Goa - Palolem Beach | INDIA

Well done Maya, after seeing ‘death’ for the 2nd time during this trip in India - the 1st was that Kolkata roadtrip - It was time to take another looong overnight train ride, but this time to the warm and nice Goa!
SO looking forward to relax on the beach, wear bikini and get some vitamin D!!

Tropical Palolem Beach

We arrived at Margao Station at night and didn’t know where to go, as usual. We got a tuktuk and went around the city a bit and around there we could see architecture and names influenced by the Portuguese, since Goa was conquered by Portugal in 1510 and ruled by them for 450 year! Quite a long time. Funny that there might still be some people that speaks Portuguese nowadays in Goa, of course it will be rare, but surnames are still there and also their local dialect borrowed some Portuguese words. I just find it fascinating. 

 Anyways, at midnight we ended up being taken to a hotel which actually looked really nice and modern, it looked so nice, I guess the nicest and newest hotel we have ever stayed in India, however, we found some lovely BED BUGS! For the first time and at the one hotel I did not expect that! HOLY COWS. Unbelievable.

Viv was extremely tired and didn’t care about it. (?!?!? how can you not care?! really...ffs) On the other hand, I could not touch the bed or anything else, ew! So I waited 1hr until he was a bit rested to wake him up and go find a different hotel. I felt sorry for him, it was 1am, but that was unacceptable! I asked for a refund which the guy didn’t give me at first as his boss wasn’t around. So I told him we were going to the beach town and would be back to pick up the full amount later. Yes, I was super upset.

Anyway, we didn’t find anywhere else and it was nearly 2am, finally found some taxi drivers near the station and picked a random beach to go to, which was just the best beach!! Palolem is the beach we spent 5 days, including Christmas Day and Eve.


Haha Not our bungalow, our one was a few steps behind it

There are lots of bungalows on the beach, a few steps from the actual beach and the one we picked wasn’t on the sand itself but it was probably 10 steps away and we had (some) ocean views from the window and balcony. We did well since it was Christmas season and everything was fully booked.

Palolem is a pretty little town, the weather was amazing, breathtaking sunsets, beach is just lovely, aaaah I just loved it! So peaceful... I've gotta say, the locals we met were so nice! And there is so much to do and see around that area, that I would recommend spending at least 5 days.

Us and the daily stunner sunset


Ah..Except that was still trying to fully recover from the Dengue fever… And ended up getting something else HAHA yes, and this one was bad, it lasted for about 4weeks. I could still do stuff but I had to watch what I was eating ALL THE TIME. I found out it was Salmonella. Now, who knows where I got that thing... Interesting how our bodies react differently from each other. Viv ate the exact same things as I did and had nothing.
Anyway, it was a bit annoying having to go to our bungalow toilet 5x a day for no.2. 
I KNOW. lol

Things to do and we didn't

We didn’t do anything specific like tours or activities, we spent most of the time enjoying the nice beach and weather, watching sunsets drinking nice beer, watched some live music at the many restaurants on the beach, had a great christmas dinner, done some acting for an Indian movie... Nope, not a Bollywood one, but ex-bollywood director! haha. It was Viv's bucket list and it actually worked out well, perfect timing and so much fun!
Have a look at our 2min video here :)

Everyone goes to this point to watch the sunset over the water

Oh right, and a detail that I forgot to mention... as soon as we got to Palolem I realized I didn't have a visa to go back to Australia, as at that time I was waiting for my resident visa and had to apply for a specific visa before going overseas so I could return to Australia without any issues.
So the visa I applied before leaving the country wasn't granted before I left! Bad. It meant I had to apply for a tourist visa to be able to return and hope to get it before my flight back to Aus which we had just bought... That was another reason why we didn't do much in Goa, which it was actually fine by me since I love the beach and that's all I felt like doing anyway.

On the day we were returning to town, we asked the driver to stop off in some locations along the way which was pretty cool too. We got to see other beaches, have lunch in one of them, see the sunset on the other, pretty productive actually.

One random stunning spot we stopped

Back in Margao after a lovely time in Palolem, I got my money back with the bedbug hotel haaa of course... We were travelling on a budget and did't even spent the night there.
Anyways, I was happy, we had a nice dinner and took another long overnight train ride to our last destination... and it was nearly the end of the year already!

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