I had always wanted to go back to Goa since my first trip there last year, when I stayed at Anjuna. This time around, we stayed at a place near the Candolim beach.
The onward journey was a complete nightmare, owing in part to Bangalore's notorious traffic jams, and a lousy bus, which had no shock absorbers whatsoever.
However, once we got to Goa and had taken some much needed rest, we lazed around, drank made merry, sat staring at the Ocean till well past midnight with a bottle of Zinfandel, took long walks on the moonlit deserted beach, wondered at the abandoned mysterious "River Princess" anchored and left desolate in the middle of the ocean, the dark silhouette of a ghost ship, just off limits to the people on the beach.
Late in the evening, gorging on tuna sandwiches, fried fish and the ever-dependable beverages churned out by the flamboyant Mr. Mallya, sitting by a shack half open to the breeze blowing in from the sea, and listening to some good old live music, I was convinced I was in paradise.
Fortunately for me, my cell phone conked and refused to start no matter what I did, worked well for me. With no one to bother me, I felt totally liberated. From chasing peafowls perched on stark tree tops early in the morning, waiting for the sun to shimmer down and dry the dew of their beautiful feathers, hoping no one would notice them, to observing fishermen returning to the docks early in the morning after a night out on the violent sea, unloading their catch, an early morning drive through Goa is a revelation in itself.
Soaked to the bone by the monsoons, devoid of too many tourists, hotels that are not too over-priced, and with only the occasional junkie touting heroin and ecstasy, Goa I discovered, is just a slice of pure heaven in the off-season.
No comments:
Post a Comment