Colva Beach, Goa India

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We arrived in Goa around 9 pm, which was two hours later than we were supposed to.  The fact we were two hours late was not a big deal, but since we had not yet booked a hotel, and were in an unfamiliar area, we felt the need to find one quickly. As soon as we stepped off the train we saw an advertisement for the Star Beach Hotel on Colva Beach.  It had AC and a restaurant.  Sold!  We walked over to the pre-paid taxi stand and ordered a taxi for Star Beach Hotel.  The taxi fare was only 200 rupees, which is only $4 USD.  It took about 20 minutes to arrive at our destination, and once we got there we were greeted with the amazing aroma of Indian food.  There was some sort of family reunion or retreat going on at our hotel, and we arrived during the time the group was having their dinner.  Fortunately for us there was a room available.  As one of the hotel employees was taking us to the available room to have a look before deciding whether to stay, four or five of the children from the large group started following us and asking us how we were doing, and giggling when we would answer and ask them how they were doing.  We decided to take the room for one night, and returned to the front desk to make the payment.  The process to procure this room turned out to be very lengthy, and as we waited, the little kids sat and waved to us and giggled.  For some reason the hotel needed a passport photo of each of us as well as our physical passports.  They had some sort of form they needed to fill out to give to the local police.  It was a good thing we had passport photos from when we applied for our Indian visa; otherwise we would’ve been really crabby:) After waiting 20-ish minutes we finally got the key to our room, and were able to go there, get changed and start thinking about dinner. 

We chose a restaurant no too far from our hotel, Portofino’s.  The food was amazing!  We had two large bottles of Kingfisher beer, which is their local beer, and all the vegetarian Indian food we could eat for $8 or $9 USD.  At this point we were still amazed at how cheap everything is here.  After dinner we went back to the hotel, and decided to find a place by the beach the next day.

 We ended up sleeping until around 11:30 am the next day, and hotel checkout was noon.  We heard a knock on the door, which woke us up, and it happened to be the front desk manager asking us if we wanted to stay an extra day.  Maybe they’re not used to people sleeping in?  We jumped out of bed, and checked out of the hotel.  We decided to stay and have some coffee in the hotel restaurant before we set off to find a hotel.  As we were having our coffee, the large group that was having dinner the evening before when we were checking in, were having lunch.  It smelled so good!  After a few minutes someone brought a plate to us with two types of dessert we had never seen before.  There was sugar on top, and there were herbs and ginger cooked into the pastry.  Even though there was a good chance they were not vegan, we didn’t want to be rude to the people that were offering the treats out of kindness, so we tried them.  They were really good!  We also got a picture of them feeding me.  It was a fun, and welcoming start to our day.

We walked around for about two hours, carrying our backpacks, looking for a hotel near the beach.  We took some strolls through mud, and forest area, ran into some cows, pigs and chickens, and finally settled in at Ben Lig guest house. It was a 3 story hotel with about 15 rooms.  The hotel was run by an older couple who were very nice.  They gave us a small discount for staying for the seven days. The cost was only $9 per night. We opted for the no AC room to see if we could tough it out just to save more money.  Turns out with an ice cold shower before bed and a high speed fan we were just fine J An AC room will cost you and extra 100 to 200 rupee per night.  We were pretty happy with our choice, I felt it was meant to be since it was a lime green building.

For the last week we have just been hanging out on the beach, eating amazing food, riding a scooter through the country side near the beach. A few days ago was Krishna’s birthday, that evening we were on the beach watching the celebration. This event involved a couple large ceramic bulbs filled with money. One bulb was on the ground and on was hanging between two palms about 20ft high. The rules were such that you had to break the bulb on the ground blindfolded, but you couldn’t make an attempt until after you were spun around a couple times, then set free from about 30ft away from the bulb. The closer you got to the bulb the louder the crowd yelled.  Finally a couple locals asked if I wanted to try, so I did. I strapped on the blindfold and they spun me around and I was off. I walked for a bit, the crowd got really loud so I stopped, I took my swing at the ground it missed. After taking the blindfold off, I learned that I missed it by about 2 inches.  Some time went by and no one had crushed it yet. The same guys came up to me again and wanted me to try again, but with no luck, I missed by a couple feet this time.  After I went, it was Heidi’s turn, she went through the same routine and I was yelling as loud as I could to tell her which way to go but she couldn’t hear me. She took her swing and was a couple feet to the right.  Eventually the bulb on the ground was broken. It was time for the one hanging from the palms. Unfortunately we didn’t climb the human tower to get to this one. We just let the locals hit this one. They weren’t blindfolded for this one, but the guy on top who was trying to hit the bulb was being sprayed in the face with a hose. After he finally hit it, he fell on the pile of guys below.  No injuries were reported :) There was plenty of cheering and laughing. We really wished we had the camera with us, too bad we left it in the room.  Although we didn’t have ours, about 15-20 of the locals all wanted their picture taken with us. It seems everywhere we go the people want their picture taken with us.

Below are many photos of the random activities we’ve done while here.

All the critters below roam freely about the area, no fences or restrictions whatsoever :)

Including us...

 Great Restaurant!

 Our Cozy Hotel

 Just your local hotel squirrel :) The owner found him when it was about 3in long.

 These cats sat next to us every time we went to the restaurant

 No gas station on Colva Beach, so you buy it from vendors who sell it by the liter...in old water bottles :)

 Our favorite restaurant - Hang Town

A couple locals :)

We became addicted to the corn from the street vendors here, and the cows always seemed to want mine :)

We have finally acquired an Indian cell phone. The number is (+91)8975982269, if anyone wants to call we are 12.5 hours ahead of AZ and 10.5 ahead of KS. If you do call, we'd love to hear from anyone, but please understand we have to make it short, phone service isn't cheap for international calls :)

Today we catch a train to Gokarna. We don’t know for sure where we will be staying, or the availability of internet. We’ll be back soon…