Goa Trip

We started to decide on where to go about two months ago planning our vacation in India: Nainital, Mussoorie, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Jaipur, Agra, KanyaKumari, Poorie … all went through our minds … no city seemed to exist in India where we have not been to! Suddenly somebody says Goa .. and whoa .. there is one place in India where none of us have been to. We decide on Goa … let’s take down that final unexplored fun place in our long list of places we have visited. Next year of course we have to go somewhere outside India for vacation … stepping up on the annual vacation that we have undertaken as far as I remember.

Airport, Taxi

Should we book all? Yes, no, maybe … We book flights and train reservations and leave the hotels for the on-spot price. We reach Goa from Delhi on Nov 20. Yes, there are different kinds of people in the plane … a nice mix of Western and Indian tourists. Goa is a tiny airport with a five star restaurant at a floor above. We start looking for hotel deals … from the Goa Govt tourist helper to even a cleaner who gave a phone number of a person to talk to!

The package tour

After about two hours of moving around and looking at the available deals we decide on a packaged tour including hotel, dinner, transportation, day tours and everything else.

Hotel at the best beach of Goa

Calangute Beach we hear is the best beach of Goa, I don't know in what respects though :). A hotel at the beachfront definitely sounded good. On top of it, it has a pool too … reminded me of my life in Cyprus near the beach and the pool at my apartment in Austin. Wow … nice getaway from Manhattan.

Next we visit Panaji, the city. I am in the pool most of the time whenever I return from time out in the city or the beach. Our Day out – temples, movie shooting spots, boat ride, Portuguese old house, Anjuna Beach, Calangute Beach, Church and Film Festival IFFI.

Ritz Classic Restaurant

Fish Platter – Zoo of sea animals: Squid, shell fish, prawn and two more kinds of fish like looking fishes.

Papa got stuck on the un-priced section Special Seafood on the menu! One ‘excuse me’ got the waiter who sounded more like a zoo instructor than a restaurant worker: “What sea-food (animal) would you like? … Do you want to look at them before eating in their uncut version? … arghh!!”

The horrible, grisly scene of lobster, tiger prawn, king fish, of course all animals dead … along with crab and whatever crap … definitely left my twin sis Aditi’s appetite shooting southwards and my lips simmering out ;) as she said “‘yuck’, I can’t eat this … I can just eat chicken”. My mother was probably considering to leave from the city itself J

For my vegetarian inside me this was a R.I.P. moment for him. I asked him to take a vacation until I am in Goa enjoying the plentiful choices of seafood.