Goan at it in Goa – part I
Check out at hostel in Delhi. Go to Delhi Airport. Fly to Goa. Share a cab to Vagator Beach with some fellow backpackers. Get lost on our way to the hostel. Find hostel, which is full of young people, just staring at your red sweaty face. Drop new expensive camera and therefore break it. Look for new chargers for computer online, and fail. Get mad. Have a fight. Go to bed. Discover a gecko in the room. Name him Fredo. That pretty much sums up our day. Needless to say, it has sucked.
Dat cute charge tho
This should be a sign that you’re heading in the wrong direction, and into a poor neighbourhood. We were sooo sure this was the way to the hostel.
I obviously cannot get over this whole cow thing
We wake up the next day with an entirely different attutide, though – it must have been because we’ve had an amazing nights sleep. Our hostel, The Jungle Hostel, is very tiny and modest, but it’s full of young people, who sit barefoot on pillows in the common area with a beer in hand all day and night long. It’s just so cozy.
The main hang-out area, with pillows and sitting hammocks
Sitting hammock and 50 rupee Kingfisher beer? This is the life
Breakfast is included, so we start off the day by going into the kitchen and grab some toast with jam and butter, and some mini bananas. The mission for today is to look for a charger for the computer in Mapusa (pronounced Mapsa). We get a taxi to the city center, which is also by the entrance of a big street market. While checking out the market, a young local woman follows us around. She seems very nice, and pretends to think Sara has Indian roots. What it all comes down to is that she wants us to check out her shop. I end up buying some toe rings and a scarf, which is way too expensive. We continue our mission to find the charger by visiting dodgy shop after office that sells electronics after dodgy shop, with no luck. Someone suggests we go to Panaji, so we get on a Tuk Tuk. After almost finding the right charger, we decide to go to lunch at a very local place, as in no one here understands english. We have to just point at random dishes and hope for the best. We end up being fairly satisfied with our choices, except we really need to get used to how spicy the food is everywhere.
There is some garlic naan, fried rice with vegetables and some sort of spinach puree with paneer up in here.
We finally conclude that our mission is impossible, and give up on the whole charger treasure hunt. Back at the hostel in Vagator, we start talking to a few German girls, and even go shopping at the little stalls on the streets with one of them, Gül. I need to get me some India pants! Gül is an amazing negotiator, and thanks to her, we save a lot of rupees on our purchases. We walk back to the hostel together, and I suggest to her and her friend that we get some seafood and then have a bonfire on the beach (see my bucket list). All 6 of us have dinner and drinks at Tin Tin (yes, that cartoon guy), which is a really nice restaurant.
Gül, Saskia, Selina and Angi
After dinner, we all head for the beach along with our roomate, Jonas, and 12 beers, rosé wine and marshmallows! We pick up some wood and branches on our way, to the amusement of some locals. An old Indian lady starts grabbing branches and hands them to us and I could just die. She’s so cute.
We find a spot on the beach that is as far away from the restaurants as possible. Saskia and Jonas are skilled fire-makers, so we leave it to them to start this thing. A group of people join us, and we all sit and enjoy the big, warm fire with our beers, rosé wine and roasted marshmallows. Even though we have a lot of wood, we constantly have to split up in groups to go look for more in the grassier areas, bringing our flashlights. As the fire is dying, the wood group comes back and lets us know that a lifeguard saw the fire from his tower (what is he doing there in the middle of the night?), and apparently what we’re doing isn’t exactly legal. So we let the flames die, and we head back to the hostel.
