This is a great report, Fiona! You have given the rest of us scribes a standard to aspire to!

Fantastic insight into India Fiona. Makes me want to explore more now

we only saw a tiny bit of India but it was a great starter. Namaste India tours will hopefully be seeing us again
Roma- I started this report with some trepidation as this forum leads the way on HT for its trip reports!

Fantastic report Fiona - what else can I say?
I've been holding off reading for a couple of days in the hope that you'd finish it and I could do it all in one go but I'd finished the ironing, made a cup of tea and thought, what the hell? It's an absolutely fascinating read. In my opinion, you can never give too much detail as I always think it helps other people who are planning trips. India is on my 'to do' list, I just have to convince the hubby.
I so loved your driving tips

I thought I'd be finished by now too!

We ended up at the airport far too early as our journey took a mere 25 mins( remember it took us 1hr15mins to get from the airport). The early morning start and the fact the driver went through red lights did help speed the journey up. After Delhi domestic airport we were pleasantly surprised with Mumbai. Nice airport.
Men and women have different lines for security in India. Woman have to be searched by a woman behind a screen. When we arrived at security it was to find 6 men in their queue and about 200 women in their queue. Goodness knows why. OH had to wait half an hour for me. And of course there were women who had to get to the front or they would miss their flights. As tempers got more fraught with some the longer we stood I witnessed several near punchups! Still, I got through eventually and our flight was called in plenty time. In the UK I normally find that we are just boarding at the supposed take-off time( if we are lucky). Take off time in India appears to be just that. You have moved into position, taxied and are taking off.
In no time we were landing in Goa. Along the way I had been dozing and had thought the captain mentioned rain. As we hadn't seen a cloud .let alone rain up till now, I just thought I'd misheard. But there was no mistaking all the grey cloud when we were landing.
Dabolim- after all the horror stories about it, this really took me by surprise. We were honestly out of the airport 15 minutes at most from our touch down. It is however, a really depressing looking airport and I decided there and then that we would have to time our departure so we didn't have too long there!
Stanley, our hotel manager had arranged our transfers (650r) and the driver was there to greet us. We set off on our way to Calangute. Everyone remembers their first journey from the airport. I had warned OH that most newcomers wonder what on earth they have done booking a holiday to Goa. He had thought he would be immune to this after what we'd seen on our trip up to now. Well, try doing that first trip when it is absolutely pouring rain and clouds looking as if they have a lot more rain in them. He was very quiet on the journey and I could imagine what he was thinking. Something along the lines of- is this the place you have been forum mod for and gone on and on about? What have you taken me to? I wouldn't have blamed him- I had the same thoughts.

We arrived at Kingstork and Rajeesh greeted us with a brolly to stop us getting soaked. We were shown a ground and upper floor room. Both were about the same. We chose the upper one as I like having a balcony. Initial thoughts were it was really nice. Plenty of room, very clean- see my review here. Kingstork really is a gem of a place. It is well run, friendly staff and owners, has a great pool area with good sunbeds and towels provided. There is also a swim up pool bar, which was not opened at that point. The location of the hotel is a major plus. Two minutes from your room to the beach. As we had had a very early start, that and the hectic schedule we had been through had left us exhausted so we slept for a couple of hours. I woke up to find the rain had gone. It was still cloudy but at least we could go out. We had a wander round to get our bearings. We had a look at the beach. Some brave souls were already trying out the sunbeds but most were in the shack we spent our time at- the Flying Dolphin. We had a drink there and some lunch. We then decided to walk up to the main road and walk towards Candolim. During this time the sun decided to come up and we were not dressed for it. We ended up soaking- but with sweat not rain!! We stopped at a supermarket to stock up on water, beer and buy a couple of beach towels and took a taxi back- we had walked quite a bit by this time.
We finally got to change into swimwear and spent the remainder of the afternoon by the pool, relaxing. It was still a bit cloudy but hot and sheer bliss to be able to do nothing after all the rushing around we had been doing.
We watched the sun set with a drink on our balcony. Then we had another drink on the balcony listening to the sound of rain pelting down full force and claps of thunder!
Eventually we decided to make a break for it- I had my brolly. We had been recommended Nirvana which we had seen on our way down to the beach. They had moved tables to the undercover section but we got one right next to the bar, also undercover by the way. We had a lovely meal there. I can't remember what OH had by I had the Goan curry chicken- perhaps someone can remind me of the name. It has an x in it somewhere! We had rice, parathas, 3 large kingfishers and 3 bacardi and cokes- all for about £9.50. At this point I had not realised that if you ask for a Bacardi they automatically give you a triple one unless you specifically ask for a small one.
Sometime during the meal the rain stopped. We had a great evening. It is a popular place and we usually ended up there every night for a last drink. I think a lot of expats must use it and it shuts when the last one leaves( as they all do!!) OH also remarked that he had forgotten how good the song Cracklin Rosie was. Now- I wonder who sung that?

Good choice. the chicken dish is called xiacutti - one of Vandas favourites.

Enjoying the report and looking forward to the same trip in January / February.

Steve

thats the one Steve

Day 2 and we spent it on the beach. Before that we had breakfast at our hotel. A good selection and unexpected- I hadn't realised that it was included in the price.
It was a much sunnier day and we needed the sunshade. I kept falling asleep. Our tour had exhausted me and it was great to do nothing. One thing that members may find surprising - we had to pay for sunbeds. We were told that as there was little choice for holidaymakers the shack owners who were open could get off with charging. It was 100r. The shack next to us was almost up and running and it had chairs out that were only 50r - however, we didn't really like them as much. By November there would be plenty of shacks open and charging for sunbeds would stop.( of course, this is not the case yet so you may find yourself having to pay still)
Somewhere during that day we both realised that we loved Goa- despite the rain and the fact that most of it seemed to be shut! You just seem to totally unwind.. From then on nothing seemed to bother us. Yes, I did think Goa was more empty than I'd thought it would be. Yes- most of the restaurants hadn't opened and those that had often as not had no customers. Bars that I know are busy in the season were deserted too. But the area of Calangute we were in was absolutely the best place to have picked to stay.
The fact that most of Goa was shut actually took even more pressure off me. I had gone with a list of "must visits" and only 6 days to do so. I couldn't visit most of them so really that list was thrown out of the window and we did exactly what we wanted to do- which was very little! It is strange, as now we are booked to go back in March, I'm actually wondering which Goa I will like best- busy or quiet?? Did I get a glimpse of the Goa before the tourist boom? The rest of my report will not be a day to day account as
1. we stopped all the note-taking
2. you would get fed up with- got up, had breakfast, went to the beach,sunbathed, a few visits to the shack for liquid refreshment, out at night, drinks, balcony, more drinks
Those breathing a sigh of relief- bad news- I'm still not finished! More to follow...

Did you manage to have a look at the South or the far North ?, if not maybe on your next visit, Calangute is far too busy for my liking in the season.
The report is great.

no we didn't - maybe next time

Wicked FionaI hae to suffer 4 wees of it

Interesting.

Crackling Rose was by Neil Diamond I think Fiona (OMG!! Did I just say that? well my dad is huge fan you knw so I was kind of brainwashed as a child!)

It was a sort of "in" joke for Goa regulars. You hear a lot of Neil Diamond in Goa! I had told my OH this before we went and he couldn't believe it when he heard the Neil Diamond greatest hits album on our first night.

Hi Fiona

Consider yourselves lucky, at least it was a recording, it could have been the famous 'Andre' singing it.

Debs

where do I find Andre then

You can usually find him singing in the bars in and around Candolim, I think most of the regular HT's will know who I mean, he's very dramatic. The first time I saw him I just cracked up, as he takes himself so seriously, he's the worst Neil Diamond impersonator I've ever seen. The best one I've seen is Mark who has Ruffles he's very good.

Debs

I'm sure we will bump into him on our next trip.

Mostly the days were spent on the beach. I did have some trip ideas but we never got round to them- its amazing how fast 6 days can go! The first two days I was too tired anyway. The third day we visited Mango House and the other 3 just sort of "went".I think I was just all tripped out! I liked the fact that we shared the beach with the locals- unlike some other places. It was interesting watching folks trying to make their living- both from tourists and by fishing. There seemed to be loads of fishing boats and always some activity round a beached boat. Work on nets took place and women graded all the fish and put them in to different piles. Later on in the week work was being done building shacks- shacks which have probably been pulled down again by now because of the licence carry on. Groups of children were sent out to earn money by dancing or doing acrobatics. We were treated to tightrope walking. Beach sellers were plentiful but never persistent and always good humoured. I did buy some sarongs, a skirt and a bag and probably spent too much on them, but I thought they were cheap! The beach was still quiet when we were there. We took a walk up the beach and suddenly noticed in the distance what looked like hundreds on people on the beach. This was the area around the Calangute steps. Everyone was having a ball and there was a great atmosphere. It was certainly a contrast from our part of the beach!
I was thrilled one day to see dolphins. There was a group of about 6 not too far off shore. There were the usual dogs who adopted your chair. We had one who took a liking to the OH and sought us out all the time. We had a right laugh one day as we noticed a cow heading in the direction of the seats next to us. The couple were flat out, dozing. The cow obviously wanted some shade and ended up with his head over the dozing mans face. I watched for the time when he opened his eyes and gazed up at the cow- I wasn't disappointed!
I tried honeybee a couple of times but I'm afraid to say I found it too sweet. Reminded me of tia maria- ok to begin with but too sickly by the time I got to finish it( the glass, not the bottle!) OH loved it and had it neat- what do you drink it with??
The trip to Mango House next..