Pleasantly contentedly bored or Killer sharks, who knew? - Day 2

---

We arrive in Goa at 6 am and get to our B&B, the Village Guesthouse, around 7:30 am. The house is situated in the village of Palolem, in the southern part of Goa, about a 5 minute walk from the beach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palolem. Very nice and run by a friendly (and odd) English couple, Goran and Janet…more on them later. Anyway, after waking up the owners, who were confused and sleepy but still proceeded to offer us coffee and conversation, we dropped off our bags and headed to the beach. The village of Palolem is a fishing village and most of the accommodations here are beach shacks. The VG is a bit more “upscale”, which we figured was appropriate for our honeymoon, and offers A/C (a real luxury in this town), homemade breakfast every morning and relative peace and quiet. The walk to the beach involves wandering through a small neighborhood of local homes and then hitting the “main drag” of shops, internet cafes and small closet size convenient stores. (So, um, sidenote and minor freakout. I actually just read the Wikipedia entry on Palolem and see that “there is a high chance of encounters with killer sharks”. Whoa. WTF? We agree that we will NOT be going back in after reading that.)

The beach itself is about a mile long and is relatively clean and clear, except for the occasional cow napping in the sun and the random stray dogs (which are everywhere in this town and somewhat sketchy at times). There are several restaurants lining the entrance to the beach and we notice lots of construction along the rest of it. We find out later that the monsoons just finished up here last week. It rained torrents for 6 days straight and most of the beach shops were ruined (they’re often flimsily built). Three people were killed in Palolem and 100 people in the neighboring southern state of Karnataka. But apparently the monsoons are over now, so we’re feeling pretty lucky about our choice of arrival days.

We find a café on the beach open 24 hours where we plop ourselves down and have some snacks. At this stage of the morning, everyone at the café is just sitting and watching the ocean in relative silence. A few people are smoking cigarettes and talking in early morning voices, but mostly people are just enjoying the sound and sights of the waves. We’re pretty content to do the same.

The rest of the afternoon is spent lounging on the beach, napping, eating some of the yummiest butter chicken ever and then having drinks at the VG with a few of our housemates and Goran and Janet. We’re both feeling pretty sleepy from all of the travel so we cash out early.

Next day (besides the travelling bit): wake up, repeat.

---

Comments

[Molly]

Yippee!!!
This is the first I have logged on since you were both attempting to get visas and passports.................so glad that you made it. It looks lovely. Aunt Molly

[steve]

killer sharks?!
i just spent two weeks in goa, two of those day at palolem beach, it was very nice.. i dont think the wiki info about the "killer sharks" is accurate. i swam in the ocean one day and the next morning took a boat tour around monkey island and honeymoon cove, we also were able to see the dolphins playing and having fun and what not. someone in my group asked the boat guide about the sharks and he said that the sharks there do not get very big and are actually not dangerous to humans. i guess there could be a chance of a shark attack but to mean it seemed to be a very rare occurance.