Goa - The sunshine and the awesome beaches

Sunset over the river Mandovi. Local fishermen out to collect the day's catch.

We kept planning to visit Goa since many years but it always got postponed. We've been to 10 countries now but not this one state. So, we impulsively booked tickets to coincide with Srivani's 25th birthday. This was also the first time we both would be trying out parasailing. Goa is a state that had a very colourful past. The Portuguese rule, the inquisition and the liberation. This has left the state with many a mark. I wanted to see a bit of everything. The churches, the forts and bastions, the Indian naval museum and a perhaps a glimpse of one of the Il-38s at Dabolim. On the naval front, Goa boats one of only three full-scale aircraft carrier mockups (SBTF) in the world. It housed the Sea Harrier fleet of the navy. It was also the first time India ever used a carrier battle group in action with the newly inducted INS Vikrant being pressed into action in 1961.

Sunset over the river Mandovi.

Old Goa.

Srivani parasailing at Calangute.

Basilica of Bom Jesus.

Pizza with Cafreal sauce.

We reached Goa by Kadamba Travels on the morning of 12th Jan. We got down at the bus stand at Panaji and rented an Activa for about Rs 400 a day. We immediately fueled up and rode to our Oyo room. We got this hotel thanks to a great little discount from Cleartrip. It was a nice little hotel, overlooking the Mandovi river and the Salim Ali bird sanctuary. We could see the ferries operating across the river from our room. After having breakfast, we headed out to see the Basilica of Bom Jesus. This is one of the grandest old Goa churches and houses fragments of the True Cross along with the remains of St. Xavier. We took out time walking around the church and went for lunch at an Udupi Sagar nearby. Old Goa is characterised by the quaint colonialist look and feel and has a distinctive European touch to it. The houses are brightly coloured with distinct contrasty combinations. We went back to our hotel to have lunch. After lunch, we set out to cross into North Goa and visited Aguada fort. This fort primarily served a replenishment stop for Portuguese ships, with the word 'Aguada' meaning water. This fort also houses the old lighthouse, overlooking the Arabian Sea. After this, we rode across the Sinquerium beach, which has a great view of the Sinquerium fort and the sea. We finally reached the spot where we would be doing our parasailing on Calangute beach. A little motor boat transferred us to a bigger boat sitting in deeper waters. I went up first on the ride which lasted for a few minutes. It was great from up there and definitely not as scary as I had imagined. I really missed having an action camera with me! After having a Sprite in a shack, we headed back to Panaji. We spent some more time at Campal gardens watching the sun set over the backwaters of Mandovi. We had an awesome dinner at Cremeux. It was a large pizza with Cafreal sauce. Cafreal is yet another Goa speciality and has similar origins as Piri Piri. It originated somewhere in the African colonies of the Portuguese empire and spread throughout the Portuguese world.

Sinquerium fort.

Aguada fort.

Calangute beach.

Ilyushin Il-38.

On 13th, we set out to visit the Indian Naval Aviation Museum at Dabolim. This place is the nation's only museum dedicated to naval aviation. It's unique in the sense that India had operated at least one aircraft carrier continuously for the past 60 years. Three generations of carrier borne fighters sailed aboard the nation's carriers. Seahawks, Sea Harriers and the finally the MiG-29K. This museum is the only place where one can see the Seahawks and Sea Harriers in the country. The museum also houses a Lockheed Super Constellation which was transferred from Air India to perform maritime reconnaissance. Apart from these, there's a Hughes 300, Chetak, Seaking, Alize, Dornier 228 and several torpedoes, mines, sonar buoys and lots of scale models and personal artefacts. It also houses several images from the 1961 campaign. We even managed to see an Il-38 "Sea Dragon" landing at Dabolim. After this, we rode back to Reis Magos fort and climbed up to get good views. We had lunch at our hotel itself and went up towards Calangute once again. We had a dolphin watching cruise planned for the next half of the day. The trip we booked on Cleartrip got cancelled and we had to book via a tour agent somewhere on the road. This began at around 4 PM from Coco beach, which was a black sand beach, and lasted around an hour. We managed to spot a few dolphins and flocks of seagulls feasting on shoals of fish. We had dinner at Mall de Goa and called it a day.

The Lockheed Super Constellation.

Sea Harrier FRS Mk. 51.

Seagulls feasting.

Bottlenose dolphins.

At Reis Magos fort.

On 14th, we returned the scooter back at Panaji bus stand and returned to the hotel by local bus. After breakfast, we checked out and took the ferry onto Salim Ali bird sanctuary. The delta of the river Mandovi is home to several mangroves, housing several species of birds and fish. An oddity amongst them is the mudskipper. This is a fish which learned to breathe air and walk. It's an evolution adapted to suit the rise and fall of tides which leaves mud and puddles of water. It uses these evolved skills to crawl from one puddle to another. These mangroves have a countless number of mudskippers in them. We spent almost the entire first half of the day walking across the sanctuary observing nature. The place is mosquito infested, obviously. We finally made it back to the mainland and walked to the nearest bus stop in old Goa. We had a brief encounter with street dogs which began barking and chasing us, looking at our luggage. With the help of a few of the local residents, we managed to dodge them and climb aboard a bus headed towards Panaji. We had lunch at a nice air conditioned restaurant near the bus stand and then took a local bus to Campal gardens, where we sat for quite some time, watching the activity on the water. There were casino ships and smaller ferries ferrying people to these floating casinos. There were cruise ships preparing to take people out for evening cruises. There was quite a lot of activity on both the promenade and the river. We finally made it back to the bus stand by evening and caught our bus back to Bangalore.

Salim Ali bird sanctuary.

The mangroves.

Calangute from Sinquerium fort.

Mudskipper at Salim Ali bird sanctuary.

This had been a good first trip to Goa. We explored a bit of everything there is to North Goa. the South Goa is known to be a lot more peaceful and serene than the happening north. We'll visit the southern part of the state pretty soon.

Church on Sao Jacinto island.

Sunset over Coco beach.