Day 93 - 99
We took a sleeper train from hampi to Goa arriving around lunch time into the main town and taking a connecting train down to Palolem. We had gotten use to a plethora of tuk tuks harassing us when we arrived at the train station but alas here, we found nothing. After referring to our most used app , Maps.Me Olly confirmed a 1.5k walk to our hotel. Seeing as we did something like this before in Kerala I was confident I could do this. So off we set down the roads to the town, scooters flying past and beeping. Turning down a track restaurants, shops and cafes lined the street and shops with. hippy clothing . After arriving at our hotel I threw my bag down onto the sand staring at the beach and about to order a beer when we were advised that we were in the wrong place and had to walk down the beach again. Off we trotted with our bags down the beach in front of all the sunbathers clasping cool drinks. Our room was a basic beach hut on the sea, where the shower drained down the sides of the hut and the electricity was sporadic, but we were happy to beach side!



I can't say in this days in palolem we did much to report on other than relax, sun bathe and also take up a yoga class which was really good for us both! Nice to be stretching out under the palm trees!

From palolem we headed north via the local buses managing to spend only 20p each on fares to cover 3 hours of driving up to the party town of baga. If we thought Palolem was touristy this place was another level. We dumped our bags in a wonderful hotel and headed to the beach. I don't think I have ever seen so many people on one beach. It was a bit overwhelming! That evening we headed out for a Tibetan dinner (why not?!) and then for some drinks on the beach. At around 10.30 when people were hitting the dance floor seriously all the music went out down the beach and everyone poured out of the bars onto the beach and sat down. Aparently the police were coming so all the music is turned off, except for the main club in town, who are in cahoots with the police to drive revellers to their club when the music stops on the beach! Incredible, apparently the music doesn't start until 2/3 am again!

The next morning after reading brief blog online of a guy who hiked around Baga and surrounding beaches we decided to get our back packs on and head out to explore the other beaches beyond baga. Interestingly we found a huge brewery outside of the town on our way out and bookmarked it to return on our way home. The first part of the walk was easy as we followed the track along the shore and clambered over a few rocks. On our way we passed beaches inhabited only by Russians and then a beach onwards we found one full of the locals. Strange segregation. We stopped off in one town to treat ourselves to a burger, my first meat since we left South Africa, and boy was it worth it! As the heat of the day increased exponentially our way back was some what slower as we had to stop in one or two bars for a cool beer and enjoy the scenery. Again we missed sunset as we got lost literally in a bush on the side of a cliff. Arriving back into town sweaty, dusty and ready for food, we landed back at the beach bar from the night before. This time the music was pumping and after awhile we threw our bags behind the bar and danced with the locals. Being the only white people we got a lot of attentions, with people wanting to teach us to dance and take selfies. These guys really know how to party, the dancing on show was incredible and we had completely forgot how dirty and badly dressed we were to be in the bar. No one seemed to mind!



From baga we bussed back to the centre of Goa called panjim for a day of exploring the town. Apart from a fabulous Portuguese restaurant that we stumbled upon there wasn't much else going on here but it was great to wonder the colourful streets and get the Portuguese vibe. On our final day we headed to the world heritage site of Old Goa that was once the capital. Nice churches bit of a shame we didn't see the crying Jesus of the crucifix nor Asias biggest bell!