Hammocks, hippies and Bollywood: Goa 2015

Ah Goa. Beautiful, chilled Goa. I've mentioned before that it's Andy's and my favourite destination to escape England in evil February, but it's been three years since our last visit. We're not going to leave it so long next time!

Andy on the Gatwick Express, starting as he means to go on (note the primary purpose of his Swiss Army Knife). 

Me at the airport, saying byeee Blighty till the sun shines again .

This is Fernandes, where we stayed (our hut was upstairs, on the right). The photos don't begin to do it justice. If it's 5-star luxury you're after, it's not the place for you, but if you're happy with an extremely comfortable bed with mosquito net and ensuite shower room, your own deck looking straight out over the Arabian Sea, the sound of waves lapping (sometimes crashing) against the shore lulling you to sleep, then it's pretty much heaven on earth.. The food, from coconut pancakes and fresh tropical juices for breakfast, to whole fish stuffed with green chill, garlic, ginger and coriander for dinner, was sublime. And the people working there were extremely professional and genuinely lovely - far better service than in many places I've stayed for five times the price.

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Round the back, just behind the bar/restaurant area. The ladder up to our hut was a bit further to the right.

We didn't always eat at base camp, of course. Shacks selling fabulous curries and fish dishes lined the beach, and one of our favourites was the Banyan Tree, laid out on the sand under a beautiful old .- you guessed it - banyan tree. Luckily for us, it was bang next door to Fernandes, so we didn't have to go far for lunch.

Lucky for us, too, that Indian wine has improved beyond recognition since we've been coming here! 

It wasn't all eating and drinking though. Oh no. Some evenings we'd make our way over to watch the sunset from the Sundowner bar, aka the Best Bar in the World. Depending on the tide, we'd walk, wade or swim (one evening it was so high - and we'd stayed so late - that the owner, Jojo, pictured behind the bar in the pic on the left, had to give us a lift back in his boat).

The beach just before you get to Sundowner. The light on the rocks here gives only a hint of its serene, almost other-worldly atmosphere

One evening we happened to coincide with a Bollywood film crew. There was a cast of around 20 terrifyingly beautiful young things – most of them young enough to be our children – when one of the crew persuaded us to join the cast dancing to a DJ in the sand, arms in the air like we didn’t care, as the sun sank into the sea behind us. After a few initial seconds of self-consciousness we both decided that we’d never have an opportunity like this again and gave it our all, barely considering how silly we might look if the scene makes it past the cutting room. Sadly we weren't allowed to take photos, so here's a gratuitous pic of a Bollywood movie set on a beach.

In all the years we've been visiting dreamy Palolem, I'm slightly ashamed to say that we've never gone further than the beach. Well, it is a mile long, with everything one could possibly want, and... oh OK, we're horrendously lazy. One evening, however, at one of the many live music gigs (almost always a vocalist and guitarist doing covers of jazz classics and old hippie hits) we met a lovely couple, Caroline and Jim, who first went to Goa in 1974. After bumping into them a few days later at the Banyan Tree, they gave us a couple of tips. One was that we had to go to Turtle Beach, about a 20 minute drive in a tuk-tuk.

It was much quieter here, with a different landscape too - mainly pine trees instead of palms - and more akin to how Goa might have been back when Caroline and Jim first visited it. And God, the food! We had soft shell crab and prawns, straight from the sea, with the most delectable combination of fresh coconut and green chilli, positively bursting with flavour. They were so good we had seconds.

All I was fit for after lunch!

We were very glad to have made the looong journey, and equally happy to act on Caroline and Jim's other recommendation:, to take one of the boats from the lagoon behind the beach up river, for its tranquil beauty and amazing bird life.

I love swimming at night, lying back in warm sea and looking up at the stars, totally at one with the world, happy as a pig in shit. But when the stars are not only in the sky, the experience becomes truly magical. Yes, there was phosphorescence in that beautiful bay. I've seen it before, but not to such a glorious extent, and soon Andy was joining me practically every night, making glittery shapes in the water simply by moving our limbs.  Below: phosphorescence on the shore. It gets a lot more intense the further out you go, but I never take my phone into the sea so you'll just have to take my word for it!

And now, sadly, to our final night. It was absolutely appropriate to spend it at Fernandes, as the guys (especially Mano and Sanjay, below, but also Dash, the manager) had been so brilliant throughout our stay, and they responded by presenting us with a meal we'll never forget.

See you next year, wonderful Palolem!