Party Scene & Enigmatic Hampi

Baga was much more what I expected from Goa. Every other shop was tourist souvenirs or a restaurant. Our hotel was a huge complex 5 minutes from the beach and the atmosphere on the street felt like a party town in Spain. Still not too many other Western tourists though!

As it’s monsoon season it’s pretty quiet apart from the ever present local tourists. We got a lot less attention here though so that was a relief.

The food here was brilliant too, so many options! One evening we finally found the highest recommended restaurant on trip advisor, Go with the Flow, and had possibly the best meal we’ve had in India. We were sent treats from the kitchen before our starter even arrived and the chef, a South African, came to check we were happy with everything.

Greg feeling fancy.

We were sat in what became our go to lunch stop when we spotted a Western couple walking outside. Both sitting up a little straighter, I basically pressed myself against the glass for a better look and Greg went to the door for a clear view. Despite this creepy-ass display we somehow ended up chatting with them and went for a beer!

Jess and Josh were from Leeds and had just gotten engaged at the Taj Mahal!

Congratulations again guys if you’re reading this!

I was particularly thrilled to chat to Jess because she was the first girl I had spoken to in about four months! Every time we go anywhere, it’s always with men, so some girl talk was welcome.

We spent our time in Baga wandering around, heading to nearby Anjuna for burgers, and having a few drinks on the strip.

My favourite poster. Ever.

It was nice, but to be honest we were still a little disappointed. Everyone talks about Goa as a magical place you go back to again and again, this was nice and a welcome relief, but we wouldn’t come back here. Next stop: Hampi!

Hampi is described as somewhere you HAVE to visit and lots of people we spoke to said it was one of their favourite places. So again, we hopped on another train and made our way there.

I had been really ill with something like the flu in Baga, and poor Greg started to show symptoms on the train to Hampi. We drove about an hour from the train station to a complex of huts in the middle of nowhere, and the landscape was pretty surreal. Green grass lands, covered in boulders of all shapes and sizes. It’s bizarre. Huge rocks perched at precarious angles on tiny pebbles.

Whilst discussing how something like this happens, I decided that there are tiny, very heavy sheep, that split rocks when they jump. Turning a flat rocky plain into the rolling hills of Hampi. This is not the truth, but it’s how I like to think it happened.

The food at the hotel was spectacularly bad. We tried curry and naan, awful, tried chips and pakora, terrible! We needed to get out. It was about an hour’s walk to the nearest restaurant and Greg felt naff, so we got a tuk tuk to the river edge and the only restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet: The Laughing Buddha.

The food was much better than the hotel and it had a view over the river to the monuments we’d go to see the next day, so we drank ginger lemon tea and were bitten to pieces by mosquitoes. Look at my foot! Look at it!

Sorry, still a bit outraged by the amount of bites I got in 30 minutes. There were also five on my thigh but I’ll spare you that picture.

Moving on! We crossed the river in a little tin boat to get the monuments on the other side and, in our wisdom, decided to rent bicycles. Now both of us had been pretty ill recently. I hadn’t eaten more than a few bites for a week and Greg’s spine was hurting from this flu. 5 Minutes into the cycle we had to stop so we didn’t throw up. Nice.

We made a valiant (stubborn) effort to see some of the beautiful sights (temples temple temples, so done with temples) and gave up after about an hour of slow cycling.

...Such a reserved culture...

We crossed back in a “coconut boat” so we didn’t have to wait for another 20 people to fill the tin boat and walked home.

My favourite part about the hotel, which was pretty naff, was the little dog. This little dog had a normal sized tail and body, huge ears, and tiiiiny little corgi legs. It loved us. When we came out of the hut it would throw itself across the garden and cannonball into our legs, when we left in the taxi it tried to climb in with us. Heart breaking to leave him behind, but he was very well looked after.

Tourist activities completed we were ready to head back to Goa, but thought we would try the very south this time. A little place called Palolim.