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I spent the past weekend in Goa, taking a much needed 2 day vacation to the northern part of the state. Since I traveled to Goa last time I was here, things were pretty familiar and as I just noticed in that blog post, I mentioned this was a must-see place when I returned. So, off I went along with two coworkers – Gregory and Angela, who were up for taking bikes around the area, seeing sites, shopping, and hanging out at the beach. We had a blast, despite the 100+ and humid weather. I will admit we pooped ourselves out from all the stuff we did, but work hard, play hard, right?

Arriving at Goa, we didn’t find any mandatory swine flu screening:

From Northern Goa

That night we ate at Brittos, a restaurant on Baga beach that served some good seafood dishes:

From Northern Goa

We went to a few shacks that night to grab a few drinks, checked out Mambo’s and eventually called it a night. The next day, we took some bikes down to Old Goa:

From Northern Goa

And went to Our Lady of the Mount, for a nice view:

From Northern Goa

Back at Calungunte Beach later that day, we went shopping and then hit the beach. Angela is an expert bargainer – I thought I was pretty good, but there’s a point where I get kind of lazy and figure it’s not worth haggling over a few extra rupees. Angela, on the other hand, was incredible – knocking down prices of some stuff we all bought (t-shirts, bags, etc) and always wanting to get the last price in. Saved some money thanks to her. At the beach, we lounged around, chatted, and read whatever reading materials we had brought along. Since we were one of the few non-Indian tourists to Goa at the time, a few people wanted to take pictures with us. These guys were hilarious – making me take about 5 pictures with all their cell phones:

From Northern Goa

We finished the night with a dinner at Souza Lobos, a well known seafood restaurant that was playing a lot of 70s and 80s music from a live band that was surprisingly good. The downside was an Indian guy singing some Eric Clapton ‘You Look Wonderful Tonight’ with a country twang. If you can imagine what that would song like, then yes, it doesn’t work.

The next day we headed north to Anjuna beach, where we spent almost the whole day. We checked out a few marketplace stalls,

From Northern Goa

took a nice long lunch break at a restaurant overlooking the ocean,

From Northern Goa

ate seafood biryani,

From Northern Goa

and then lounged at the beach:

From Northern Goa

This dog sat next to us for a little bit. Cute overload:

From Northern Goa

Not gonna lie – it was HOT. Like 115 degrees or something. And humid. But, totally worth it.