Came back on the last flight to Manchester, (Our first time in Goa) wasn't as bad as I expected. Heard loads of stories about the flights! There were two of us went on the holiday, flew with Monarch (heard loads of stories about them aswell) We made a point to get to the airport early going and coming back to get a window seat-forgot to ask both times!!
Finally get to goa, totally different to what I thought it would be, saw loads of people passing us to get into the airport, felt really happy-they were going home but i had 2 whole weeks to go!!!
Read loads of things on here about the airport and our friends had told us stories so we just said no thankyou to every person we met (Even the taxi driver who had arranged to meet us-which was abit embarassing)
Quite surprised in the airport in goa as we were asked by the custom officers for money, my friend just left me to deal with it-believe me she didn't get any thanks!!
It took us about 1 hour to get to our hotel, it was the scariest taxi ride I've ever had-thats the mad drivers, the people walking infront of the car and the cows just strolling down the road!!!
(a few experiences with cows I'll mention later)
Got to the hotel (Prazeres in Candolim)ready to start drinking and sunbathing, lasted 2 hours at the most, one drink and half an hour sunbathing and I was in bed till 6 o clock!!!
First night was abit of a blur, there were fireworks and a band and alot of vodkas (Can't believe how cheap it was!!!)
Had a nice lie in on Monday morning then went down to Ganesh shack on Candolim beach, which was great, heard alot about this shack from postings on here. The beach was gorgeous, even though i nearly got blisters from walking on the sand!!! It was boiling! Sunbathed for god knows how long, but ended up with a burnt head and face, and almost drowned in the sea (Thinking i was clever both times not wearing suncream and thinking i could swim with currents that strong)
The first week went really quickly. We went to Mapusa market which was an experience, i fell victim to the kids that were following us around, gave them my coca cola so they could fight between themselves (One bottle and five kids). We went to a restuarant called Sweet Chilli with the hotel manager, they had a fantastic band on and two girls singing after them, both really good and we've all decided we're having dancing lessons now as the goans made us british look really bad on the dance floor!!
Also went to a wedding which was different to anything I've ever seen before, love birds inside the cake, speeches that last 20 minutes (tempted to drink the port we were all holding at the time)and the toilets were a real shock-a hole in the floor!!!
Tried loads of different places to eat, food was great everywhere (especially inferno-they had a chocolate naan with ice cream-which is GORGEOUS!!!)
If you go and want a dessert don't have the pomfret-I was stuffed!!!!
Went to East meets West in Baga, which has a great reputation-but it's the only place that I didn't enjoy, the setting was great and they had a band on, but the food was a big dissapointment, the curries were all oil and the fish and chicken were dry and the fish and chicken were really dry with no sauce-when we asked we got mayonnaise!!!
Walking back from a restuarant in candolim we saw two cows walking down the road towards us so turned back and walked in the opposite direction until we got back to our friends! Never seen a cow so close before, was abit scary!
and the other bad experience was when we were walking back from the beach and I nearly tripped over a cow that was lay by the road-how do miss something that big!!!!I'm going to finish very soon incase you all get bored!
Hope you've all enjoyed my review of my first holiday in Goa!
Next one won't be as long (because I'm definately going back-even the sellers aren't enough to put me off!)
Gemma x
hi gemma its good to here you loved goa and you will go back again 
they are a 
laugh arent they : 
I know what you mean about East meets West, I had Goan prawn Curry and to be honest I had better down on the beach for a third of the price. The place itself was lovely but I found the waiters to be very pushy with special offers and cocktails which almost made me walk out at one point, needless to say no tip was left.
