We woke up at seven today, as Jozef had set an alarm. We packed our things, had some coffee, ate some watermelon, and set off north. First, we needed to refuel, so we had to get on the highway. We barely made it with the fuel we had left. We continued on the highway for a bit, but it was pretty wild, so we switched to a side road. We ate at a vegetarian restaurant we had been to before, took a selfie with an Indian man, and kept going. The ride with backpacks was quite uncomfortable. I wanted to check out the cashew festival, so I navigated Jozef to where it was supposed to take place. When we got there, it was empty and very tacky.

We walked around a bit, but we saw on a banner that it didn’t start until 6 PM. So, we took a few photos and headed to our accommodation. It was already getting extremely hot. We didn’t want to return to the highway, so we crossed the river by ferry. After that, it was a crazy ride through tourist towns. At least we got to have some sugarcane juice.

We arrived in Vagator at 1 PM. When I checked the weather, it was 35°C, but the feels-like temperature was 53°C. On top of that, we had trouble finding our accommodation. We asked an Indian man for directions, and he said it was on the other side and that we had to go around. We did that and still couldn’t find it, so I called the owner, who said he’d come to the main road. It turned out the place was right where we had been the first time; we just needed to turn down a small access road. We should have realized that the man didn’t know what he was talking about—it’s just in their nature to always “know” everything. Once we got to our air-conditioned room, everything felt fine. At 3 PM, we went out to eat. I wanted fish, but they only had shrimp and calamari, so I ordered vegetarian thali, and Jozef got shrimp thali. I didn’t really like mine and wasn’t very hungry, but I ate most of it. Jozef’s shrimp were breaded, but they hadn’t been cleaned, so he had to remove all the breading when peeling off the shells. Afterward, we went back to the room. I found the 7th Harry Potter book, and Jozef fell asleep.

At 5:30 PM, we went to watch the sunset and planned to swim as well. We arrived at the first beach, and there were a million people and loud music.

We didn’t even make it to the second beach—just heard the music and turned back. We reached the third beach and gave up. Same situation. We didn’t expect to see something so bizarre. Bars lined up one after another on the beach, each blasting different techno music, with an unbelievable number of people. In the distance, we saw a huge crowd and went to check it out, only to find nothing. They were just clustered together because they didn’t want to walk 30 meters farther, where there were fewer people. Our theory is that a bus dropped them off there, and they were drunk, so they stayed. We didn’t go into the water either because the waves were too big. So, that was our evening experience.

After that, we went to withdraw some money, and I wanted to buy a dress or top. We went through three shops, and in the last one, the lady convinced me to buy a blouse. She asked for 700 INR, and I bargained it down to 450 INR. Jozef said I could have gotten it for less, but he didn’t help me at all. The lady also spoke Russian, so she understood us a bit. We didn’t go for dinner, but we wanted a mango ice cream, which took us a while to find, and then we bought some beer for our last night. Tomorrow evening, we fly to Bengaluru and then to Sharjah in the morning.

Príspevok Goa – day 18 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.

Today, we had planned to go to Panaji (the capital of Goa) for the cashew festival. I checked the internet in the morning and found out that it actually starts at 6 PM, and coming back after dark wouldn’t be ideal. So, we made some coffee, went for breakfast, and then headed to Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary.

After turning off the main road, we drove on a nice paved road through the trees. At the entrance, we paid the fee for ourselves and the motorcycle and continued on a dirt road. Right at the beginning, we saw some pretty big monkeys, but we didn’t manage to take a picture. We rode about a kilometer and then parked. Someone was behind us honking loudly, and we thought, “What kind of maniac is that?” But it turned out he was honking at us because I had left my wallet on the table while signing the visitor book, and the man brought it back to us. We then headed to the Tree Top, which is essentially a treehouse used to observe animals that come to drink from the pond beneath it.

It was 10 AM, so we weren’t likely to see much. We climbed up, carefully moved around the rotten planks, and then came back down. There were frogs in the pond, so I spent another 10 minutes by it. After that, we continued on our way and went to another similar observation point with a pond. Again, I was only interested in the frogs. The drive through the park was the main goal. After leaving the park and getting onto a better road, I tried driving the scooter for a short stretch. It’s harder than it looks.

Maybe I’ll try again in another country where the traffic is better and where the scooter doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart. Afterward, we wanted to check out a cashew farm, but all we found was a shop. We were surprised that something like that operates there and that anyone actually goes there. An old man was selling there, so we bought some really good cashews. By then, it was 1 PM, and the sun was blazing. The perceived temperature was 46°C, so we headed back to our accommodation.

We watched something, and I took a nap. At 3 PM, we went to eat and then returned to the room because it was still too hot. At 5 PM, we went to the beach for the long-promised kayak ride. I had never been on one before, so I put on a life jacket just to be safe. Jozef, like a experienced sailor, took charge, and I sat in the front seat of the tandem kayak. At first, I struggled, but by the end, we were quite in sync. We paddled around the small Canacona Island. The waves were pretty big out on the open sea, so we had to be careful not to get too close to the rocks, but otherwise, it was a lot of fun.

We kayaked for an hour, just in time for the sunset, and then went for a quick swim when the weather finally felt pleasant. Since we had a late lunch, we didn’t go for dinner until 8 PM and just shared one meal: butter chicken with rice and garlic naan.

For drinks, we tried the local cashew-based liquor, feni. It tasted quite good, somewhat similar to our homemade spirits.

Príspevok Goa – day 17 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.

We got up at 6:20 AM! I really didn’t want to, but somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed, which, by the way, is about 80 centimeters high, so I have to jump down. I put on a freshly washed, still wet t-shirt, and we headed out. Jozef went for a run, and I just walked around and took some pictures. It was still pleasant outside.

After 2.8 kilometers, Jozef stopped running because he was barefoot, and he got blisters on two of his toes. So, we took a walk to a cove where we came across a colony of fiddler crabs.

From there, we tried to find a way back to our accommodation through the houses. Then we slept for another hour and a half because I was tired, and everything was closed anyway. At 9:30 AM, we went for breakfast. We just had omelets. After we finished eating, Jozef realized he was actually still in his pyjamas (his shorts for daily wear, running, swimming, and sleeping all look quite similar, so it’s easy to mix them up). Then we made coffee, Jozef popped his blister from the morning, and we headed to the cooking class. Today, it was just the two of us and Rahul.

Today’s menu consisted of: 1. Palak Paneer (spinach with cottage cheese), 2. Masala Mushroom, 3. Rawa Fry Prawns, 4. Paratha/Parotta (a type of flatbread), 5. Coconut Chutney. We cooked everything under Rahul’s guidance, as he instructed us on how to chop, what to add, and how much, while explaining what other dishes could be made using similar bases. I handled the parotta, and Jozef did everything else. We cooked for about an hour and a half and then ate the meal.

It was really good, but it was so hot, and I wasn’t very hungry, so I had to force myself to eat, and Jozef helped me finish. We finished around 2 PM, which was the hottest part of the day, so we went to our room to rest. At 5 PM, we went out again. It was cloudy, so it wasn’t that hot. We went to check out some beaches, withdraw money in town, and then we went swimming at our beach.

It’s Friday, so there are more people here than on other days. We shower, then watch “Ťažký týždeň” Jozef goes to dinner, and I stay at room because I’m still full from lunch, and we have half a watermelon in the fridge that we plan to finish tonight. We also said it might be nice to spend some time apart, but after five minutes, Jozef texts me, telling me it’s busy and what he’s going to order, and then he says I should come help him because there’s a lot of food. He managed to finish the meal on his own.

Príspevok Goa – day 16 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.

We had an alarm set, but we didn’t get up anyway. Jozef doesn’t even know there was an alarm. The plan was to go for a run or at least to the beach, but I have some stomach issues, and Jozef has two bumps on his hand from yesterday’s fall. We decide to at least go eat at a nearby place. Jozef orders an omelet with onions, and I have a pancake with Nutella and banana, thinking that some non-Indian food might make me feel better. I can’t really tell if it helped, as I took a black carbon afterward. At 11 AM, we had booked a cooking class, but we arrived at 11:02 AM, and the chef, Rahul, was already explaining. So we linger at the entrance until he notices us. He comes out and asks who we are and what we’re doing there. We explain that we booked the class. He’s flustered, and after showing him the conversation on our phone, he realizes he forgot about us. With a quiet “shit,” he begins apologizing and offers us to come back in the evening, but we reschedule it for tomorrow at lunch.

Now, we don’t have a plan, and it’s over 35°C outside. We decide to rest in our air-conditioned room. It’s perfect today, given our diseases. We watch a series and eat watermelon. After three, we head out. We go to check out the northern beach, which is 28 km long (each section has a different name, but it’s a continuous, very long stretch of sand). At first, we drive along the main road, which is quite dangerous. People are overtaking on blind curves like crazy, and they’re laying down new asphalt at the same time.

There’s a guy driving ahead of us. Policemen are standing by the road, and the guy has a helmet on. After 300 meters, he takes off his helmet and starts fixing his hair in the mirror. This is totally normal here. People know where the police are stationed, so they wear their helmets for those few hundred meters and then take them off. Once we turn onto a side road, it’s much calmer.

Too calm, actually. We wanted to eat, but it’s hard to find a restaurant. We eventually find a vegetarian one. We don’t quite understand what they have, so Jozef goes to the kitchen and asks for small portions of everything. It turns out to be the best vegetarian meal we’ve had so far. Afterward, we head to the beach and are amazed to see that 90% of the businesses are already closed (the season is ending). Our area is still lively, but here it’s completely deserted. We reach the beach, where the sand is as fine as flour and crunches underfoot like snow. We’ve never experienced anything like it.

We walk a bit further to a quieter spot (not that there are many people here), but after about 800 meters, a soldier turns us back, saying we can’t go any further because there’s shooting practice. Also, part of the beach is off-limits for swimming due to strong currents. So, we just dip our feet in the water and head back. We take a side road along the coast, and the journey is much nicer. The surroundings are beautiful, there are few cars, and lots of cows.

In the evening, we head to our beach with a beer. It’s quite lively there. We drink our beer and take a quick swim. Since we’re in a bay, the waves are smaller, and we can go quite far out from the shore, where I can still touch the bottom. Afterward, we shower and head to the nearest restaurant for dinner because we discovered it has really good reviews and isn’t too touristy. Jozef orders fish thali for the third day in a row, and I have fried noodles with chicken and vegetables. We also order the local rum, Old Monk, and the waiter is surprised that I ordered it too.

In the evening, when it finally cools down outside, it becomes unbearable indoors, and you start sweating profusely. And if you’re drinking as well, you’ll be done quickly. So, we finished eating and decided to drink the rest of drink outside.

Príspevok Goa – day 15 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.

We wake up again at 9 AM. Tomorrow we need to set an alarm. It’s already quite warm outside, so we quickly head out to eat at a random restaurant by the road. We have something spicy with a bun and then we grab an ice cream. Since it’s already late and hot, we decided to go check out Netrani Sanctuary Wildlife. The road there is pleasant, although sometimes we feel like we’re in the oven. The closer we get to the park, the more cashew trees we see. We’ve never seen such trees before, so we’re fascinated by them. Such a large fruit grows just for a tiny cashew nut.

We arrive at the gate of the national park. We pay the entrance fee for two people, a camera, and the motorbike. We go to see the Netrani waterfall. We take a swim there because it’s really unbearably hot, and the fish in the water nibble at our feet.

Afterward, we continue higher into the hills, about 600 meters above sea level. There are still some settlements and rice fields there. On the way back, we meet lots of monkeys.

When we leave the park at two, the thermometer shows 38°C. We only took one bottle of water, so we buy some cold Mirinda and more water. The ride back feels like a sauna. We finally get back to the accommodation and turn on the air conditioning to cool down a bit. Then we go for a short dip in the sea, but the water is quite warm too, so it’s not very refreshing. Jozef goes to work, and I fall asleep. In the early evening, around 5:30 PM, we head to a beach about 15 minutes away on the motorbike.

We swim for only half an hour because Jozef slipped in the bathroom in the afternoon. He scraped his hand and finds it hard to swim, and we’re also quite hungry since we only had pineapple for lunch. On the way back from the beach, we go straight for dinner. I have hot garlic chicken, and Jozef has the king fish thali (the same as yesterday). The midday sun really drained us, so we’re very tired and head to bed early.

Príspevok Goa – day 14 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.

Today is a lazy day. We sleep in until 9 AM. We have coffee and tea. I upload some photos to Instagram, and then we head out for an early lunch. We pick a random restaurant in town.

We don’t quite understand what the waiter is offering, so it’s a surprise. It turns out to be an omelette with chicken curry, mushroom curry, and some kind of vegetable masala. Then we had some sweet flatbreads, finally something sweet, though some jam would have been nice with it. We continue to the viewpoint above Tajbag Beach. It’s a bit overgrown, so we end up by the sea on the rocks. It’s exactly noon, and it fells like in a sauna. It’s unbearable here. We stop by Talpona Beach, which is completely empty. We assume it’s because of the intense sun.

We just take some photos of the empty beach and decide to head back to our accommodation, planning to go out later. On the way, we buy a watermelon, a pineapple, and a coconut.

There’s chilled beer waiting for us in the fridge, so we watch an episode of Seinfeld while enjoying it. We also book our return flights and extend our stay by one more day. At 5 PM, we head to Agonda Beach for a swim. We swim for over an hour. There are waves, but I’m less scared now, and it’s actually fun. The sea is very warm, and there are far fewer people compared to Kerala.

For about 45 minutes, a Chinese couple is taking photos and filming with a horse on the beach – it’s really funny. After the sunset, we pack up, head back for a shower, and go out for dinner. This time we walk to a restaurant we found online. It’s completely empty and looks very clean and touristy. We order a Goan dish, Fish Thali.

For drinks, I have something like port wine, and Jozef has a Budweiser. You can tell we’re in a touristy restaurant – the food is much less spicy. On the way back from the restaurant, we take a walk along the beach. There’s a market with everything near our accommodation, so we buy some juice. We take our shoes off before entering. In mini-markets like these, you can usually keep your shoes on, but in town, we noticed that you have to go barefoot into furniture stores or jewelry shops. It seems to depend on the place.

Príspevok Goa – day 13 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.

Monday, 10th April 2023

We wake up at 4:30 in the morning. By 5:00 AM, we’re already walking to Mysore’s main station. We barely make it to the 5:30 AM train. Luckily, we managed to book sleeper class tickets yesterday. We get middle berths and both fall asleep right away.

It’s quite comfortable way to travel, but it’s a shame these tickets are almost always sold out. We get off in Bangalore. At the station, a ticket inspector stops us and unpleasantly demands our tickets before finally letting us go. We ask if there’s a train to the airport. We’re in luck, there’s one at 10:00 AM, and it fits perfectly with our schedule so we’ll be at the airport two hours before our flight. We go to grab some food. The traffic here is insane, and the noise is overwhelming. Before 10:00 AM, we’re sitting at the station, watching as the minutes tick by.

The train finally departs at 10:25 AM. There are hardly any people on board. The trip takes 45 minutes, but we still have to travel another 4 km to the terminal. The train stops at the station, but since we’re in the last carriage, we end up getting off outside the platform.

We hurry to the shuttle bus. There are only four of us in the entire bus, and two of the passengers are people going to work and get off along the way. We have this huge bus to ourselves. We need to go to Terminal 2, but the driver turns toward Terminal 1. We were about to get off and walk, but he tells us to stay on. It’s pretty jammed up there, and Jozef starts getting nervous about the time shortage. We stop at the terminal, and the driver tells us to switch to another bus. We board, and then that bus starts turning around. We don’t understand why it didn’t turn earlier to head out immediately. Then it drives another 800 meters before we finally get off. It’s totally bizarre how much effort they put into something that doesn’t work and doesn’t make any sense. The airport is nice, still under some construction, and there are plants everywhere.

Since it’s a domestic flight, all we need to do is get through security. I have a pair of scissors in my backpack. I hoped they’d pass, but they were confiscated. They also threw out a lighter that had traveled with me from Slovakia on two flights. I had completely forgotten it was there and kept insisting to the security officer that I didn’t have one. After a short wait, we boarded the plane. We bought tickets last night. The flight to Goa takes 1 hour and 20 minutes. I fall asleep, but the flight attendant wakes me up to serve food. We didn’t expect that, but we ate everything, unlike the Indians around us. We land at Dabolim Airport. As we exit, we’re swarmed by taxi drivers, but we’re determined to take the bus. We find the stop and get on the bus. We sit there for 10 minutes, and nothing happens. Then a group of people arrives, and we’re finally on our way. It moves so slowly that Jozef could outrun it. We assume it’s because the bus would fall apart if it went any faster.

We finally reach the city and start looking for a scooter rental. We rent a scooter at the third place, which offered the best price. They couldn’t believe we actually wanted two helmets since only the driver is required to wear one. You can see it around the city – the driver wears a helmet, but then he’s carrying a woman and two kids, none of whom are wearing helmets. They eventually found me a second helmet. We set off for our accommodation, 70 km away, near Palolem Beach. It takes us about 1.5 hours. The last 30 minutes are tough, and my butt starts to hurt, but we manage. We have trouble finding the accommodation because it’s hidden among local houses. After asking about three local women, we finally find it. We’re greeted by Lupti, who manages the place and lives across the street. She’s shorter than me. The accommodation is great. We have air conditioning, a fridge, a kettle, and there are langur monkeys living in the tree next to us. There are also some small, cute ones.

We drop off our stuff and head to the beach for a swim before sunset. On the way, we buy beer (there’s no prohibition in this state) and ice cream. There are few cows on the beach, but the water is perfect, and the waves aren’t too big. Jozef threw me into the sea as part of today’s Slovak Easter tradition. I didn’t expect it, and it really cleared out my sinuses. After sunset, we head back to the accommodation, shower, and have some tea. Then we go to town to look for a place for dinner, but there isn’t much around. Almost everything is in the touristy part near the beach. We opt for the usual chana masala and chicken curry.

For the rest of our trip, we’ll stay in the state of Goa, and we’ll use the scooter to explore the surrounding area.

Príspevok Karnataka / Goa – day 12 je zobrazený ako prvý na Stupky.