Waiter, we’ll have a Gastronomic Goan Monsoon for two with Beaches on the side please!

I can see now why Goa can be such a blast any time of the year. Hot sun and we had a whale of a time on the beach (yeah, I cribbed a bit, but I was getting a mean tan you see). Pouring rain and we grabbed our wind cheaters to gleefully drive all over the northern coast and Panjim on a Honda Activa with a handy little map as guide. Neither of us is a “rain person” really but the place is just so charming and the fact that most tourists stayed indoors, waiting for the rain to let up that we couldn’t sit indoors!

That’s the spirit with which one should go to Goa – be free as a sprite, feel the sand between your toes at the numerous picturesque beaches, each one distinct from the other, roam around the quaint roads lined with curio stores, freak out on sea food in the beach shacks, shake a leg in the night clubs, be out on the winding roads on a bike and be indoors only when you need the rest(room) :-)

My advice (unsolicited though it may be) is this – pack light because you wont need much; just shorts and tees irrespective of time of year, good sun screen (which S for some reason insists on calling ‘sun tan’ :-)) and a wind cheater/ light jacket that’ll serve as a rain coat. And of course your DL, Credit/ Debit card and some Pudin Hara because if you don’t hog on sea food, you’re not really getting the ‘flavour’ of Goa. But I must warn you about the “Prawn Balchao” – a traditional Goan dish that has generous quantities of chilly powder, vinegar and spices dunked in. I recommend you go easy on it unless you want to be gasping “Praan Bachao” in the middle of the night! Oh yeah, and don’t forget to carry your basic medicine pouch – the pharmacies don’t open till 9 AM like the rest of the shops and the Mathew Briganza Hospital in Calangute does not believe that medicines can be needed between 10 PM and 9 AM! It can be quite an unnerving experience to have a loved one fall violently sick in the wee hours of the morning – you know how debilitating a stomach bug can be – and not be able to get them any medicine right away.

Amid all the beach shacks and Lazy River Grills we did the Britto’s and Tito’s of Goa as well (I had more on the list – Mambo’s, Kamaki, Club Cabana, Paradise Hill etc etc but we just ran out of evenings). Now, the oh-so-famous Tito’s has a courtyard that’s open for meals all day but the night club doesn’t open till 10:30 PM and the Goa virgins that we were, we had no clue. That’s how we came to dine at Tito’s Courtyard and order the aforementioned – and if I may add, deadly – Prawn Balchao. Our waiter was good at his trade, the food decent and ambience regular. Following that the night club was under populated, played only trance, served only two kinds of beer, was overpriced compared to the rest of Goa and wasn’t even 10% the fun we heard it normally is. To be fair to the place, this was borderline off-season and early hours for the clubbing crowd but frankly, we were disappointed and a little sad that we didn’t spend that evening in a more ‘paisa vasool’ manner. So you may want to be really selective about the big names like Tito’s. However Britto’s is a must visit at lunch time and irrespective of season, it’s always crowded and the waiters harassed, but you cannot beat the location or the food. Taj Aguada was lovely as well. I realize I’ve talked about the food so much and mentioned the term hogging (or synonyms thereof) more than once, so you could ask me what exactly does one hog on? Well, Calamari, Mussel, Prawn, Pomfret, Tuna, sundry other fish, Crab; you name it! And guzzle beer of course.

What do I like best about Goa? That’s a trick question because there isn’t one thing I can settle on! The beaches are beautiful and many, the sea food bounteous, the booze cheap, the people extremely hospitable and tourist friendly, the rains in Goa are splendid, you can scoot around on a two wheeler taxi, people obey traffic rules, the roads are romantic flanked by greenery and ponds, no one bothers about what you wear and did I tell you – you get a golden tan!! :-)Something we didn’t get to do enough of, but are sure we would have absolutely loved, is the water sports part. We did go jet skiing, but it only managed to whet our appetite for more and we’ve promised to tick it off the list on our next trip – which by the way we want to do asap! This time round, with a group of close friends who take equal delight in the food, the beaches, the rain and the water sports! :-)

Instant recall when I think “Goa” is the Goanese folk song and it’s catchy beat that I learnt in school as part of the choir, “phude phude baapud veta baapud veta, punj lagu wan, teji maashi jaakin seta, jaakin seta, bidiye phagu wan”. But the enduring image of Goa I’m always going to carry with me is the truly fun time I had with S on 5887 (yeah, that was another uncanny coincidence – our rented Activa had the same number as S’s bike here) in the rain at Fort Aguada and Sequerim beach. We’re pretty sure this is the way to spend a holiday!