Colourful Indian Holidays

GOA BEACHES

Majorda Beach

Majorda beach is famous for its delicious pieces of bread and is one of the famous Goa beaches. If you want perfect silence responding to them humming of the sea, where you can sit engrossed in a book and look up to catch the picturesque scene of the sea dressed in golden orange frills sprayed by the rays of the setting sun before sinking into oblivion, then Goa Majorda beach is the place to be.

Majorda beach in Goa has a very interesting history behind it. Majorda is the village where the Jesuits, fond as they were of the good things of life, discovered the best Goan toddy (sap from the coconut palm), which they used to leaven the bread.

Calangute Beach

Calangute Beach is also called the ‘Queen of Beaches’. The natural beauty you at find Calangute beach in Goa cannot be found elsewhere. Goas Calangute beach is often crowded with people, children making sandcastles, colorful crowds surging towards the sea, hippies busy remembering the good old times and the young and old alike lazing on the golden sands.

Goa Calangute beach is a heaven for the hippies. It was the hippies who discovered this beach in the late 60s. The exquisite beauty of the Calangute beach Goa soon spread around, bringing hordes of European tourists. And this trend has still been continuing…tourists come down to this small Indian state of Goa searching for this lovely beach.

Once you reach Calangute beach Goa, then you can spend your vacation soaked in the serenity of the sea, sun and sand. This picture of a perfect tourist haven is completed with shacks and stalls under the shade of palm trees selling everything from fried prawns and beer to trinkets made of seashells.

Anjuna Beach

Anjuna Beach is one of the most popular Goa Beaches. The beauty of the white waves rushing to embrace the pale golden sand on the beach can be witnessed in full form at the Anjuna beach Goa. Anjuna beach at Goa is a perfect haven for the hippies and you will come across some of them who have been staying on this beach for a couple of months.

Goa Anjuna beach comes to life with the flea market and the full-moon beach parties at Goa Anjuna beach that continue throughout the night. The flea market at Goa Anjuna beach offers a tourist just about anything he desires, right from swim suits to water-sports equipments to second hand bikes to cameras to various trinkets that can taken away as souvenirs to…just about anything.

The Anjuna beach flea market is held on Wednesdays and if you are good at bargaining, then you can walk away with good stuff at throw away prices. You will also be able to find a mixture of good Gujarti, Kashmiri and Tibetan handicrafts.

Candolim Beach

Candolim is the birth place of Abbe Faria, a Goan Freedom Fighter and the Father of Hypnotism. When we stay at Candolim, we usually book one of the rent-back apartments a stone’s throw away from the beach. There is little or no shelter close to the beach, but you can hire out a beach umbrella, sample the good food available at the beach shacks that dot the beach, and sun yourself in solitude. This Goa beach is very popular with package tourists but is still not too crowded.

Sinquerim Beach

Located very close to Fort Agunda Sinquerim beach has clean, white sand. Portuguese Fort the early 17th-century Portuguese fort that was built by the Portuguese to control the entry into River Mandovi and to protect old Goa from enemy attack.

Baga Beach

Baga beach is an option for those who want to be away from the hustle-bustle found on the other beaches. Baga beach in Goa looks as if it has come alive out of a painting… majestic white waves rushing to wipe out the feet imprints left by you on the brown sand while the wind continues to flirt with the palm trees.

Goa’s Baga beach is a small but perfect beach located between its two more famous cousins, Colva on one side and Calangute on the other. It is a good place to enjoy some quiet moments and dwell in peaceful contemplation with oneself.

You can catch some action of a different kind if you like water sports and fishing. After dark, night-time revellers frequent Tito’s – one of the more lively watering holes of Goa’s nightlife. Baga has a Saturday night flea market and you can shop for colorful Kashmiri handlooms and other artifacts all along the road leading to the beach

The Baga River flows down from one side offering a pleasant diversion for children and those who love the water but can’t risk the rip currents that swirl around the mouth. Where the river and the sea meet, and on the far right bank, tourists at Baga beach will see a group of black rocks against which the sea crashes

Bambolim Beach

Bambolim beach is a small, clean, largely undiscovered beach, in a shaded spot before the mouth of the river Zuari. The road goes all the way down to the Bambolim beach resort from where you can make your way to the beach. The beach is carpeted with broken mother-of-pearl and other shells, which makes it a haven for shell-collectors. Thick coconut groves line the beach and provide shade and privacy.

A little off the road before Dona Paula just before the National Institute of Oceanography, is a restaurant called White House. It serves excellent seafood and has a view of the bay to die for. Its also one of the few pet-friendly restaurants in Goa, so if you have a well-behaved pooch along, you won’t have to tie it outside till you finish your dinner.