Goa-Aranbol, November 23, 2008

After a 13 hours train trip from Pune to Goa we arrived in Madgaon station in Margao.
The scenery is quite a bit different, more colorful, lots of churches on the way. Today is Sunday and at 7:00 AM we saw many people on the churches. From Margao we took a taxi for about 1100 rupees to Mandreem. Zvia my Yoga teacher had recommended that I try the Dunes guest house in Mandreem. In fact the Dunes is beautiful, very nice huts in a very quiet beach. You almost feel that you are not in India. Kind of a small resort with more elderly tourists. The place was very nice, but we felt we wanted at this point a more central beach with more action. So we took a taxi to Aranbol which is not far away from Mandreem. Those are some of the most northern beaches of Goa.
As said before I'm traveling with Tamara my Mexican friend. She left most of her luggage in Puna and will go back and forth from there to different places.
In Aranbol took us a few hours to settle on a guest house. Ones proposed on lonely planet are difficult to find and people take you wherever they want. Ultimately we settle on a guest house which probably has no name. Supposedly it is the Sunny, but not sure. It is right on the cliff with a wonderful cliff and ocean view. A bit more on the side than the center where you have tons of bars, restaurants and stalls with clothing and all other stuff. You see Yoga, Ayuverdic treatment, and other treatment signs everywhere. Many signs in Hebrew, including a Jewish House.
Restaurants have all kinds of food, vegetarian, seafood, chicken, etc. And also the beers are not extremely expensive. This place is supposedly an old hippies town and in fact you see some 60 years old hippies around. The weather is a bit warm, and most people walk without shirts, barefoot. A real beach atmosphere.

Tomorrow we are planning in renting a moped, which goes for about 150-200 rupees a day ( $5)
and we will go around to check other beaches. Aranbol is quite on the north about an hour from the other more centric beaches and is not as convenient to go to other activities which happen more on the southern beaches. Therefore we will explore a bit before we settle on a different place. Not sure that I'll stick around with Tamara and she has some other interests than mine.

The trip on the train and getting here was good but tiring, now we will relax a bit.