Go Goa!

Dear Blog,

Just came back from a weekend Goa trip. I love Goa in monsoons and specially love the fact that it offers me so much more space in this non-peak season. Things however are changing, since I first visited Goa in the July of 2006. Back then, even a place like Calangute beach used to be absolutely peaceful even on a Saturday evening and one could take a leisurely stroll and gaze at the beauty of the setting sun - uninterrupted, unfettered and most definitely unhurried.

Today the scene has changed, what with throngs of people descending on the weekends and sort of depriving me of my own private monsoon haven. Sigh! such are the ways of this world.

Well back to the point, the rationalist in me is asking me to draw a list of the highlights of this visit (otherwise I would go on and on with my ramblings). So here it is:

• This beach side shack called 'Sunny Side Up' on Candolim beach which serves the most awesome food ever and the most potent cocktails ever (Warning: Don't you get too swayed by my adjectives. I have a gift for overdoing stuff, but you get the drift - right!) along with a fab view of sea.

•  I love travelling without an agenda and have discovered some of the most amazing places through my meanderings (so you know where the title comes from!). This time around one of our 'absolutely- don't- know-where- we- are- heading- to- drives' took us to this place called - 'Foxes Retreat'. Let me give you a brief background on how we landed there.

           On a random route, we spotted a signage (really non - de-script one) 'Foxes Retreat -nature at its    best (or some such thing) and the lane which the signage pointed to was seriously romantic - ziggy- zaggy, lush green  and so our hearts and minds chorused - Let's Go! and then we spotted this chottu- mottu track, which was hardly big enough to accommodate a Maruti 800, leading to the resort. 

So in short we landed at the place, were greeted by three ferocious dogs - I am petrified of any dog and these were big ones at that, had a long chat with the owner and he told us that the retreat was a 100 year old property- is mostly shut down- he has a Russian wife who's currently delivering a baby in Russia - he loves dogs etc etc and I took a long walk around the place. Liked it!

•  We hired this cab to drive us back to the airport at 4:00 AM in the morning, and the driver decided to be specially chatty. So initially I endured him, but soon got interested. He told us some fun facts about Goa - Russians are the ones who constitute the biggest chunk of foreign travellers or that Goan hoteliers have discovered a new found love for domestic tourists who unlike the foreigners love their 5 course meals, 3 times a day) or that Dawood Ibrahim has set up a casino in Goa. Guess the whole world knows that, but for our sleeping beauty of a Government.

And now some Photo time:

The place I stayed at

The next door art gallery- absolutely gorgeous!