Going to Goa

Beautiful church in Panjim, Goa

After a couple long stints of transportation, including a very bumpy 10 hour bus ride and a 25 hour train ride, I finally made it to Southern India and the famous state of Goa. Goa is known as the party capital of India. With its majestic beaches, bars, electronic music, and cheap drinks, it’s easy to have a fun time here. What was nice though was that low season was starting up, so I experienced a much more quiet and ‘watered-down’ version of Goa, which I was totally content with after still trying to slowly ease my way back into reality after my Buddhism course.

But the main reason why I decided to come to Goa was because I was visiting a friend. Antoine is my French buddy whom I met in Tel Aviv, just as I was leaving for the airport. We both had the same flight back to Istanbul and ended up staying in Istanbul together for about a week while getting our Indian visas, since we were both coincidentally planning on going to India at around the same time. Since I was the first to arrive in India, we knew that we were gonna plan to meet up once Antoine got here. So we made some plans after my course, and since he was headed to Goa I decided to come join him. When I arrived I was welcomed onto the beach by Antoine and several other friends he had made during his short time in India. We actually ended up having a great group of people with us for nearly two weeks in Goa, and it was such a fun stint of the trip.

The daily life consisted of waking up, getting breakfast, hanging out on the beach all day, getting dinner/drinks, and then calling it a night. This is how most of the nearly two weeks were spent in Goa. But I really need to mention the food and music festival we went to one night. It was perhaps the funnest night I’ve had in India so far. We were in the capital city, Panjim (really beautiful Portuguese-style town) and there was a big food and music festival going on. Our group decided to check it out and we showed up to a massive stage surrounded on all sides by incredibly delectable food stalls. The food was incredible, but the highlight was the music. A classic rock cover band from India performed tremendously, playing all the classics, and then we decided to dance. And boy did we dance. We congo-lined ourselves onto the dance floor and joined the fellow Indians rocking out. It was so hot, I don’t think I’ve sweat that much in my life. We just kept moving and rocking out so hard. There was sweat exploding of off my face and I felt like I was melting. We jumped and ran around and played so much air guitar. It was the best. And the Indians were the best.

As always, it ended too soon, so we continued the party at a small pub and made our own dance party out of it. It was a great ending to the night and we had a blast. The remainder of our time in Goa consisted of milder nights, with the exception of a night beach party at an outdoor club that was also a blast. But alas, the time came for our group to eventually separate, as we were all on different itineraries and different life adventures.

The majority of us separated, with myself and Michael (our German friend who had been traveling with Antoine before Goa) made our way further south to Gokarna. Gokarna is known as a quieter beach alternative to Goa and was recommended to me by some previous India travelers and friends. It’s also a religious destination (as seem to be most Indian towns) and is a big pilgrimage site. However, being that we were just in Goa during the low season for two weeks this place was comparatively quiet, actually even quieter. Almost a little too quiet for my taste. I only say this because after two weeks of sweating and swimming on the beaches in Goa I was personally just getting a little beached out and needed some change in landscape. So Mike and I split up after a night in Gokarna, and just like that I was back on my own. A couple days of staying in Gokarna led me on my next solo mission to the much-visited and apparently beautiful landscapes of Hampi.