plans which we made and cancelled were more than population of Goa itself. LOL.
Okay, So it actually happened with me, my neighbourhood friend Gaurav and college friend D. Unusual company coz Gaurav and D had never met each other before, but both of them entertaining personalities. Make My Trip gave us really good deal and we were sitting on SpiceJet flight drooling over hot air hostesses.You see, when you put three awesome single guys together on a holiday, all the fun ideas they can get revolves around booze and girls.
We reached Goa, took a cab and reached our resort. It was Goveia Holiday resort in Candolim. We had actually booked a different one but at the last moment, they changed it to Goveia, so we were quite skeptical of how this would turn out to be. But it was pretty good. Had a sexy pool and sexier crowd ;). There was an open air bar cum restaurant at pool side giving it a perfect holiday feel. Even if I had to spend whole my day sitting at the pool-side drinking beer and listening to music, I shall have an helluva day, I thought to myself. It was just the start.
In no time of checking inside the room we were out in the pool having fun. Since, there was a mini bar placed just in the side of the pool, so you can swim there and order your drink. Not to mention all those eye candies. We were having so much fun that we lost track of time.
After that, we headed out to explore Goa extravaganza. Like every first timer we had done our little research for what to see, what to do and stuff. North Goa is more famous and hustling with tourists than the south. There are 3 most popular beaches in north goa: Bagga, Candolim, Calangute. There wasn't much time left for the day to get over. We headed out for Calangute beach on our rented activas. I had never seen a beach before, so the first time I saw it, I literally had goosebumps. It was one of those moment which lives with you for longer time, which lingers in your memory like a melodious song, like the moment of your first kiss.
Since it was late and now pretty much soaked into Goa feeling, we took a table on a shack. I liked the concepts of shacks. You can just sit on the beach, eat scrumptious sea food, drink beer, listen to goa trance music and just do nothing else. Exactly what you should be doing on a holiday. Well, not us. With a beer inside, we decided to make this trip an unimaginable fun affair. All of us shared our fantasies. There should be bikni clad girls dancing around, booze flowing and sexy trance music coming out of those mammoth speakers was one thing which everyone wanted. It was like when you know what you want, why waste time kind-of-moment.
With huge confidence and expectations, we set off to dig our common fantasy.
Baga was the our next stop. It was already dark when we reached there, so all we were looking for was a place where we could party hard. Brittos, just at the start of Bagga beach had karaoke night and they were only allowing couples. Sigh! I thought, stop that stupid gender bias at least here!. Well, we finally settled at some shack on the beach which was playing goa trance. Goa trance was not the only reason, there we spotted two super hot foreigners sitting alone. Without second thoughts we took the table next to them. Besides the obvious reason that we were single, hormonically charged boys looking for some crazy fun, we were also quite desperate to enter all Brittos and Titos of Goa(as a couple-with a girl). So, Gaurav went first with his pick up line "Can I sit here?". "No, we are good", pat came the reply. We had just started to giggle and then we heard Gaurav saying, "You saying no to ME!!" and our laughs became hysterical. I don't remember what the girls replied, but I still remember Gaurav's face as he came back to the table.
So we couldn't enter the Brittos, and the cute single girls weren't interested in us. We were slightly pissed, but we were having fun. We decided to go to beach to finish rest of our drinks. That turned out to be a big mistake. Well, it was a full moon night and there were high tides. One such tide drenched us completely. First of all we couldn't stop laughing and then we checked our pockets fearing the worst.
I know now that total amount of loss we had from our water-damaged cellphones, iPods could have sponsored one person's entire trip to Goa.
Now, we thought we shall go to the hotel since it was around 11PM. But on the way we stopped at Tito's lane. This place is the partying hub of Goa. There were some really cool clubs and discs on this lane and even at midnight the place was abuzz with even sexier crowd. The place literally charged us with Goa feeling again. There were foreigners more than Indians in only essential pieces of clothes. Foreigners were setting a trend and Indian fellas were chasing well. Tito's is the most talked about disc there. Personally, I didn't find the place as 'hype-justifying'. All I could see there were dopers and goonda type people. There are few others in the same lane which had better crowd. All of them allowing couples for free o'crz. We went to Valencia in the same lane. The place had an open-air feel. There was some good crowd. We spotted a group of girls at the pool table when we checked in. We took place at the bar and concentrated on drinks. Sometimes later a hot dressed girl came to the bar, I offered her a drink, which she accepted and few minutes later we were dancing. Finally something was happening. The other girls of their group joined us too and the DJ started playing Yo Yo Honey Singh. It was our time.
We kept drinking, dancing, having fun till 3 am, when girls had to go. They had a flight to catch in morning. It was a perfect end to our first day of holiday. We all were now ecstatic. We came back to our hotel and slept at 5 am. I was surprised to see that even in wee hours of morning goa's roads were alive with partying people. Girls, foreigners were roaming around safely. Bars were still on. Girls didn't mind dancing with strangers at the bar ;-). Goa is an exceptionally amazing Indian state.
We had to cover up the things which we had zeroed upon. Water sports were one of them. We took our morning breakfast at one of the restaurants near candolim beach. As a north indian, you won't find food to suit your senses easily. Sea food obviously is the main cuisine there, if you can live on it, well and good, otherwise just never eat the paronthas from their menu. Star fish, King's beer are very popular there and after spitting out most of the parontha they served, we went for the same. Sea food was scrumptious. You gotta try fruit salad also at the restaurants there. It's orgasmic.
We did Jet-skiing, parasailing and that was helluva fun. I found candolim beach much better than calangute. Bagga is better as most people say primarily due to some sexy shacks(Brittos etc), otherwise you can go to candolim, it has lesser crowd and is cleaner. We spent some hours just relaxing in the sun and having massages. In the evening, we decided to go to Anjuna beach.
Anjuna beach used to be virgin beach, as localites say, till nikhil chinappa's sunburn put it on world map.
It was one of the good beaches with true international charm. We spotted more foreigners than Indians there. There are some really cool shacks like curlie's, yuvi's,tantra which are famous for their rave parties which run all night. Curlies is most popular of them all. Must try the live crab meal there, and if you like to get high, try ecstasy. You can spot a group of girls getting high in one corner, people playing guitar and dancing in another. Well, we had plans for a trance party night at candolim, so we left the place rather early. I later heard that curlies parties generally start around 12, we didn't know about it then. (FYI - they also charge for stag entries. :()
The trance party at Candolim was hosted by After7 shack(the most famous one there) and they were playing foot-thumping trance music. In Goa, Bob Marley is god, he is rajnikant and sachin tendulkar at the same time. Hippies of all nationalities Brits, Russians, Ukrainians, Israelis were smoking dope, chanting Bob Marley's Bum Bholey Nath at the top of their voices. It was quite an experience!
The party ended at 2 am and we came out longing for more. We went to beach, took a beer and sat there. We had hearty conversation and it was an end to another successful day. We planned that we will drink till sunrise and then go to our hotel. But 2 hours and beers later, all of us were down sleeping on the beach until a police man woke us up and told us to go to hotel.
Next day we decided to go to Arambol beach. We heard a lot about Arambol, Palolem and Morjim beach from the people we interacted with in Goa. Until then we thought a nude beach in India is a myth ;). Arambol was 15-20 kms away which was good since it was also an opportunity to explore Goa from inside. I am a fan of road trips like this in a new area. It was a nice uphill drive with shady palms and greenry all around and virtually no traffic. Arambol didn't disappoint us and gave us exactly what we were looking for! I told about the common fantasy we shared. Well, that!
We were there till evening and we played in the sea, took non stop photographs and made some good friends with a group of Russians youngsters, with whom we later drank and danced. I think it is one of those beached where you will enjoy with your partner the most, as it had a detached appeal (if you are that kind ;-)). We left at around 5 and came back to hotel. Well, the most awaited part of our trip was now. It was the CASINO time. Before coming to Goa, we heard a lot about the casinos and some of the friends really went bonkers telling the amount of fun they had in casinos.
Well, Casinos were situated in Panjim, which was good 40 kms away from our hotel. It was already dark when we left and took us 30 minutes to reach there. All the casinos are made on a ship which stands in the middle of a river. A boat takes you there. We went to Casino Carvela. Well, now I know why some people are so badly addicted to Casinos. The vibe of that place was voluptuary and full of temptation. Once you get in, the drinks and snacks are unlimited. Delicious buffet for dinner is served too, and there are several acts for entertainment too like dance performances etc. Well, you can win big here if you get lucky. So, there were all kinds of people there - rich housewives, College boys and girls, Middle-class businessmen, some shady characters (expect people with bodygaurds too) apart from tourists like us.
D lost his first bet, which demotivated him to play any further. Gaurav used to be a hardcore card-player during his hostel days, so there was no stopping him. I won double the amount I put in, which got me hooked. I eventually lost double the money I won the first time. But it was fun affair. I mean its all game of luck and temptation.
Gaurav was on roll at the Poker table. He was also trying to woo the hot attendant who was playing the table. LOL. D and me decided to leave at 4am while Gaurav was going strong. We came back to hotel and slept. I must mention that roads were super safe even at 4 AM.
Gaurav came back at around 9 after he lost entire cash he had. We were not surprised, and laughed it out. It was our last day in Goa. Our flight was in evening and only thing left on our itinery were forts, churches etc. If you don't enjoy going to such places and are not tempted for those facebook pictures, then simply skip it. We were no fan either of such places, but with the amount of time we had, this was the only thing we could do. So, we went to Fort Aguada and clicked lots of pictures. Now, next we went to Old City church. Clicked lots of pictures again.
We were now sitting at the airport waiting for flight to board. We all had that urge to speak but we were too wasted with tiredness and sleep deprivation. We wanted to spend more time there, may be few more weeks. I was thinking if only Goa had some IT companies :-P. Inside, each of us was content and happy that we nailed the trip. There were so many crazy moments we had during last three days. I simply can't sum all up here. In my head a slideshow was going and I was just smiling in myself with eyes closed
