Vagator

After our manky accommodation in Anjuna, the slightly expensive but immaculately clean and brand spanking new Red Earth B&B was a welcome relief, particularly for Clairy who was still recovering from her nasty food poisoning. Our location close to Little Vagator beach was surrounded by nice shady lanes and felt a world away from the general grime of Anjuna.

On one of our first mornings, we found a hotel with nice views right on the headland that did a proper lush English breakfast. Here's me and Capes chowing down.


Both ours and Caper's room had a pleasant little terrace area out front. Here I am with the one of the very cute local dogs, that seemed to be tolerated on the premises. He was a lovely little thing with one permanently floppy ear.


While the lady was still recovering, me and Capes made plans to go out for a dancy night at the club near by known as nine bar. Knowing that the 10pm music cut-off still applied here, we simply started earlier, and got down to it at about four in the afternoon. Ideal Ian Beale.

As you can see Caper was quite excited. This piccy was taken in his room. We particularly liked the lady's boudoir colour scheme. It made me think of the shade that my house mate Kev wanted to paint our living room back in Camden.


Caper's little terrace, complete with hammock hitched perilously high.


After a few hours of increasing inebriation, we said our goodbyes to Clairy and headed down to the nine bar. I was really quite impressed. It looked the part, and had a huge sound system, with the local DJ's whacking out some great music. We arrived at about eight and the place was fairly empty, so we got straight into the Kingfisher Strong lager that Capes had been eager to try for some time. It was about 8% however, and bore more than a passing resemblance to Special Brew. We quickly switched to the more civilised G&Ts after, and got down to some funky grooves.

It was free to get in, and by 9:30 the place was rammed with quite an interesting mix of Indians and foreigners. There was a definite male bias, and that included a fair amount of drunken young Indian lads, but they were immensely friendly and were seriously up for chatting to us after watching our enthusiastic dancing.

I couldn't quite believe it was all going to get switched off at 10pm, but it did. At the end we made the acquaintance of a nice Indian couple from Mumbai, called Ashish and Cookie, before making our way back to our accommodation. The night was still young though, so we purchased some beers, got my portable speakers out and headed down to the beach.

I was desperate to get a fire going, and unsurprisingly the beach was covered in debris as well as a fair amount of wood, so we had one going in no time. Capes was rather nervous of a beach side shakedown from the local police, something that is definitely not unheard of. There wasn't another soul around and when we arrived down there at about 11:30, all the beach front restaurants were all thoroughly closed.

We had a fab time listening to the tunes Capes had kindly bought over to us, and I got my fire fix without any kind of police molestation. We even managed to make it back up the lethal stairs from the beach without mishap at the end of the night. Bonus.

Here's a great pic of me and the gorgeous lady on the following day in her beautiful summer dress that she bought in Vanuatu. I think I look pretty good as well all things considered.


Getting into Caper's hammock required some serious dexterity. We're still amazed we didn't return to find him lying in a heap with a serious head injury.


Somehow I managed to persuade the Clairy that it would be a good idea to hire another scooter. I may have played on the fact that she was still feeling a bit dodgy and that trekking about in the scorching sun would not have been good for her.

Initially we went on a little tour of Vagator. Here is the lady again looking equally gorgeous on the headland looking back toward Little Vagator beach.


'Suck it in hairy biker!' Really with my beardo and bandanna I should have had one of the beautiful old Royal Enfield Bullet motorbikes that are two a penny here and not a tiny little scooter.


We headed down to Chapora village, just down the road, that is generally more popular with long-term types, who are never going home if they can help it. There were some beautifully painted fishing boats down on the wharf.




Scooter fun! She loved it really, once her bum had woken up anyway.


Chapora had some nice old architecture.




That evening we headed to the insanely named 'Bean Me Up Soya Station', and actually had some bloody lovely salads, something that both of our bodies were craving after the endless curries.


A shiny brass Buddha at the restaurant.


A classic picture. Caper's bedside table after a few days in the room. The beautiful carriage clock came with the room.


Cripes. Again, its touch and go whether this violates blogger's acceptable usage policy. I'm actually trying to fix the aerial on the telly here, but Clairy couldn't resist taking a snap.


Back at the soya station, getting some greens into Capes.


We only had the one scooter (Capes had a go on it, but didn't trust himself not to hurt anything), so I ferried Capes home, then came back for the lady. I really didn't need any excuse to ride it.


The next day Clairy and I headed north across the Chapora River to see if things were very different on the northern beaches leading up to Arambol. Clairy spotted this beautifully carved door on the way.


She also loved the haystacks dotted around the place. For some reason when I see them I always think of their ability to break your fall if your parachute didn't open.


We stopped at Morjim beach and found it slightly quieter than the beaches below, but still full of very similar beach restaurants. Mandrem, the next village felt quieter again, and it looked like there were some slightly more upmarket beach accommodation, but it didn't feel hugely different to what we had seen previously.

Then finally we reached Arambol. The lonely planet described it as the hippy 60's hiding place, but it is definitely not hidden any more. It felt quite similar to Palolem, except that there seemed to be just one road leading down to a very crowded beach. As the road got closer to the beach the stalls on either side seemed to crowd in making it narrower and narrower until it ended in the seemingly never ending scooter lined path that stretched practically down to the sea. Very bizarre.


We had a quick drink, massaged out buttocks back to life and then got back on the scooter to make our way back to Vagator. On the outskirts of Arambol, Clairy snapped this nice pic of the church.


For our final night in Vagator, me and the lady headed back yet again to the soya station. The food was that good, we bloody loved it.


In the morning, we said our goodbyes to Caper, who had a couple more nights before making his way back to Mumbai, then the freezing winter of home. There was a nice lot of big trees outside of Caper's room and Clairy got a couple of nice pics of the bird life.

A beautiful kingfisher.


And this yellow beauty. Not sure what it was though.


We enjoyed our stay in Vagator, and Clairy and I found it a much more do-able pace than some of the rest of Goa. It was totally fabulous meeting up with our friend Capes and we really appreciated the efforts he had made to get out to see us.