Exploring Goa | Riding the Roads of Goa

The Journey so far-

Day 3 – 12th February, 2010 | Baga – Candolim – Clova Crossing – Dona Paula – Candolim

Morning 6 AM we were supposed to leave Baga and Check-in at Monte Villa, Candolim but due to room lock mess up it was delayed to 8 AM. Well we planned to leave at 6 AM because we had to travel 90 odd KMs to reach Paulolem beach in south goa. Already two hours behind Christo rang the bell at 8 AM and was frustrated to see us not even out of bed and again my reaction was why this idiot is bothering us when we have paid him till 12.00 noon. We told him that we will leave at 11 AM now and he went telling us that we should leave by 11 AM for sure. After that me and my cousin went to take some packaged breakfast and decided to prepare the tea/coffee in the working kitchen of the apartment. We came with breakfast and in between my wife wanted the spare mattress to be kept in the balcony which I was not in favor. But my cousin said we should so we moved it outside and had breakfast in the open air. BTW we got the breakfast from Sagar restaurant, Baga road from where we got the reference of South Indian food, last night.

After breakfast we packed our bags and it was 11 AM, guess what, bell rang :D. It was Christo again and immediately he entered he was furious to see that mattress being kept at balcony. He started uttering this and that and I was like give me a break from this guy. Without wasting anytime and ignoring whatever he was up to, I feel again some money extracting stuff :(, we left the place.

Now biggest worry was to get our luggage on a scooty till Candolim. I asked my cousin that shall we take taxi and he said no we can manage. So his fiancé took that heavy bag sideways on her lap since my wife old fracture got hit by scooty stand and I couldn’t carry heavy stuff due to very fresh fracture. I must say the girl looked skinny but had the courage to hold 2 bags on a scooty, one being too heavy, for more than 15 minutes to reach Candolim. Once we reached Candolim they couldn’t even stopped for a photo click but effort was really commendable and appreciable. When we weighed that bag on the way back at airport, it was like 23 Kg odd.

Now we needed some rest and it was like 30 minutes and we shall leave for Paulolem :D… Don’t know why but our needle was stuck to Paulolem where else we could have done something better :D. Finally at 12.30 PM we left for Paulolem (90 KM) at our scooty 🙂 Now I feel we were just gone crazy at that moment.

All set to go…

Our rides…

We got the petrol filled on the first petrol pump near Nerul and kept going. After a long time we finally saw a hoarding written Paulolem Beach 50 KM ahead, at Clova Crossing. It was 02.15 PM i.e. more than 100 minutes and we had just covered 40 KMs. Then we realized the difference between scooty and bike 🙂 because by this speed we would reach Paulolem around 4 PM at scooty and we had to come back as well :D. So what we decided is to wisely turn back and explore the Goan city rather than breaking our backs.

Well on the way back we read a sign board of Dona Paulo and right away we turned towards it to explore it. The road to leading to Dona Paulo was extremely lonely and on the way my wife even lost the cap 🙂 in the process of learning to drive scooty from behind ;). As soon as we reached the Dona Paulo we needed to drink something and nothing was better than fresh lime in such conditions. Then after that we had first photos of the morning. We saw a lot of crabs here.

Dona Paulo for you…

After spending an hour or so we left from there and someone told us that we can go straight through Panajim city to catch the highway leading to Calungate / Baga / Candolim road. We followed that path and first time we were into residential sought of area. Besides that roads ran a river, again don’t know the name, with 6-7 big ships / small cruises floating on it. Finally after half an hour or so we were on the highway connection mangalore/cochin.

Since it was Shivratri that day my wanted to visit the temple and on the way from Nerul side we saw one Hanuman temple and she insisted to follow that route only but it god’s leela that from highway we were leaded to Shiv Mandir (Temple) only. There we had the usual rituals of Shivratri, had the prayer and went on towards Candolim beach to rest in the evening.

Shiv Mandir…

Once we reached Candolim beach we went to the same Boat View shack, had a milky tea and sandwiches as evening snacks. We had skipped the lunch in the process, thank god we had a good heavy breakfast. Then we spent rest of the evening and witnessed the sun go down there.

Waves reminding their presence by the sound…

Enjoying the moment…

Beautiful Sunset I never saw before…

We ordered a plate of pakora to be packed as we wanted to have them at our guest house terrace restaurant. There we had the best milky tea so far in Goa and pakoras we had packed from Boat View were nice as well. By the way owner of the guest house told us that we will have a 60% discount on whatever we will have on his terrace restaurant but that was not the case like, they declined at the time of payment.

Then we all went to our room for full rest and as soon as my wife opened the bed sheet there was a lizard which jumped out of it and she was screaming like anything there. Soon my cousin and his fiancé came and we decided to leave that shabby room. We had given the rent in advance but that had to be left out of mind as of now. We quickly went to Ezue Bia guest house nearby (which me and my wife really liked yesterday) and checked with aunty for room availability. Thank god that only one of the two rooms we saw yesterday got booked. So we finally got very decent place to stay in Goa. It was as if burden was relieved from the mind as that earlier guest house looked shabby right from the start to both of us. Even the location of Ezue Bia was very nice, right on that Candolim beach road and environment outside was really really good. My cousin and his fiancé continued to stay at that guest house only and mobile phone was the mode of communication and coordination for the 2 couples 🙂

We decided to meet at 11.00 PM for dinner but none of us woke up once we got on the beds :D. This concluded the second day in Goa for us…so far not so bad 🙂

The Journey ahead-