While in GOA, some of the best words start with 'B' - Beach, Booze and Bikes.. ;)

This trip to Goa in August 2011 was cooked up a few months ago by my cousins and friends. This was an unorthodox trip for me since I was not part of any planning for the trip, whatsoever.  We were travelling by the second best way to travel from Mumbai to goa, by the konkan railways and the tickets were pre-booked. The Konkan Kanya express left CST railway station (Mumbai) with 7 of us on-board on the night of 13 August 2011.

Some wonderful views right from the train on our way to Goa

Experimenting with the new DSLR

Now that's something you don't see everyday

We reached Madgaon railway station early noon and made our way to a wonderful unknown beach in South Goa. This trip to goa was mostly planned by two of the friends who hailed from goa themselves. We made it to a secluded guest house right at the end of a beautiful Sernabatim beach by lunch time.

Something about Sernabatim beach

This was my first and only visit to south goa (Since 2007 to 2015) and I can comfortably designate this beach as one of the top most beautiful beaches I have ever been to. It’s a typical south goan beach with abundance of coconut trees, clear sky and sand, wonderful fresh winds and splashing cool waves minus the usual tourist crowd. Yes, it was virtually crowd free even though we had visited on a long weekend of 15 August. Need proof, here it is..

Sernabatim - South Goa

If you feel a sudden urge of crowd, Colva or Benaulim beaches are right next to this one.

About the Furtado’s beach house where we stayed.

Well I’m not the one to review hotels but this was one hell of a place for budget travellers/bachelors like us. Great location, right on the beach, in-house restaurant serving amazing food, decently clean room, helpful staff,  green lawns and most importantly well within budget for tight pockets (It was around 2 k per night for 2 AC rooms to accommodate all 7 of us). We stayed all 5 days at the same place.

Courtesy: Google Maps

Not much of a looker from the beach, but its right on the beach

Decent enough from within.. Beautiful green lawns

After settling in the beach house, we made a dash to the beach and couldn’t hold ourselves back from taking a dip in the lovely clean water.

It was time for a sumptuous lunch in the wonderful restaurant. The food was simply ‘WOW’ as always. After atleast half a dozen visits to Goa, I can say that Goan truly cook and serve with all their heart.

Lovely Squid fry.

Chicken Tandoori is a must if you are in Furtado's

Most of us were tired from the journey and our time in the sea so they wanted to rest a bit while I utilized the time to try my hands on some beach photography with my cousin’s brand new DSLR.

It was about to rain

We walked to colva beach late evening after dinner and then walked back to benaulim beach by 10 pm to retire for the day after, but not before chilling out with some drinks at the beach right outside furtado’s till midnight.

Normal sight in waste bins if you are in Goa :)

We had big plans for day two

Well, it was the Indian Independence Day. As usual, I Couldn’t sleep much on trips and hence I made a dash to the beach by 7 am for a walk while some were still hungover from the fiasco last night and others plain lazy to get up so soon. On second thoughts, I was the weird one to get up early while in Goa just to hangout with birds, dogs, fishermen and what not. Well, I don’t regret it.

Wondered what these kids were upto

He digged out a crab from the sand and they both were happy to pose for me.

After over an hour, I returned to the guest house only to find some half awake and most still deep asleep. After a lot of usual banter, everyone was ready for first day of goan sightseeing.

Some of you who know me and my travel blog may wonder why I wrote about this trip in my biking blog. The answer is right around the corner as we find ourselves astride 4 wonderful set of wheels to get ourselves a good taste of goa in the coming days. Our goan friends Ashwin and Andy had struck a good deal with a bike rental guy in Colva last night and we were on our way to the planned destination for the day on bikes. 

We had to walk from Sernabatim to Colva. Last night we took the beach so decided to walk on roads in morning

Pulsar 150 for Dipesh

Bajaj Avenger 200 cc for me. It was my first time for a cruiser bike. Loved it

And two Honda Activa's

I was told we’re off to another beautiful south goan beach and my heart was overjoyed with a thought of better beaches than Sernabatim.

We were soon riding on the NH17 and I was overjoyed by just the fact that this was the much awaited and wonderful Mumbai-goa highway that we (Me, Najju and Karan) dreamed of since quite some time now.  How badly I wished back then that we would have ridden to goa on our bikes rather than travelling via train (I did ride on this NH17 highway from Goa to Mumbai a couple of times in coming years and it was a sheer pleasure redefined) 

Some views enroute

Yours Truly

Yours Truly, Overloaded. 

A break on NH17

We reached Cancona beach which was a good 30- 40 kms away by late noon and had quite a gala time at the wonderful picturesque beach that it was, although a bit too crowded for my liking by now.

The beach island is wonderful

Bit too crowded

Some fun in water

We started back for Benaulim early evening and had a wonderful typical goanese dinner with amazing “never tried never will try again” cuisine in a local shabby restaurant to sum up the day.