Goa Part 3 - the best fried fish ever

Not much else or anything exciting to write about in Goa. I spent most of the time sleeping, eating, sun bathing and reading. Much to the dismay of my friends--who were excited to have a New York Party girl among them!

I can't party like I used to--I kept falling asleep at any party we went to! Didn't drink a whole lot either. Just spent a lot of alone time on the beach reflecting on my past year and what I plan to do for the future year.

Rang in the New Year at a Vanilla lounge to awesome music and random group of strangers. Lots of awesome fireworks and sparklers. I missed my friends dearly. I called my brother, mom, friends and everyone else just to hear familiar voices. Next morning I called my family in Dhaka to wish Eid Mubarak. I missed them a lot too and wish could have been there to celebrate.

On the 3rd, the guys I was with decide to visit their family temples. Mangeshi and the ShantaDurga. It was an hours ride from Candolim. Hoped on back of the bikes and the 6 of us headed off. I was really happy to have made the trip...It was so peaceful. Even made my insides still for a lil bit.

We had lunch at a lil canteen by the side of the temple. We ordered non-veg--which means fish only in this case. It came with 2 chapattis, a kokam curry (red juicy liquid thats spicy), some veggeis, fish dal and 2 fried small fish. We also ordered sides of fried sear fish. My Goodness------it was THE BEST meal!! I can still taste the dal and rice and fish! I ate no much I thought I would explode!! It was a home cooked meal. The aunty was sitting and cooking fresh food for us...YUM Yum yum!! I think the guys reading this will add their own comment so check it out in the bottom!

Then we rode off to the Shanta Durga Temple. Again, so beautiful and serene. I can see why people sit in the temple all day. It brings about a certain calmness and feel rejuvenated and ready to face the hard cold world again. Outside the temple, the guys stopped to have a special drink. It was an interesting concoction. It was soda in a glass bottle with a marble inside the neck and when the shop keeper popped the cork it made an awesome "POP...fizzzzzzzzzz" sound! I felt like a kid again and wanted to hear it over and over again! He then mixed fresh lime juice, salt and chat masala to the mix. Ahhhh...such a tasty refreshing drink! Going to try and make it at home some day!!

We headed back to Candolim and started to get ready for our last day at Goa. Which was a lot of hopping around. It was kind of cool...we started at a place called 9 Bar...a Huge outdoor pit only playing trance music. Everyone was High and on something or the other. Bongs were being passed around. I was content with my Kingfisher beer and cigarettes under a coconut tree watching the sexy young shirtless men jumping up and down!

Then we headed to Zanzibar-- a really rockin shack on the beach. I was again content with my Bacardi Breezer, cigarettes and added the Greek Chicken kabobs being grilled on the beach. Moist,juicy and full of flavor! So good! Had a nice helping of it! Then chilled on a chair between two shacks and enjoyed the pulsating beats, the white surf hitting the sand and the full moon above. Ah! Perfect! I dozed off and three of us decided to head home...but not before I had shwarma sandwich at the next shack we passed!!

Goa Part 2

A perfect vacation equals lots of sleep, lots of good food, and lots of good….well for this trip I will say - reading!

Candolim looks a lot like Miami in structure…meaning one long main road and along the strip are hotels, spas, restaurants, bars, street vendors, etc…just everything is very rustic and folksy rather than 1920s Art Deco of Miami. The cuisines of the restaurants are varied as the tourist vacationing in the spot. You have traditional Goan food, Indian, Chinese, German, Italian…you name it, they will have it. Pork is one thing that’s plentiful in Goa and cooked in every possible fashion. According to the tourist and local lingo, if you visit Goa more than three times, you are on your way to becoming a Goan!

The next morning I finally wake up at 7:00 AM and kiss the sun as it rises. Since all my friends had partied the night before, instead of disturbing my slumber, they had all gone ahead and spent the night at the apartment and left me behind at the hotel. I didn’t mind the least bit! I woke up, washed off all the oil from the massage the day before and put on a bathing suit and headed off to the beach. It was still a little cool as the sun was coming up. The shore line was full of early morning joggers and couples taking a morning walk. I decided to walk a bit along the shore and as the sun started to get warmer the beach side shacks had opened up and layout the lounge chairs, I decided to take a break and sun bathe. It was blissful. I took a wade in the cool water and lay down in the chair with my book to keep me company. As the waves crashed it brought with it some wisps of cool breezes. It was absolutely perfect.

I had picked up a random book in Bangalore from a street vendor. The title had drawn me The Company of Women by Khushwant Singh. I sat in the sun and read and listened to the waves crashing.

It was soon almost noon and the other friends had started to wake up. One of them came out to the beach hunting me. We went back to the room and transferred all our bags to the apartment. It was such an adorable place! Thank goodness it was air-conditioned!

Goa can get very crowded and transporting from one place to next can become challenging...so we rented 3 motorcycles. Best investment ever! I LOVE riding on bikes and have been trying to learn how to ride since I was 15. but fear of breaking my dancing legs if i fell has kept me from it. This time I am determined to ride one. Hopefully get one in next couple of years too.

So after, we moved and settled in, we started with the drinking. Then headed to the beach for sun, surf, massage and grub. Had an awesome time on the beach. A lady sitting behind us started scolding her sun for like10 min and everyone around got really quite. It was a British women with an adopted thai boy of about 4 years. The poor kid was being harassed by the mother to say sorry to another boy and lil boy kept saying sorry to his mom. The mother would not let up. I hate it when children are mentally abused like that. I couldn't take it another minute and disrupted her by sitting infront of them and saying "can I be of any help?" The mother snapped to mind my own business, rightly so. So I left and went back to my chair. Now, her anger was directed at me and she was yelling behind my back. I didn't care, I went on eating and drinking. At least, the little boy got a rest from the woman. Thankfully, she left soon after and we continued to have a good time.

We somehow managed to teeter back to the room and get dressed for a night of partying. These guys love to party. So party we did! The best was the motorocycle rides!The cool wind and clear skies and fresh (well dusty) air...nothing quite like it!

I Love a good Massage

I L-O-V-E Massages! The Ayurvedic Kerala massage was something I was looking forward to! Just a warning: When you walk into the room, your masseuse (girl to girl, boy to boy) looks on as you strip down to your complete naked self...i mean naked! Then you lay on a table with nothing to cover you and she starts rubbing the oil and massaging every part of your body. It was heavenly! Then you stand up and she wipes you clean all over...feel like a queen!!

The second massage I got was Jan.1 after a night of dancing and frolicking. This time it was a man on the beach. He had given me a foot massage the day before and came back asking if I wanted more. It was still early in the morning and few people on the beach so I asked for a full body. He was awesome! He cracked the bones and pulled out all the knots on my back! Then I flipped over for him to do the front. He went to town around the breats! Hahaha! But didn't cross the line (I had a bikini on) and it felt so relaxing! Then he did the things and butt....I was turned on and felt like jello! Why couldn't men you want to sleep with give massages like that!!!
I Love Goa!!!!

Goa Part 1

Back in Pandurang Ashram in Malleswaram, Bangalore. Have to say that this has been one the most awesome vacations I have ever taken. So, what happened in Goa? Well…here goes…

I left Bengeluru (funny name—going to call it Bangalore, thank you!) on the 6:30 PM bus to Goa. It was a loooooooong ride! Got the first 2 seats (had a friend with me) and sat in a half reclined position the whole time. The ride is 16 hours long! We stopped at a rest place about 2.5 hours into the journey, it was a proper rest stop with clean facilities. Then the rest of the time it was roadside stops…on very very bumpy dusty roads. Some places it was just a dirt path! If it must be said…take a flight anytime you can. Its about double the price but it’s a couple of hours at most and peace of mind. My bus ticket was Rs. 1050 which is roughly $22 or so…one way. Flight would have been $100-$150 – one way – its peak travel ‘cause of holiday season. You can see why I opted for the bus! I slept most of the trip and limited any solid and liquid intake…incase I had to make a pit stop. Little luck…at about 3:00AM, my bladder cried to be relieved! No way in this good earth was I going to go on the roadside in pitch black conditions! I figured I could hold it for a few more hours. It was a gorgeous ride, cool night, beautiful clear sky and a bright moon. The shadows of the coconut trees, outlines of the hills and mountains against the moonlight -- absolutely gorgeous. Thank goodness I had packed my wool shawl, it can get very cold at night. My friend insisted I had to make conversation…but I was still jet lagged and those who know me, know that I fall asleep in moving vehicles! So I handed over my I-pod as my substitute and went of to snoozeland. Of course my full bladder couldn’t keep me sleeping for long…but at 8AM I thought I could still hold out a bit longer. As the sun came up, it got warmer and I started to sweat profusely.

Under different circumstances, I would have struck up convos with neighbors on the ride…but I was surrounded by young boys on their way to party in Goa. They were all passed out. So I attempted to sleep again. My travel companion had started to snore very loudly so I got up and decided to drink in the sights. As I sat there, very uncomfortably due to bladder conditions, I was breath taken by the sights. The rivers, the trees, the hill and the people- It was all so lush, green and full of life. Last time I had been to Goa was with my ex and we had played a game as we had traveled the South—spot the man with out the moustache! I swear, every South Indian man has a moustache! Its supposed to be a sign of manhood and all that balderdash but its still amusing. Likely hood that if he doesn’t have a moustache they are probably not from Karnataka. As we got closer to the Panji (capital of Goa) you could see the ocean and feel the cool breeze, a soothing break from the sweltering heat.

At about 11AM we pull into our bus stop in Panji. I run off to find a toilet. First place I tried a restaurant…they point me to the back, all I saw were closed doors. So, no bathroom. I run to my friend and no luck there either. So I go across the street and into a bus stand cum office.

“Excuse me Maam, where is the closest toilet?” I ask

“Cross the street in the park.” She replies.

“Thank you!” I answer happily and head off towards the park across the next street. It still hasn’t registered that it is a public toilet. It takes me 5 min to cross the very busy street and finally decide to take my life into my own hands and dodge between the speeding motorcycles, rushing vans and swerving three wheelers. I land on the median. Thankfully the traffic on the other side is much lighter. I walk into the park – beautiful flowers and wonderfully clean—but no toilet. See a sweeper woman and go up to her and say one word.

“Toilet?” I ask

“Blue building.” She replies, pointing the direction. As I walk away, I register that she just replied to me in English! Dang! She goes on sweeping with a burlap sack over her shoulder and I half trot towards the blue structure. As I walk up I see two men standing and some signs. I ignore all and enter into a nasty smelling squatting toilet. I have to dispose of my full bladder so badly that I could care less! I hike up my jeans to avoid the wet stinking floor and somehow squat and go. As I walk out I notice between the men and women’s toilet is a small room with a bed and table. Someone actually sleeps in there. One of the men chases me out to ask for payment for using the toilet. I hand over 2 rupees. A much calmer and peaceful me walk over to meet my friends and hire a taxi to go to Candolim.

My friend haggles with some cab drivers and manages to get a decent rate for a mini van to take the three of us and our small luggage. The old man cribs the whole ride how we are getting a discounted rate. Just a note: Goa’s peak time and only time of the year most Goans living seaside make any business is during the holiday season. From end of October till about beginning of March are their business times. They live the rest of the year on the earnings made during this period. So, a Rs. 30 ride can cost upto Rs. 300 Xmas to New Year. Prices drop drastically by the 3^rd of Jan. Being Indians (hey-I am thankful I look Indian during this time!) we can bargain reasonable rates and not pay the ridiculous tourist rates.

We have a comfortable ride to Candolim and land up at the Hotel Del Sol-Areia. It is run by Rudy and Glary, friends of Didi and Dada and have stayed with my ex last time. A modest hotel with full amenities and comfortable but very expensive compared to surrounding places. We were supposed to have a booking for a suite for 6. The three of us walk in and it’s a 1 queen size bed and a terrace. It’s a cute place but hardly big enough for more than 3 at any time! Where did Glary expect to put the other 3?? Even with extra mattresses the other 3 would have to sleep outside on the terrace!!! With the bugs in the chilly night!!! My two friends started fuming! What a way to start a vacation!

I was hungry, so we took a wash and said let’s eat and then figure out what to do and wait till the others come. So we went out to a restaurant…everything is on the strip and restaurants are all outdoors, meaning only a roof and open seating. We sit down and people watch as we down a few cold beers while waiting for the food. Everything goes at a very leisurely pace in Goa, food takes anywhere between 30-40 mins to arrive! Plenty of time to get a decent buzz on =)

I have been looking forward to some chicken vindaloo…a goan dish..spicy, tangy and oh so delicious. In the States, most Indian restaurants make it so spicy that you hardly taste the flavor of the food. But this Goan shack was not going to disappoint! My chicken vindaloo was the tastiest!! It was bright chili red with chunks of boneless chicken. It smelled tangy and tasted sour, spicy and oh so wonderful with the white rice that my mouth is watering just thinking about it!! It was absolute perfection…perfect way to start a vacation! A few more cold Kings beers and we were in Goa heaven.

Preety my dear, I most definitely thought of you! All through the trip! Really wish you could have been there!

After the hefty meal we started back to the hotel and passed by an Ayurvedic massage treatment center. I sorely needed a massage after that bus ride and I had been to the place on my last visit. My friends didn’t need much convincing to go in. After a bit of haggling on the price—the rate for 60 min was Rs.500 we bargained it for Rs.350 per person. We made appointments for 2 hours later to let our meals settle. In the meantime we had to figure out how to get out of our so called “suite” and find different accommodations. I decided to not take part in it cause I really didn’t want to stress about this on my vacation. The friends I was with were more than capable to handle the situation. By the time we arrived, the other 3 friends had joined. They managed to talk to Rudy and Glary and get us transferred to a one bedroom apartment 10mins away. While these talks were taking place, we had already gotten our 1 hour oily rubdown. I had come back and completely crashed out! I fell asleep about 5:00PM and kept on sleeping till 5:00AM!

It was awesome!!!