Friday, January 30, 2015

Exploring the under-explored in Goa

It all began with a meticulously made itinerary I found in my inbox from my pal J. It ordered me to get down from my Mumbai-Goa bus at Mapusa city and getting into a local bus that would take me to a place Sanquelim. After wandering cluelessly at the bus stop for 15 minutes I figured that Sanquelim was known as Sankhli by locals and hopped on to a bus which would take me there. Having spent time traveling in Mumbai's BEST buses it was similar except the method of signaling the conductor used to notify the driver about stopping/starting the bus, Mumbai BEST conductors use a well tried and tested method of ringing a bell by pulling a thread running the length of the bus however here I found the conductor whistling every-time a passenger wanted to get on/off the bus. On reaching Sankhli a "Pilot"(2 wheeler taxi) took me a mile up the hill to the campus of GIM. J escorted me to his room where he ditched me to rest while he wrapped up with his lectures. At 1700 hrs we left on a rented scooter to explore the commercialization of North Goa. We visited a few places that are mecca of every Goa-goer and retired for the day. J then did the job of a typical salesman and convinced me that a beach called Butterfly beach was The beach of Goa.

We set out early in our endeavor to reach and spend some time at Palolem beach before we could set on our pursuit to reach Butterfly beach. After traveling over 80 kms faster than what Google maps forecasted, we reached the beautiful Palolem beach. I found it much better than my expectations of a Goan beach as the number of tourist were on the lesser side and a majority of those were foreigners who stay there for over a month. J had tried reaching Butterfly beach thrice before but wasn't able to succeed, we immediately started inquiring with local boat owners if they could drop us at our dream destination to which most said no but there was one gentleman who kept us waiting for an answer and said "I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who has been there" ok no more kidding!
So we got onto a boat who promised to show us Dolphins and Butterfly beach, the two of us were least interested in watching the dolphins on the port side of the boat, our eyes were fixed upon the beautiful nirvana location that google maps called Butterfly beach on the starboard side of the boat.


The boat guy told us there was no way to reach the beach but we were too determined to be demotivated. Getting back at Palolem we jumped into the water and were in it for close to 3 hours. We had our lunch and were off to explore a way to reach to Butterfly beach. 
On reaching the heavenly beach J & I had an agreement of not disclosing the route to reach the beach to anyone as we believe anyone who reaches here should deserve to!
So after our secret little journey where we took a couple of leaps of faith and at times thought of calling Saul as well!!


we were there!
Yo Bitch!! Nirvana!!


We spent a couple of hours feeling the beauty of the place and felt like dropping an F-bomb on every boat that crossed the area, just for revenge!
We had to then leave considering the sun was going to set shortly, on our way back to Sangli we visited Agonda beach and witnessed sunset from there with some snacks. 
Reached the GIM campus again by 2300hrs after a 200km return journey, was more fun than anyone could have imagined for a vegan, non-drinker in Goa!
The second leg of the journey gets more exciting and lesser on the planned side. 
Stay tuned and do comment.
Adios