As it proved out, planning well in advance will save you a lot of money and energy. All thanks to Sowmya, Ashna and Sashi who planned out every thing well in advance. They booked a sleeper bus to Goa (there is no trains from bangalore to goa on thursday’s). It was our first experience in a sleeper bus which ultimately turned out into a nightmare. Initially we liked the cozy comfort of a double bed inside the bus, but thanks to numerous speed breakers which spoiled the journey to Goa.
Sleeper Bus: INR 900 per person

We finally landed in Panjim at 11:00 A.M. (5 hours late from scheduled 7.00 A.M. arrival). A big thank to Sowmya who already booked two A.C. Deluxe room in Dona Julia Resort. By noon we were in our resorts. A quick breakfast and a 1 hour nap and we were on our way to explore Goa.
Van From Panjim to Dona Julia: INR 250

1st day we decided to explore whole of north Goa. We booked a maruti van, and the guy (name Francis) promised us to show 2 forts and 4 beaches (all in north goa) by 8 o’ clock. We headed first to Fort Aguada. It was a typical Portuguese architecture surrounded by the indian ocean from 2 sides. Chilling heat and we were all dead within 15 minutes. We decided to leave that place and headed towards the beaches.

Beach Vagator was our destination next. An hour of craziness in water, some hundred shots and we were like done for the day. Francis showed us the famous Dil Chahta Hai place which was next to beach vagator, about 1 km uphill. I very much wanted to see the place, but two chicks with us were in no mood. A few glass of lime soda and we headed towards Beach Anjuna.

There wasn’t much of a difference between Beach Vagator and Beach Anjuna. There were very few people on both the beach, with hardly any foreigners. 🙁 We did a bit of beach shopping and a few shots (finally we were all wet).

Bagga beach brought in some energy into our body. Some (infact a lot) sexy chicks roaming around, loud music, water sports, beach side massage and everything you expect from a beach was there. We targeted water sports first and went for that scary and crazy scooter ride. That was the first time I tasted that salty sea water. (Wonder how those scooter guys operate the whole day in that water) We decided to return back next day and try out para sailing.

It was 6:30 and we had no energy to visit Beach Calingut. We all headed back into our resorts and decided to hit the swimming pool at the resort. However once we all lied on the bed, it hardly took us 10 min to fall asleep. Got up at 9 o clock. Plan was to visit one of the famous bars and disco thek.
Van Cost: INR 900 for North Goa

Another sensible thing we did was we hired two honda activa. That really made the trip more enjoyable for next 2 days. We had two options to choose from Titto’s or Mambo’s. As per Francis both were excellent. However since there was a 500 per couple entry fees in Titto’s we decided to hit Mambo’s 😉 We were there by 9:45 with everyone watching the IPL match. After inquiry I found that the disco thek starts at 10:30 and the disc rolls till 4 o’clock in the morning. I was like “wow“, kuddos to Goa government and F#&% this Karnataka government. It was a DJ from London who was supposed to spin the wheel that night. Hip Hop and house (last in my list of preferred music genre’s) was the theme. We all were some 3 beer down and I was just about to experience the best night ever. This part of the trip is what made “Dirty Dancing” as the title of this blog post. 2 o’ clock and we just didn’t stopped. Pretty chicks, some cool DJing, Rope dancing, 4 more beers and what else can you ask for. First time on a disco thek with Sowmya and what a night it turned out to be. Finally we had some khaati rolls and off to our resort.

It’s never easy to wake me up early morning and that was what Sashi and Ashna realised the next day. We decided to leave early for Calingut Beach and till 10:30 I was like showing no signs of getting up. With a driving force to enjoy this trip to the fullest, I was finally up. Had a nice breakfast at Sagar Restaurant (200 mts from our resort) and we headed towards Beach Calingut. I was like “wow”. There was no difference between what we saw yesterday at Bagga Beach and today at Calingut Beach. After bitching for about 30 minutes in salty sea water we headed for the deadly para sailing. Unfortunately we missed to take snaps of this part of our adventurous trip. However it was an experience of a lifetime, with my body floating mid air. Ashna and Sashi went for another round of scooter trip, meanwhile me and Sowmya were doing a photo shoot 😀 We were back in our resort by 3 o’clock and with no delays we hit the swimming pool back there. Swimming pool, beer, shades, photo shoot and that all you can ask for. Had our lunch and then back for a 1 hour nap.

In the evening we had our dinner at Sher-e-Punjab, a so-so restaurant on Beach Calingut. We planned out to visit the famous saturday night market before hitting the disco thek again. However, unfortunately it has been shut down during the off season. Next we decided to hit the Mambo’s once again but since today it was a 500 buck per couple entry tonight, we decided to try out titto’s. “Mauja re Mauja” and you can imagine the atmosphere inside. It was some nice bollywood remix rolling on the disc. However in my opinion Mambo’s have an upper hand as compared to music and ambience at Titto’s. We were soon out of that place, roaming on the streets of Goa before we hit Beach Bagga at mid night.

Finally a dream run was coming to an end. We had train (gareeb rath) back to bangalore at 3 o’clock afternoon. Guitar and some cool doods around in the train made the journey back home even more memorable. (We sang some 30 songs that night in the train spanning from Maa – Dasvidaniya to Nagin the Lady Cobra)

For more pictures of this memorable trip:

• Facebook Profile
• Flickr Photostream