2nd January 2009 started early at 9 am. We dragged our groggy heads out of the bed and got ready to go to the beach!.. We had planned to go to Vagator and Small Vagator beaches, Chapora Fort and stop by at Candolim Beach on our way back.. We had hired a car for that day @ 1000/- per day. So we bundled up in our Alto and were off to Vagator. The routes in Goa are easy and we were there at Vagator within ½ hour. We were hungry and the grumblings in our tummy were stronger than the urge to settle on the beach… so we looked for a place.. We found nothing much at Vagator except for the beautiful view..
So we went to Small Vagator Beach also known as Ozrant Beach and found a lot of small shacks off the beach, up on the cliff. The route to the beach is a flight of steps down a cliff…shaded by palms. We first settled at this empty restaurant and ate to our heart’s content – pancakes, omlettes, English breakfast et al. We also found cute little shops and bought some shorts etc. Walked down the flight of stony-steps and landed at the beach. This Beach is extremely rocky, the sand is not as soft and clean as the one in Colva Beach… but nevertheless it was beautiful.
The Little Vagator area is further divided into three parts: Italian beach, Tel Aviv beach and the main strip. The first two are named after the nationalities that pretty much occupy the sands there. The beach is pretty sparsely crowded and is quite a ‘hidden’ beach so as to say! It has about 10 shacks on the coast and is filled with mostly Westeners. We went to the far end of the Italian Beach and found 4 lovely sun beds to settle on. As I told earlier, when we reach a beach, we settle! :)… The men went into the waters and we ordered beer and breezers… After a while, S and I decided to walk down the length of the beach to the farthest end. This, my friend, was almost a nude beach… very very sexy ladies (can give anyone a run for their money) …very very sexy men… and we also found some famous faces amongst them… At the farthest end was the rock carving of Lord Shiva and the carvings of the Cobra created around 4 years ago. An unknown foreigner from the Hippie Era carved these. They were beautiful carvings.
Having done that and stared at the innumerable eye-candies, we moved towards Chapora Fort. It was about 4PM and we had decided to watch the sunset from the fort. The climb up Chapora is not so wow… it was difficult especially if ur wearing ‘chappals’! hmph.. Nevertheless we reached the top and made our way to the ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ point. There were a number of Saifs and Amirs and Akshayes that we saw posing.. We waited for them to get off and went ahead with our posings. That is when we discovered a small opening, which leads to outside the fort area and towards a section of the mountain that a few men were going to. We decided to trek it. The walk was beautiful.. the view on both sides was breathtaking – one side was the Large Vagator Beach and the other side was a section of Goa which looked like a fishermen’s colony. We went to the farthest end of the mountain, from where it was just the sea and the skies! Sigh.. Settled on a rock, we watched the sun go down.. another great sunset added to our memories!
We came back..tired… exhausted and satisfied with the day.. somewhat sad that it was going to be the last day!!!… We drove in silence to Candolim Beach… which we realized is SO not a night beach.. It looked dull… lonely and very very boring. So after having a drink or two at a shack.. we came back to the main roads. We were hungry… and decided to park the car and walk into any of the many restaurants. The way we saw it – the restaurant with the maximum number of people will be our choice. So we chose one and entered. Unfortunately it was all wrong – starting with the drinks which were delayed.. he gave us a wrong version of chicken Cafrael… and oh the food was pathetic..( I will not give you the name..coz frankly I don’t remember)! We came back home.. telling ourselves that its ok!!!
We were up the next morning quite early…coz we had a train to catch at 3pm. We decided that we will not waste the morning in our room and checked out at 10AM. We hired a car and went to Baga Beach. Some of us had to shop a bit for family back home and I wanted to take something that would remind me of Goa. We shopped a bit.. and saw this restaurant called – Electric Cats. They claim to have “The best cocktails in town” and even validate it with “Lonely Planet” says so! We decided; leaving Goa without cocktails would make the trip incomplete. So we settled. The owner-cum-bartender Mr. Ramesh was absolutely adorable. He helped us
choose cocktails, made us comfortable and even let us enter: behind the bar (pun unintended)! We intended tohave only 1 cocktail each but ended up having 2 each and a lot of yummy Goan food.. The Chicken Xacuti and the Pork Vindaloo were heavenly.. the afternoon sun and the cocktails made our last meal in Goa even more special. 2 hours later and wishing we had cancelled the train tickets, a little tispy us walked out of the restaurant and were on our way to the station – ofcourse wishing through the way – wishing the train leaves and we jump onto the nearest beach shack…! Sigh… but no.. the train had to wait.. coz we have to go back the paradise and finish what we had not completed in this trip. Us marketing guys called it the – Recall Value
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