GOA

Finally, I made it here! Everybody that had been to India before told me I have to visit Goa before leaving, although many stressed to go before the monsoon. Even with a few drops of rain, it lived up to its reputation of beautiful beaches and a good spot to party, especially when I have two good friends to enjoy it with. As the slogan goes, “Goa is like a fridge, everybody here just chills here” and that’s pretty much what we did.

notice the men about to swarm us for photos on  the left!

We actually got really nice weather for it being monsoon season, yet it was about as unpredictable as our transportation. We took the overnight train to Goa from Mumbai which is probably the best night's sleep I have got in India, having air conditioning and very few screaming children around; although it’s too bad it broke down on the way and delayed us for six hours during our already short weekend vacation. We arrived with time to get a look around town and meet some friends to party with that night. We had to celebrate our friends birthday early since we couldn’t join her for the real thing, and our new Irish friends made sure it didn’t disappoint.

We also got a chance to rent scooters and tour the beaches for a day. I am pretty sure our “rental company” was just a guy that wasn’t using his bike that day and wanted to make a couple of extra bucks since he didn’t ask for our names or even driver’s licenses. We didn’t care, the bikes looked good enough! Our first mission was to fill up with gas and as my friend and I drove up ahead to ask people where to go, our other friend sped by with a hitchhiker on the back yelling to follow him, he knows the way! Turns out this bob marley looking Indian just wanted a drive home, but fortunate for us he did live down the road from a gas station.

which bike is mine?

The coast is full of different beaches and bars to watch the waves, and we even got some sun while sightseeing and driving around, whereas Mumbai was getting a torrential downpour that day. The Arabian Sea is pretty stormy during this time of year so we didn’t chance getting washed away and instead just watched people test it out as we sipped a cold beer. We could see the rain coming closer in the distance but nobody seemed to notice until enormous raindrops soaked you in seconds, and everybody ran off the beach frantically screaming for the 10 minutes that it lasted. However about an hour after touring on our scooters, we accidentally knocked one of them over and the brake handle fell off! We thought this was a big deal since it’s pretty hilly where we were but the front brake still worked and the guy we rented them from only seemed to care that we were okay. Yay!

beach side cafe full of tourists

Goa definitely felt like a whole different country, as it catered to the tourist population and even though it was off season there were still lots of things to see and do, if only we had more time for them! We had to get a bus back which was another mess, we splurged and got the “good bus” but it still doesn’t help on the potholed roads and Mumbai traffic jams. Next time I will be sure to stay longer and book a proper mode of transportation for the chillest spot in India.