Goa – need we say more?... Maybe...

Goa's Palolem beach at night

Goa, the holy mecca of Goa Psychedelic Trance music. The origin of it all. A small little state that was hill locked and inaccessible by land for the longest time was a Portuguese colony. Evidence of colonial rule is very evident through every corner and bend as we scootered around.

We stumble in at 4:30 in the morning. We love stumbling in when everything is closed because we like to get screwed in places to sleep. We stumble out of a sleeper bus. Max, our wonderful German friend that we’ve been leap frogging back and forth with already had our accommodation all sorted out for us. We trudge along a beach and shortly arrive in these simple wooden huts. We crash for the night and then wake up to see the beach front.

Ian spinning poi

The beaches are exactly as you romanticized in your dreams. White sand, blue ocean and thumping beats in the beach side restaurants. This was in Patnum. We were very very South Goa, where it was very quiet and no parties happen. If you’re searching for the parties, it’s advised to hit (world re-known) Anjuna beach and Vargator. Patnum is where you go when you have had too much partying for your life. You will find a lot of Europeans discussing “And that DJ should’ve played at "Hilltop” instead of Bar 9 the other night…” as they were apparently all connoisseurs  of North Goa party scene…

We wander over to the next beach about 2km away called Palolem with a beach that was completely littered with ocean view restaurants and just pumping beats away – including our favourite Gangnam Style. We spotted a place we’d like to move over to in Palolem with a livelier vibe. Let’s be honest, in Patnum if there’s any more excitement, a watching-paint-dry contest would break out.

Sunsets on beach

Palolem in contrast provided a bit more any music if you take your headphones off.
entertainment. 2 silent discos came by during our time there. By law, all open air parties must be shut down by 10pm. And as such, silent discos aren’t actually loud (by nature) and so was allow to carry on until 4am. Pretty early considering its reputation... If this is your first time hearing of a silent disco, picture this: A bunch of people in a venue. These said people are all wearing headphones. Listening to the same channels to the DJ’s spinning live. So really, there isn’t

The second silent disco a few days later, was in a more discreet location nestled in the midst of bars settled in a small bay between Patnum and Palolem beach just cresting over a flight of rocky stairs (that gets incredibly dangerous after dark) and just a shot over a wooden bridge (which gets just as dangerous). Perfect location. Headphone prices are 600 rupees, or 12 USD. Drinks extra.

Markets in Palolem

We enjoyed our small town party vibe in our new lodgings just set slightly behind the main beach in a place called “Brown Bread Coco Huts”. 8 rooms made a semi circle all facing into a common courtyard covered in hammocks under pineapple trees.

Just beyond our new lodging was Rahul’s Cooking class, which everyone was pretty excited to take part in. Learning how to cook Indian food. Yes, we will cook you our newly learnt Indian dishes when we see you guys next time. The funnest part of the whole cooking class, besides eating, is learning how to make cheese.

We’ll share you the secret when we meet you. Tee hee.

In the end, massive partying didn’t happen, nor did scuba diving. But it seemed like a much needed rest as many people were starting to fall ill. Keeping it low key in Goa wasn’t something we expected to do but ended up being quite necessary.

We stayed long enough. 4 nights in Palolem and 2 nights in Patnum. We’ve done all we could and gotten sick and better. We also had to start heading North to search colours that flew specially for this one time occasion every year – Holi.