Goa Part 2 The Beaches

Imagine one long stretch of beach punctuated by coves and rocky outposts and fishing villages. This is Goa.

We stayed in Anjuna which is quite north and we explored the beaches of Vagator and Aswem,Morjim and Chapora.

Anjuna and Vagator beaches were within walking distance from our hotel and they were pleasant with some lovely beach huts, plenty of places for refreshments and great meeting places. It is so easy to pick up a conversation with the person lounging next to you about what brought them to this place and where they hailed from.

Aswem was so IN- it has the beautiful La Plage restaurant at its entrance run by the lovely Francine and her husband serving Pomfret with almonds and tuna with wasabi mash, beef fillet and gratin dauphinoise. For us this was like manna from heaven. The beach there is sandy and long and full of lovely beach shacks and loungers. We enjoyed spending lazy days there reading, playing football and beach volleyball and then eating well and wowing another spectacular sunset.

Candolim, Calangute and Baga are further south and are more the charter belt territory. I have to confess we stayed away from them though the boys frequented the clubs there at night and of course the buzziest festival SUNBURN was held on Candolim beach in the last days of 2009 hosted by apparently the worlds best DJ . The stretch of road there is full of souvenir shops and restaurants catering to the tourists on a 24 hr basis. No pavements, as such and the road is always incredibly busy so walking there was not particularly pleasant though enough people did it.

When we drove further south we visited Fort Aguada where a big Taj Fort Aguada complex exists (reputed to be very pricey) and where the beach seemed limited. More rocky than sandy. However there were a lot of water sports on offer here. The Fort sits on top of a rocky headland and was built in the 16th Century to offer fresh water supplies to the passing ships. There is not a lot to see in the fort but the stunning views on both sides of the headland.

Driving further south, along reasonably good roads, we came across Varca beach. This is somewhere I wanted to visit and I was not disappointed. We got to the beach and on both sides stretched miles and miles of beautiful and empty beach. A big contrast to the more crowded and densely packed North. We has some long walks and watched the purple reef heron , the kentish plovers and the ringed plovers all happily in greater numbers than the tourists.We marveled the beautiful conch shells washed on to the beach, the little girl who did tight rope walking in front of us and the sheer beauty of the sand patterns as the tide pulls away.

There were few tourists and this part of Goa had a completely different feel to it. We loved it. Unfortunately we did not get to Palolem which is reputed to a paradise beach but we thought it would be nice to leave something for next time.