We have opted to travel on foot as much as possible. Many tourists in this area rent mopeds to navigate the windy coastal roads. As neither of us have ridden a moped or motorbike before, the roads are pretty treacherous and we quite like how our faces look at the moment, we have decided not to get mopeds.
More often that's not we walk south to get to the quieter beaches of Patnem and Rajbag. It is baffling that more people don't make the walk down here. The beach is staggeringly beautiful, there is a handful of very good beach bars and there is a lifeguard on duty should the waves get a bit gnarly. And best of all, there is no hawkers (Indian people trying to sell you things). As nice as they all are, getting targeted incessantly as soon as you set foot on the beach gets pretty tiresome. The ones who we have spent time talking to are amazing really. It is almost exclusively young women who trek up and down these hot stretches of beach all day, everyday selling their wares. They aren't educated at school, and learn all manner of languages on the beach. A few I have spoken to even speak Russian! The only Russian I would want to learn is 'where are your bloody manners', but that's another story...
Although the women are treated well in India there is a glaring double standard in the way they behave, how they travel and even how they dress. Men only really dress in the more comfortable western style, whereas women wear thick, cumbersome (although admittedly pretty and colourful) saris. We have spoken to some young Indian couples living and working in Goa, whose relationships are the product of an arranged marriage. They all seemed fairly happy with their situation. Rather worryingly, one Indian man helpfully explained to me; 'in Europe the woman is the boss, but in India if woman tries to be boss of man, he slap her'! I think my expression said it all!
One hot day we braved the 10km walk north to Agonda. It is a route that takes you inland, uphill, through the jungle providing many beautiful views and photo opportunities. The walk was worth every sweaty step. The beach at Agonda is the same sized 2km strip as Palolem, but completely deserted. Beautiful.
Another day we got a rickshaw the 15km south to Galgibag, also known as Turtle Beach. Our main motivation for making this trek was that there is a restaurant on the beach recommended by Gordon Ramsay called Surya's Beach Cafe. It was very friendly, very rustic and very cheap. Although, we have however eaten better food in the places frequented solely by Indians, set in little udupis (cafeterias) on side streets in scruffy towns. Sorry Gordon!
The nightlife is very mellow in Palolem. This is mostly due to a 10pm cut off point for loud music. A group of entrepreneurial young Indians have got around this by starting a phenomenon called 'Silent Noise'. Every Saturday night you can see different coloured beams of light being shot into the sky from behind the southern headland. Should you decide to follow these lights, over a precarious path across the rocks, you would stumble across a huge, weekly silent disco. The premise of this disco is that everyone is issued with a set of headphones with three channels on. There are three DJs effectively battling with each other. The wearers of the headphones can swap between the three channels depending on what music they want want to listen to. There was an (overpriced) bar selling (watered down) booze to ensure everyone stayed suitable refreshed. The crowd was hundreds strong and a mix of Indians and tourists, resulting in a very fun, festival vibe. The fact that there is no noise being emitted (except for the occasional whoop when a favourite song comes on) means everyone can party till 4am. We had a fantastic night out. The whole operation was really professionally done, and worth every rupee of the seemingly steep 600 rupee entry fee. Needless to say a quiet day in bed with lots of cold water followed this night out.
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