The Beginning Of An Unplanned Goan Story

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Clare Chris Stephen
May 03, 2019   •  22 views

Everyone's gotta have their Goan adventure at some point. We make Goa plans with our high school besties, with our cousins and with our college pals. We keep making them over and over and we keep on researching and after a point, become so knowledgeable about Goa, it's almost like we've been there multiple times.

My Goan adventure happened in my third year of college. My friends and I were fed up with the hectic classroom schedule and everything that was going on around us in college and we just decided to pack up and leave for a few days.

Goa was the first and most obvious option. We were like why not? Got a train, booked a small stay and got our best beach clothes on. Clothes that we'd been saving for this very day since the first thought of going to Goa ever entered our minds. Finally a chance to flaunt them and walk about without a care in the world was here.

Everyone knows about the famous beaches and shacks. We've all seen pictures on the internet and on our friends' Instagram stories. But the beauty of Goa lies in the fact that these are just a few of the many many hidden and famous spots in Goa.

By the time we'd gotten down in Goa, we had decided to only use public transport to get by. So we asked around, found that bus travel was actually quite convenient and reached our first destination. A beach called the Japanese Garden. It is also known as the Grandmother's Hole. These names intruiged us and we were very curious by the time we reached the place. We found a cliff top garden with benches and astone pathway. Beautiful but not everything we expected. We walked along the pathway and found ourselves among trees, almost a dense forest. Soon the view of the beach was gone and it was just a winding path through a forest.We walked on without knowing where we were going. Soon we reached a wall of sorts. High enough that we couldn't see what was on the other side. And in the middle of the wall, was a hole, big enough for one person to pass through at a time. And we were in for a big surprise.

One side of the wall was dark forests and trees and once you got to the other side, it was howling winds, bright sunlight and a beautiful stretch of beach right below. There were steps that led down to the beach from where we were standing. The beach was full of shells and had very few people walking about. We were delighted. This was the perfect start to our Goan adventure.

After spending some time at the beach and clicking many photographs we went back up and got a bus back to Vasco. We found a small live bakery where they had warm and fresh baked goodies straight out of the oven. We ordered again and again and ate as much as we could.

We made plans to head to Dona Paula next. We wanted to watch the sun set every eveningat different beautiful locations. First, Dona Paula. By the time we got near there it was almost sun set and we hadn't got to the beach yet. We kept alarm for the sun set time and ran. We literally chased the sun and got to the marble structure atop the steps at Dona Paula just in time to see the setting sun. We sat there for a long time enjoying the calm and resting.

We sat there for such a long time that we got very late and we had to hurry to get the last bus to Calangunte area where we were staying. We kept our luggage and as it was already very late and we'd been traveling from the night before, had a hurried dinner and decided to retire for the night.

My last thoughts as I drifted off were that this was already one of the best trips yet and the fact that it was so unplanned made it all the more amazing.

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Profile of Shashank Shekhar
Shashank Shekhar  •  4y  •  Reply
Give me the sun and the sea. God: Goa is awaiting