What we did: shopped, booked hotel in Goa, beach, Tito’s night club
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent: 7450R/$149
It was another expensive day. We got down to breakfast around 10am and decided to do some trip planning. We caught the shuttle to Baga beach at 2pm and we were told where they’d pick us up later.
Patty bought a beach dress and gave in and finally bought Ali Baba pants from a shop with a nice shopkeeper along the way. We paid $9 for both and were happy with this.
We then booked a night at a hotel called Cavala Seaside Resort for the extra night we needed in Goa since we couldn't get a good flight out to Kochi until a day later than we had planned. Cavala is where we wished we had booked in the first place! This has taught to us to not overthink things and go with our gut more. From the get go in India we had wanted to stay at Cavala when we made our way to Goa. For whatever reason, we booked Sun Village instead. I guess we thought the more we paid the more value we’d get. We were wrong this time. But at least for the final night in Baga we could spend it at Cavala.
We took a long walk on the beach once we arrived and then ended up at a restaurant on the beach, ordered a beer and chatted for an hour or so, wishing we had instead went back to the restaurant we had been at the day before. We planned on catching the 4:30pm shuttle back to the hotel, but it didn't show up after waiting for it for about half an hour. Granted there was quite a traffic jam in the village but we thought that surely eventually the shuttle would show. We walked back to hotel somewhat angry because we had been told it was coming to pick us up.
Later, when Patty was down in the lobby asking for Internet, she overhead a couple yelling at reception because a shuttle had not picked them up at 6pm, like they had been told it would. They even called the hotel to ask them to pick them up, but the hotel said no; it was wonderful to have people in the same boat as us: hating the hotel.
We decided we would go for dinner then check out Goan nightlife. We went to a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet called Infantaria located south of Baga in Calangute, a 200 rupee taxi-ride away. We arrived there no problem and decided to go up to their second floor where they had some live music. It was just one Indian guy singing and playing a guitar and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of that kind in India so far. His song selection was unbelievable. He had us singing along to most of them. At the end of our time there, we even got a picture with him.
The food was so-so, drinks were very reasonably priced, and the singing was quite good. We followed our friend Darren’s advice and had shots of rum before dinner in an effort to kill any possible bacteria present in our food. The manager of the restaurant shook his head when he saw our shots before dinner. We had a laugh and then enjoyed our shot together. We were excited to have some fun and go dancing.
After dinner, we started walking in the direction of Baga, where a nightclub we wanted to check out is located. Walking turned out to be not such a good idea since there was tons of traffic and again we were walking in the dark so we caught a cab there for 80 rupees. I have gotten good at setting taxi prices with the drivers in Goa. I gave him the price first and then he had the option of agreeing or not. It’s handy to know what’s reasonable in an area. Our first 2 days in Goa we were constantly being quote 250 rupees for literally a 5 minute drive into town from our hotel. We later learned we should never pay more than 150 rupees for this ride.
The taxi ended up dropping us a little ways from the bar (so I paid him 80 rupees instead of the 100 rupees we had originally agreed to) and walked down the street. The book store we had been looking for yesterday was now open. We spent about 20 minutes looking through books; finally Patty picked one out (I was somewhat considering picking the Lord of the Rings) by Deepak Chopra called Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul. We carried this around for the rest of the night, which was better than it sounds.
There were two night clubs we were considering, Tito’s and Mambo’s. We walked to both and eventually decided on Tito’s. It was 1500 rupee cover for both of us. The price included free drinks, so we thought why not? It was busy and it was something we just wanted to experience once in India.
It turned out to be pretty fun. The place wasn't packed but there were enough people on the dance floor most of the night. The DJ played very Western music much of the time, but most of it was good and we danced the night away until two very creepy guys sort of ruined it for us. They kept hugging us and one guy was grabbing Patty’s face for some reason, almost squishing it. What a weirdo. Then he actually touched her butt so we got the hell out of there at this point. It is unfortunate that we had had such a great time up until this point and then we got taken advantage of for just trying to be friendly.
We are in the process of engineering a saying about India and it goes something like this: “What India giveth, it shall taketh back many times over”. It’s a work in progress, if anyone has some good ideas, feel free to share.
We caught a taxi back to our hotel for 150 rupees and went straight to bed, thinking of how creepy those two guys were. I think Patty was pretty disturbed by it and I can’t blame her.
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