North vs South Goa

So we’ve just booked our tickets to Hampi and will be leaving Palolem and South Goa early on Tuesday. We’d originally only intended to stay here a few days, but it quickly became apparent that wasn’t going to be enough.


Palolem and the beaches north and south are truly beautiful. In fact Cola beach which we visited on Thursday is now my new gold standard for beach paradise. It’s a stunning little cove, with a fresh water stream forming a lake which is separated from the sea by the beach. The natural beauty is only spoilt by a couple of modest restaurants and a couple of dozen tents and huts well hidden under the palm trees. Currently, you have to follow an incredibly bumpy dirt track for nearly half a mile, which makes access difficult for the casual visitor (we nearly turned back on our scooters) and any major development to occur. The day before we’d made our way to Turtle beach by walking south across three other beaches and a small boat ride across the Talpon river. Again, the beaches were amazing, with huge stretches of unspoilt shores (some of which were teaming will little sand crabs I love) where we were the only human presence as far as the eye could see. The beaches also seem to generally be cleaner and better looked after. Even Palolem beach which has restaurants from end to end seems to be much more litter free. So South Goa 1, North Goa 0.

As I already mentioned the night life here is different, with the silent discos the only option for late night partying. Whilst we had a lot of fun on Thursday, neither of us were in a hurry to go back. There is something just not quite right about the whole thing and it’s a poor man’s alternative to proper speakers can blast the sound through your ears and your body. South Goa 1, North Goa 1.

Another noticeable difference is the makeup of the people visiting. Firstly, there seem far more couples here and a few more families. There are not many hippy types either though apparently that was different earlier in the season. The split between nations also is different with less Russians, less Indians (tourists) more Swedish and much more English. Less English people would normally be a good thing in my book (it was nice to be a minority in Arambol), however most don't seem to be the type that have done a good job of ruining most of the Mediterranean. We also seem to have met more people, some of which have been very interesting to talk to. From long term English residents from Manchester (living a life that my parents often talked about doing by selling up and get out of the UK), fellow backpackers and Artists both in the traditional sense and martial. We haven’t however felt quite at home like we did with our beach hut in Arambol, but we’ve still made some friends with Pendi and Sunni whose restaurant we normally headed to for sunset and they always put a smile on our faces. South Goa 2, North Goa 1.

So over all, I’m just edging towards South Goa, especially if I were going to come back for a more traditional holiday. This is the sort of place my parents would have loved to go to, and I understand why my Sister and Brother-in-law loved it here as well.

Here are the photosets ....

http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/Palolem
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/TheWalkToTurtleBeach
http://picasaweb.google.com/kris.lander/ColaAndAgonda