It’s 3:30 a.m. when we arrive at Margao railway station on December 27. Margao seems a nice city, also by night, but not when you don’t find a hotel and the city is empty… it’s just us and a young taxi driver, which we’ve woken up at the train station to get us to the nearest hotel where we plan to spend few hours before we go to Palolem. Since we couldn’t find any hotel, the young man brings us for 900 Rs to Palolem. The road to Palolem is beautiful… we’re driving through the West Ghats Mountains and small palm forests, passing by beautifully decorated houses, which still keep the Christmas spirit alive.
It’s 5:00 a.m. when we reach Palolem, a cute little village with countless numbers of hotels, guest houses and coco huts. The riksha driver in charge that night meets us on the road and brings us to couple of places to choose from. He is very helpful and gets a room for us for the night. We hear the sound of the Sea waves and some dogs barking when we wake them up walking around the cottages and huts.
It’s 11:00 and even if we like the room we found in the early morning, we decide to look around a little. Our first stop is successful because we meet Franky, a Goan boy who loves his work at Zappia Cove Resort and whom we get the chance to know better the next days. We’re walking with him through the neighbors’ yard – some cute little black pigs running around – and reach to an iron gate. Passed that gate is our place: a large green garden welcomes us, as well as one of our future French neighbors who is having breakfast in the garden, above us tall coconut palms, our feet feel the coolness of the colorful tiles floor in Portuguese style, in front a cottage (where our room will be) and the bungalows behind – an image you can only have it right after you’ve been there. We don’t know it yet, but the beach is 2 min away, the main streets where we meet all nice people from Kashmir 1 min, but still we have our own paradise here, so we move in!
It’s 14:00 o’clock when, after check in, we have lunch on a terrace with Sea view on the beach of Palolem. We’re speechless: a two km long beach with white smooth sand, surrounded by coconut palm and nice cafés, the dark blue warm Arabian Sea… yes, we decide to spend the day on the beach, as well as the following day and the following day and probably all other days until January first when we continue our trip to the North.
We enjoy Palolem to the fullest for 5 days and we will miss every single piece of it. We will miss the warm sun and the smooth beach, the amazing sunrise and sunsets, the chilly cows and dogs on the beach, the friendly people of Palolem as well as the salesmen from Kashmir, who taught us the art of negotiating and whom we promised to visit in the North one day. We will miss also the persuasive saleswomen who want to “show us their shops” every time we pass by, especially the lady with the sweet 7 weeks old baby where we bought lots of beautiful stuff. The riksha drivers are funny too, they are standing at the beach and ask every time they see us whether we’d like a riksha now or “maybe tomorrow” (first, why should we want a riksha to go to the beach, if we are already in front of the beach and second, where should we know if we want a riksha tomorrow? Do we look that German?). We will miss the uncoordinated waiters in Cafe del Mar and Cuba (“Where … times takes a break” literally!!) where we enjoy the long and delicious breakfasts and very good masala chai and free wifi as well as the beach book store where you can exchange old books with new ones. We will also miss our Chinese waiter “friend” at the cocktail bar, with the really bad cocktails (but hey, it’s happy hour, so buy one, get one free), but a great terrace in front of the Sea. And of course will we miss the handsome waiter with the cute British accent in Cheeky Chapatti, where we had the best Piña Colada of Palolem and the amazing New Year’s Eve dinner (Seafood and the most delicious cakes of all times). And last but not least we will miss our cosy room at Zappia Cove Resort and chatty Franky, who makes sure that we’re fine and have a good time and is all day long there for a good chat. And of course we will remember the great dentist, Dr. D’Souza, who treated Carmen on December 31st – God bless him!
Palolem is THE place which made a difference to our trip!
Check also the photos updates on Flickr 