Goa, India

After our amazing tour of Cochin, we were very excited for our second stop on the west coast of India in the State of Goa.  Unfortunately, this stop was a short day so it was a challenge to arrange much sightseeing.  Many of our fellow passengers chose to tour the historic city of Old Goa and visit several churches, but we were interested in going to a beach.  Since we had to be back on board the ship by 2:30 and we were docked too far south of the major, well known beaches, we decided to hire a taxi and take a drive out to the local beaches located closer to the port.  This area is known as "Golden Goa" for its beautiful beaches, but due to our time constraints and a language barrier with our taxi driver, we ended up taking a harrowing ride out to two lesser known beach areas to the south of where we were docked.  The scenery along the way was unremarkable as we dodged other cars, motorcycles, pedestrians and, of course, the occasional "sacred" cow in the road. 

The first beach we visited was Bogmalo, a crescent shaped golden sand beach on the Arabian Sea with a couple of small hotels and a few beach vendors.  We took a walk along the beach and waded into the water to cool off.  There was a little too much trash around and too many dogs running loose on the beach for us to hang out there for very long.  The taxi driver took us to another beach called Baina where we looked around a bit and took in the scenery looking out at the Arabian Sea, but it was also too dirty to enjoy a swim.

We returned to the ship and immediately jumped in the shower!  Our visit here was somewhat disappointing, but there is value in seeing the various parts of India.  We look forward to our upcoming stop in Mumbai.

Dancers welcome us to Goa

Bogmalo Beach in Goa

Bogmalo Beach 

 

Bogmalo Beach on the Arabian Sea

 

Baina Beach in Goa

 

NEXT STOP -- MUMBAI.