Sorry for the delayed update! After many attempts to connect to the internet and losing lots of my work, I am now writing this on my phone to kill some time on this 15 hour bus journey.
We arrived in Goa on Friday 21st January and went straight to Anjuna Beach where most travellers tend to stay. We were lucky to find a nice, clean modern guest house and one of few offering hot water! On one of the first evenings I realised just how much Goa has changed over the last few years. People do not come here to party any more because it is not allowed! They have imposed smoking bans almost everywhere, even on the beach! And all music in open areas, such as in the beach bars and other outdoor venues, must be switched off at 10pm.Whatever happened to all the raving?! It's just getting ridiculously strict and in my opinion the Indians are ruining their tourism business by imposing these ridiculous laws.
Getting taxis in Goa is a very expensive way of getting around in comparison to everywhere else we have been, so, I'm sorry to those of you who told me not to, but we ended up hiring mopeds :s I know I said I would never do it but at 3 pounds a day we saved ourselves so much money and we could go wherever we wanted! I didn't tell anyone I had one at the time because I didn't want you to worry. For those of you who have seen the roads and the way people drive in India you would think we were mad! But really, everybody hires bikes here and the fact that we drove like grannies (we thought we were going seriously fast at 45km per hour!) we couldn't possibly have done any damage. The scariest thing that happened to me on the bike was being chased by a dog! So letting you know now we have handed them back, and we are still in one piece. Driving in the city of Mapusa was terrifying but most of the time everyone on the roads in Goa was very considerate and gave us lots of room. I finally learned why the Indians use the horn excessively - it means "I'm here, coming through, get out the way" or rather in our case it was "I'm here please don't run me over". We ventured out on our bikes on that first evening to Hilltop and the 9ine Bar - 2 places I had been looking forward to going to since we used to go on holiday in Goa. Sadly they are not what they used to be. Both had to close at 10pm and both had smoking bans, drug bans and no photography or filmography allowed. They even searched our bags. Goa is boring now! Don't know where all the Goan freaks have gone, and the Israelies have been replaced by awful Russians. Anyway, on Thursday we went to Mandrem Beach where we used to go a lot while on holiday. It was fun driving there on the mopeds as I remembered most of the way, through Siolim and over the bridge...But unfortunately I was disappointed again by how much the area on the beach has been built up over the last 6 years. However, the sea was still gorgeous, the nicest in Goa, so we had a great day. We went up to Arambol for 2 of our 7 days because it was a lovely beach and nice town. It's really quiet (apart from the cows that would fight you to the death for your fruit) and it's a bit more like the Goa I remember. The second time we went was on our last full day which was a Sunday but unfortunately by lunch time the entire beach was heaving with Indian tourists, which seems to be the case everywhere in Goa at weekends now.
Sunday was our final morning in Goa after the luxury of lounging on the beach and being able to unpack our bags for such a long time! It was getting hotter by the day too. That afternoon we boarded the Bombay Express and sat amongst the utter chaos of standard non-air conditioned seated class. It was pretty filthy and stank of wee so badly that I chose to hold it for the entire 8 hour journey! We arrived in Mumbai just before midnight and headed to the domestic airport where we had to wait for our flight to Udaipur, Rajasthan (an expensive way of getting around but we needed to in order to fit everything in!) which took off at 12:30pm the next day.
Kumars!
The amazing shark tikka
Arambol
We arrived in Goa on Friday 21st January and went straight to Anjuna Beach where most travellers tend to stay. We were lucky to find a nice, clean modern guest house and one of few offering hot water! On one of the first evenings I realised just how much Goa has changed over the last few years. People do not come here to party any more because it is not allowed! They have imposed smoking bans almost everywhere, even on the beach! And all music in open areas, such as in the beach bars and other outdoor venues, must be switched off at 10pm.Whatever happened to all the raving?! It's just getting ridiculously strict and in my opinion the Indians are ruining their tourism business by imposing these ridiculous laws.
Getting taxis in Goa is a very expensive way of getting around in comparison to everywhere else we have been, so, I'm sorry to those of you who told me not to, but we ended up hiring mopeds :s I know I said I would never do it but at 3 pounds a day we saved ourselves so much money and we could go wherever we wanted! I didn't tell anyone I had one at the time because I didn't want you to worry. For those of you who have seen the roads and the way people drive in India you would think we were mad! But really, everybody hires bikes here and the fact that we drove like grannies (we thought we were going seriously fast at 45km per hour!) we couldn't possibly have done any damage. The scariest thing that happened to me on the bike was being chased by a dog! So letting you know now we have handed them back, and we are still in one piece. Driving in the city of Mapusa was terrifying but most of the time everyone on the roads in Goa was very considerate and gave us lots of room. I finally learned why the Indians use the horn excessively - it means "I'm here, coming through, get out the way" or rather in our case it was "I'm here please don't run me over". We ventured out on our bikes on that first evening to Hilltop and the 9ine Bar - 2 places I had been looking forward to going to since we used to go on holiday in Goa. Sadly they are not what they used to be. Both had to close at 10pm and both had smoking bans, drug bans and no photography or filmography allowed. They even searched our bags. Goa is boring now! Don't know where all the Goan freaks have gone, and the Israelies have been replaced by awful Russians. Anyway, on Thursday we went to Mandrem Beach where we used to go a lot while on holiday. It was fun driving there on the mopeds as I remembered most of the way, through Siolim and over the bridge...But unfortunately I was disappointed again by how much the area on the beach has been built up over the last 6 years. However, the sea was still gorgeous, the nicest in Goa, so we had a great day. We went up to Arambol for 2 of our 7 days because it was a lovely beach and nice town. It's really quiet (apart from the cows that would fight you to the death for your fruit) and it's a bit more like the Goa I remember. The second time we went was on our last full day which was a Sunday but unfortunately by lunch time the entire beach was heaving with Indian tourists, which seems to be the case everywhere in Goa at weekends now.
Sunday was our final morning in Goa after the luxury of lounging on the beach and being able to unpack our bags for such a long time! It was getting hotter by the day too. That afternoon we boarded the Bombay Express and sat amongst the utter chaos of standard non-air conditioned seated class. It was pretty filthy and stank of wee so badly that I chose to hold it for the entire 8 hour journey! We arrived in Mumbai just before midnight and headed to the domestic airport where we had to wait for our flight to Udaipur, Rajasthan (an expensive way of getting around but we needed to in order to fit everything in!) which took off at 12:30pm the next day.
On the bikes!! Hehe
Next - Rajasthan!! =) xx
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