Sunday 9th Dec until the 19th December 2012 (let me know if there is anything missing guys!)
So Goa was really more of a holiday to recover from the travelling, rather than a travelling experience, it was really nice to just stay somewhere for a good amount of time (about a week and a half). We stayed in Anjuna which is quite touristy and backpacker-y, so we didn't do much other than relax, go to the beach, eat, go for some messy nights out, and on the days we were hungover and couldn't do the 20min walk to the beach, hung by the pool, literally!
Our trip from Kochi to Anjuna was a complete nightmare: we woke up hanging after our night out with the guys, and realised everything going to Margao (main transport hub in Goa) - trains, planes, buses - were all fully booked. Doh, it was freakin' December you numb nuts, we really should have booked ahead! So there was slight panic as we'd checked out of our homestay and really wanted to go that day, and we were frantically searching for any route possible to get to Goa. It turned out we could get a 10hr bus to Mangalore that night and then either get a train to Goa or another bus the next evening, which would mean spending a whole day in Mangalore, with our bags. It was a complete ball-ache but we decided to just go for it and then think about the next section of our ball-ache journey when we got there. IT WAS FREAKIN' HORRIBLE! The night bus was the worst bus ever, it literally gave you concussion where it was so bumpy, it looked like it was falling apart, and the seats didn't recline much so sleep was near impossible. Though I did manage to sleep more than Laura which really annoyed her (I'm not joking, she was actually ready to kill someone by the time we got to Mangalore!). What's more, the seat in front of Laura was broken so the fat guy sitting on it literally reclined into her lap the entire journey, there was no aircon, just open windows, did I mention it was 10hours?! Then the guy eventually moved to the seats behind us at the back of the bus and around 4-5am started playing some weird prayer music on his phone, even though he was sleeping!! This annoyed Laura even more haha. Looking back on it, it was hilarious, at the time it was horrendous. Then we got to Mangalore at 6am and managed to somehow fluke getting to the station 20mins in advance of the slow train to Goa - score! Though at the time, we didn't realise it was the slow train, we thought we'd be getting in at around 11am...until 2hrs after the guy told us it was our stop next...1pm rolled around! We then had to get an hours taxi ride to Anjuna, by which point we were ready to collapse!
We met Paul in Goa that day as he'd decided to quit his tour and instead come with us, and then about 5 days later Josie came up to meet us after the tour her and Paul were booked on finished, so we spent about 3-4 days with her. We celebrated Josie's birthday with her, the day of her birthday we just spent a quiet one by the pool and then surprised her with a blackforrest gateau cake - the bar we went to decorated it with fresh fruit and some free shots. The eve of her birthday was messy - you can probably guess as we spent the day by the pool on her actual birthday (our hungover place). We went to our regular nightclub Club Cubana in Arpora, about 20mins from Anjuna. It was an amazing club, girls got in for free on a Wednesday and it was ALL-YOU-CAN-DRINK all night - FOR FREE and other nights girls paid a reduced price and it was all you can drink too. It had an outdoor area which held 3 outdoor bars, about 4 different levels, a SWIMMING POOL (we took a drunken dip in there every night we went), a Pizza joint where you could get a massive amazing stone-oven pizza for a mere £3, a V.I.P area (where on Josie's birthday we ripped the hell out of their champagne and Jaagerbomb stores), and an indoor dance area that had a girls-only stage for dancing hah! I met some amazing people there too - one night we all got lost from each other and I met an awesome guy from France, Choukri, who I shared a memorable drunken swim with in the pool, he was annoyed he had to strip to his undies to swim whereas girls could keep their clothes on haha. We grouped up with some Australian girls and a guy from spain or maybe brazil, and we had swim races and stuff, it was so much fun - especially when you're drunk! Me and Laura had our flip flops stolen one night by the bar staff, puh. One night I polished off two and a half Pizza's on my OWN. We went one night with a local guy who we met at one of the beach bars in Anjuna and has some laughs with him and his mates. And one night we just went absolutely mental (that's the night on facebook where we're pulling all the stupid faces in pictures in the girls loos) and I don't remember much!
Almost every night we went to Club Cubana we always went to the hotel next door to us, which had also become a regular haunt of ours as we used their pool and ate from them when we were hungover, and got cooked some amazing post-drink food - most nights this was around 6am, so it was techincally breakfast! They normally made us fried eggs, toast and Mama noodles! AMAZING! And most days we didn't surface til around 12-1pm!
Anjuna itself was pretty quiet, we had heard it was good for beach parties, but that week, just our luck, the police had pretty much shut everything down after 11pm as there was some politician running for election and to get the old peoples votes he was trying to make Anjuna more appealing for the locals, never mind that it basically ran on tourism! So we didn't see many beach parties. When Josie came, me and her did one day in Old Goa and the capital city which was a nice break from the beach, I got my Sari which was good. We found an amazing beach cafe towards the end which we spent almost every meal in - Om Made Cafe - which offered amazing views, sunsets and amazing food! Also if you like your beef well roasted, just look on the beach for the collection of cows sunbathing with the tourists! Me and Josie checked out the famous Anjuna Wednesday Flea-Market, it was a mahoosive maze of stall after stall of goodies like dried tea leaves, bags, clothes, jewellery, shoes, hammocks (yes Josie bought one!), spices etc.
Then it was time to head to my last destination on another overnight bus - this one was slightly better - in Mumbai where I spent one day before my flight to Bangkok, Thailand.
So Goa was really more of a holiday to recover from the travelling, rather than a travelling experience, it was really nice to just stay somewhere for a good amount of time (about a week and a half). We stayed in Anjuna which is quite touristy and backpacker-y, so we didn't do much other than relax, go to the beach, eat, go for some messy nights out, and on the days we were hungover and couldn't do the 20min walk to the beach, hung by the pool, literally!
Our trip from Kochi to Anjuna was a complete nightmare: we woke up hanging after our night out with the guys, and realised everything going to Margao (main transport hub in Goa) - trains, planes, buses - were all fully booked. Doh, it was freakin' December you numb nuts, we really should have booked ahead! So there was slight panic as we'd checked out of our homestay and really wanted to go that day, and we were frantically searching for any route possible to get to Goa. It turned out we could get a 10hr bus to Mangalore that night and then either get a train to Goa or another bus the next evening, which would mean spending a whole day in Mangalore, with our bags. It was a complete ball-ache but we decided to just go for it and then think about the next section of our ball-ache journey when we got there. IT WAS FREAKIN' HORRIBLE! The night bus was the worst bus ever, it literally gave you concussion where it was so bumpy, it looked like it was falling apart, and the seats didn't recline much so sleep was near impossible. Though I did manage to sleep more than Laura which really annoyed her (I'm not joking, she was actually ready to kill someone by the time we got to Mangalore!). What's more, the seat in front of Laura was broken so the fat guy sitting on it literally reclined into her lap the entire journey, there was no aircon, just open windows, did I mention it was 10hours?! Then the guy eventually moved to the seats behind us at the back of the bus and around 4-5am started playing some weird prayer music on his phone, even though he was sleeping!! This annoyed Laura even more haha. Looking back on it, it was hilarious, at the time it was horrendous. Then we got to Mangalore at 6am and managed to somehow fluke getting to the station 20mins in advance of the slow train to Goa - score! Though at the time, we didn't realise it was the slow train, we thought we'd be getting in at around 11am...until 2hrs after the guy told us it was our stop next...1pm rolled around! We then had to get an hours taxi ride to Anjuna, by which point we were ready to collapse!
We met Paul in Goa that day as he'd decided to quit his tour and instead come with us, and then about 5 days later Josie came up to meet us after the tour her and Paul were booked on finished, so we spent about 3-4 days with her. We celebrated Josie's birthday with her, the day of her birthday we just spent a quiet one by the pool and then surprised her with a blackforrest gateau cake - the bar we went to decorated it with fresh fruit and some free shots. The eve of her birthday was messy - you can probably guess as we spent the day by the pool on her actual birthday (our hungover place). We went to our regular nightclub Club Cubana in Arpora, about 20mins from Anjuna. It was an amazing club, girls got in for free on a Wednesday and it was ALL-YOU-CAN-DRINK all night - FOR FREE and other nights girls paid a reduced price and it was all you can drink too. It had an outdoor area which held 3 outdoor bars, about 4 different levels, a SWIMMING POOL (we took a drunken dip in there every night we went), a Pizza joint where you could get a massive amazing stone-oven pizza for a mere £3, a V.I.P area (where on Josie's birthday we ripped the hell out of their champagne and Jaagerbomb stores), and an indoor dance area that had a girls-only stage for dancing hah! I met some amazing people there too - one night we all got lost from each other and I met an awesome guy from France, Choukri, who I shared a memorable drunken swim with in the pool, he was annoyed he had to strip to his undies to swim whereas girls could keep their clothes on haha. We grouped up with some Australian girls and a guy from spain or maybe brazil, and we had swim races and stuff, it was so much fun - especially when you're drunk! Me and Laura had our flip flops stolen one night by the bar staff, puh. One night I polished off two and a half Pizza's on my OWN. We went one night with a local guy who we met at one of the beach bars in Anjuna and has some laughs with him and his mates. And one night we just went absolutely mental (that's the night on facebook where we're pulling all the stupid faces in pictures in the girls loos) and I don't remember much!
Almost every night we went to Club Cubana we always went to the hotel next door to us, which had also become a regular haunt of ours as we used their pool and ate from them when we were hungover, and got cooked some amazing post-drink food - most nights this was around 6am, so it was techincally breakfast! They normally made us fried eggs, toast and Mama noodles! AMAZING! And most days we didn't surface til around 12-1pm!
Anjuna itself was pretty quiet, we had heard it was good for beach parties, but that week, just our luck, the police had pretty much shut everything down after 11pm as there was some politician running for election and to get the old peoples votes he was trying to make Anjuna more appealing for the locals, never mind that it basically ran on tourism! So we didn't see many beach parties. When Josie came, me and her did one day in Old Goa and the capital city which was a nice break from the beach, I got my Sari which was good. We found an amazing beach cafe towards the end which we spent almost every meal in - Om Made Cafe - which offered amazing views, sunsets and amazing food! Also if you like your beef well roasted, just look on the beach for the collection of cows sunbathing with the tourists! Me and Josie checked out the famous Anjuna Wednesday Flea-Market, it was a mahoosive maze of stall after stall of goodies like dried tea leaves, bags, clothes, jewellery, shoes, hammocks (yes Josie bought one!), spices etc.
Then it was time to head to my last destination on another overnight bus - this one was slightly better - in Mumbai where I spent one day before my flight to Bangkok, Thailand.
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