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Welcome to Goa! On your left you will find palm trees, beaches and smiling locals. On your right keep a keen eye for locals on scooters, cows, dogs, goats and elephants roaming around!
Wow what a difference! This place is simply amazing. Much cleaner and there is a feeling of peace and calmness here. Everyone you pass says hello and greets you with a smile.
We arrived at our first hotel about an hours drive from the airport (640 Rs! Translates to about £7) I was amazed to see this resort after passing through the local towns with dusty roads and street stores, we fell into a utopia. Room was excellent (check out the pics) everything was just right apart from the price, 3750 Rs a night which is a tad over our budget so this was only a 2 nighter before we move on after speaking to locals to get the tips of where to be in Goa. One of the barmen (Rhoody, im sure I have spelt that wrong) shared a few tips on the area, hinting towards Anjuna. Seems it is the place for the nightlife and younger travellers.
So after a few nights slept in comfort and a sense of safty! We had to move on to a cheaper and move suiting place to stay. I didn't want to leave! Just thinking that if the Sonesta Inn is so expensive for what it is, surely we won't find anything else like it in our price range..... As we left the hotel, guide book in hand. I devised the most sensible way to get us somewhere to stay when we get to Anjuna, randomly select a hotel! Seeing as there were some internet related issues at the hotel it was a situation that had "wing it" writen all over it. After spending tense seconds of carefully looking through the guidebook for the best place to stay, I came across a place called Villa Anjuna. Seemed nice in the book, can't go wrong right?
So this is the part where you get the idea it all went Pete Tong right? Well to our suprise (and yours I suppose), after passing a Dominios Pizza (Kind of stood out a tad from the market stalls!) We stopped outside of this resort and looked in amazement. I knew I had to be in for a let down, turns out this place (from where I am writing this tonight) is going to cost us 1500 Rs p/n which roughly translates to £20 or so for both of us, which just so happens to be in our price range! Woo! This place is perfect, a mere 2 mins from the beach and everything else we need, including the essential bar and pool!
So after a brief settle in and a £1.50 lunch, the decision was made that we would rent a scooter and go take a look around. 200 Rs or so and we picked up the safest looking scooter I have ever set my eyes on! We were informed that it is all insured and not to worry about a thing! Good enough for me! We set out and I had the rather entertaining chance to terrify Charlie as the other drivers here seem to go by a close your eyes and accelerate basis. It makes driving on the road oh so much more fun, especially when a car chooses to roll over a junction without looking. Would have a made an excellent picture of Charlie on the back in what seemed at the time, a classic brown-trousers moment! Priceless.
We managed to visit a few road side "shops" and a small market near the beach. Some nice things, the local sellers are so nice. It seems that every stall we went to we were the first customers of the day! Would you believe it! It meant because of this we receive a special "first customer" discount. I must admit, haggling couldnt be more fun with these sellers. Starting out at around 750 Rs for a coconut shell necklace thingy (technical term by the way) finding our way down to just 50 Rs when we refused to buy anything and almost going through tears from the poor lady selling the item because "she wasn't making anything on it now". Now, you may think that sounds heartless but the acting abilities of these locals is almost as good as what my be found on the popular TV show Hollyoaks. I can't come close to recalling how many promises were requested from me that I would come back later and look at the items they have for sale!
It has been an excellent change to what we thought was going to a hard to handle country, we have seen some amazing things without looking for them (Just think what we can accomplish when we try!). If you ever thought about going away for the winter to a warmer country, this is a very popular and simply amazing place to go! There has been nothing but good here in Goa so far. Although as I sit here and write this, an Canadian guy across the way is telling of his run in with a wild dog that took a fancy to his leg so it seems. I dont think im going to start petting the puppies on the street just yet, but you never know. Enough of the local beer "Kingfisher" and I could do anything stupid!
Take a look at some of the wonderful pictures of Goa in the gallery and the one attached, there will be more as we take them after exploring further into this area and i'm sure we will get to share a drunken story after we hit the nightlife tomorrow night!
First happy blog, always a good sign! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for updates as we go along!
Chris
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