The four of us (Three Gandas and a McFarlane) flew from Mumbai to Goa. We would have preferred to take the Konkan Railway down the West Coast, but you need to book this in advance. So we flew into Panjim (or Panaji), the capital of Goa. It immediately felt different, cleaner and slower.
Panjim is supposed to be interesting for it's history as a 16th century Portugese spice-trading port. It's not interesting. Don't bother. Really. Head for the beaches, or to Old Goa.
So we headed for the beaches. We found one that was nice for swimming and was probably disgustingly beautiful before foreigners came and turned it into an over=exploited hippy hell. Varkala it was called. But we were desperate for sun and beach so we (the two of us) found a room there for a couple of days.
At this point the dreaded Delhi-belly (or travelers gastroenteritis if you prefer) caught up with us and we spent a miserable few days with sweats, cramps, and mad dashes to the nearest facility. This was particularly fun because we had no hot water in our hut.
Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Ganda were having a lovely time in Old Goa checking out spice gardens, cashew nut plantations, snakes, monkeys and elephants.
So we missed out on that. We also missed out on the famous Wednesday market in a nearby village because we preferred to writhe in bloated agony in a feverish daze.
So we had a fairly miserable time in Goa and decided to move on. Despite our gastric issues, we popped some pills and braved an 11 hour overnight bus ride to the next big dot on the map.
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