OFF TO GOA AGAIN
Usually when I eat or experience something wonderful for the first time, experiencing the same thing a 2nd time isn’t quite as good. Perhaps it is the novelty that wears off, perhaps it is just the plain and simple fact that anticipation can’t match up to the experience. However, Goa is an exception. Seriously. This trip was as good as the last. The food, the beach, the shopping, the slacking. Gosh if only it was nearer, I wouldn’t mind going a 3rd time!

Hmm where should I start? If anything, this trip was more eventful than the last. We took a train and coach to Goa. This time, we stayed at Baga beach, which is seriously the best beach in Goa. It is touristy enough to have all those beach shacks and stuff, and yet isn’t overcrowded or overly commercialised like Calangute beach.

HOTEL
We checked out this hotel called Villa Fatimah. According to Rough Guide, it is quite a good hotel to stay at in Baga. When we went there with our luggages and barang barang, the exterior of Villa Fatimah looked wonderful with its painted red gates etc, and its promise of a pool. Funky. The guy in charge of the hotel showed us a room with two beds and an attached bathroom which however, looked kinda disappointing as compared to the exterior of the hotel/guest house. We asked him whether there were any other rooms available without air-con (budget budget!) but he said there were no vacancies at the moment. Hmm so we told him that we would take that room then and asked him whether we could have an extra mattress in there.

The guy said that there weren’t any extra beds nor mattress. We thought about it and said we would take the room without any extra beds, that we could share the 2 beds then. Guess what the pompous snivelling little (kkiez, maybe not that little. He’s a fatty snot) snot said? “Nono, you can’t take a room with just two beds. Here at Villa Fatimah, we don’t do what the Indians do,” with a haughty look on his face. Dude, what was he suggesting? That we were gonna try a menage a trois and that it was an Indian thing? What the crap?

We were seriously quite disgusted by his knowing high-and-mighty attitude even though we aren’t Indians. We have been in this country long enough to genuinely feel a deep-seated sense of warm affection for the people and that fatty just insulted this country like that? (he mentioned earlier that he is Portugese, not from India, hence the looking down on Indian part). Since we couldn’t stay in THAT ROOM with only TWO BEDS (god, how scandalous are we? To EVEN think of sharing two beds…duh~) we asked whether there were any alternatives. He suggested some air-con rooms which we didn’t calculate into our budget (like perhaps about $70 a night? which wasn’t very expensive but there were definitely cheaper rooms then).

Thus began the small talk. I asked him, “hmm so you’re not local?” the pompous little airbag at this point of time, broke into a wide smile. He seriously grinned from ear to ear and said, “So you can see that I’m not local?” I mean, Dude, if you freaking despise this country so much, don’t even live here and make ur freaking living here alright? Gosh… just pack your sorry little butt back to Portugal or wherever you’re from man.

Thereafter, he said that he liked us quite abit and decided to give us a discount for the aircon room with 3 beds (no doubt becuz we said he didn’t look local…) for abt $45? Which is cheap for an ac-room. But we were like disgusted with his attitude so we just upped and left and went in search for another hotel. Thank god we found a nice little hotel/guest house just a little down the road called OLHOS DO MAR guest house. The rooms and toilet were much newer than the one we saw at Villa Fatimah which is great man. We rather take new over run down looking room anytime, especially when the fatty pom pom’s attitude sucks. The room was cheaper too – 600 rps, which is like $25/night? Cheap man! And it is near the beach too! Great location, great room, great price! Fantastic!

That’s us at Baga beach… See how lovely it is? And at the top right corner is my toes right in the pic w Jo and Ken! (I ain’t gonna be left out alright.) Jo and Ken were trying to act cool too. In reality though, the really cool dude was the photographer. No prizes for guessing who the mystery photographer is!

BEACH LIFE
Another interesting nugget of information about the beaches at Baga is that there are a lot of touts there. Local will walk along the beaches lined with foreigners tanning on the countless sunbeds, hawking wares that include skirts, tee-shirts, storybooks etc. Some offer services such as ayurvedic massages for the body/head/foot, henna tattooing (what Jo got for 100rps=$4. Apparently she could have got it for cheaper cuz the tattoo was a small one and was done pretty quickly. We thought we had a bargain though cuz the opening price was 300rps. Bloody bugger who ripped us off. Hmmph. Hahah. well at least it wasn’t expensive.), hair braiding etc. You can go parasailing or jetskiing as well.

Ooh speaking of jetskiing, there is this guy I met on the beach who offered to let me jetski! Hahah. He operates the jetskiing machine thingy and i think he took a liking to me! When i met him on the beach the first time, he chatted to me and asked me to go clubbing with him (Goa is famous for its great food, great booze and lively night life). I told him not today, another time cuz I came with my friends (Ken n Jo). He asked me to find him the next day at Baga beach, where he’ll be at till 7pm in the evening. I never did lol.

The day after however, while we were chilling out at Baga beach during the afternoon, he found us! hahah. And asked me why I didn’t find him. heh. Told him I didn’t make it cuz we were at Arambol beach. He then invited me to go motorbiking with him. Siao leh… hahah. What if he 载我出去卖！Heheh. So i declined. He then invited me to jetski which was quite tempting. I asked him how much it would cost and he said free for me! Tee hee. Privileges of being a girl and maybe a babe at that lol. Hahah. When I asked him whether Jo could come along, he said that Jo would have to pay haha. Then i was like, hmm…. So he said, Ok lah, $8 for 2persons which is cheap lah. But in the end I didn’t jetski lah. In case 被占便宜you noe? Be Vigilant! Stay Alert! Always be on your guard! Sounds familiar? Terrorist warning messages lah hahah…

FOOD FOOD FOOD!
And the food as usual were fantastic. We had Huge slabs of steak doused/drowned in cream cheese sauce with helpings of mushrooms, buttery mashed potatoes, succulent prawn tossed in a rich cream sauce pasta, perfectly grilled mussels that just sits oh-so-wonderfully in one’s mouth… Ooh la la. Places that must be visited (all recommended by rough guide) include Double Dutch at Arambol Beach (great steaks and fantastic Apple Crumble pie… Best I’ve ever eaten), Nisha’s at Baga Beach (tender, succulent grilled seafood. Seafood pulao is fabulous, so is the crab… Darn bloody great i tell ya. In fact, all the seafood here is fantabulous.) and well… basically seafood and meat. Just go wild! Girls, forget about dieting. It is seriously not worth it when the food is this fantastic and cheap! And we can have all this while sitting on the sunbeds, with a clear view of the blue blue sea…

The pic above has us meeting our new friend Suzy and hmm (i forgot the guy’s name) at Baga beach. We had a great time talking to them and it was really fun! Suzy was really funny regaling us with tales about how Indians are generally scared of cold (I couldn’t agree more. Jo and I blast our 2 fans at the full speed of 4 in our rooms and some of our friends have one fan switched on at speed 1or 2. Jo and I are practically perspiring suffering from bouts of heatstroke at that crawling fan speed alright while our friends can still feel cold. Oh god… hahah). She was telling us about how she went to Calcutta once, and she was asking the cabbie to switch on the air-con cuz she was perspiring non-stop. The weather was just so so SO hot.

That fateful day however, was the day when Calcutta was at its coldest in the entire year. In fact, it hit a record-breaking low in Calcutta’s recent history and was even featured in the local newspaper. People were dressed in sweaters and scarves. Oh god! hahah. I’m serious man this is way too funny. Like on the beach, when we’re dressed in bikinis or light sundresses and can still feel hot, you have locals wrapped up in layers of saris like they were nothing. No perspiration, nothing. Gosh.

DRINKS & BOOZE
Of course, besides the food, there is always booze as well! hahah. Well we’re not lovers of drinks though so we didn’t drink all that much. However, Kenneth is terribly lousy! After drinking one cocktail, Kenneth’s face turned absolutely red such that he refused to take pictures when we asked him to… As can be seen from the pics, Jo’s claws came out menacingly over him while i tried to cajole him into taking pics with us!

Jo herself is damn lousy too… As can be seen in the top right hand pic above (taken on a separate day where the 3 of us drank a cocktail each), her face and Kenneth’s can match evenly in terms of redness. Goodness… The noobs! hahah. And like they puked… Grossness!

The lousy poks lah… Face so damn red! More shots of the two miserable buggers below (Blooper shots)

haha okies… So they didn’t really puke lah. The two buggers were just hamming it up for the camera. What is true however, is that their faces turn really really red! Funny! heehee. Lousy poks!

Kkiez, I will post more abt the shopping in Goa in my next entry!

Lotsa love,
Jasmine =)

By projectjasmine

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