One last beach

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Having made a final, last minute decision to go to one last beach before the end of our trip we took three hot sticky buses from Panjim to a tiny beach town called Palolem.

Palolem isnt meant to be one of the most idyllic beaches in Goa due to it being a little too discovered by tourists, however now that we are in May it is classed as 'out-of-season' for this part of the country so when we arrived it was quiet enough to be blissful but still busy enough that some restaurants and guesthouses remained open. Needless to say we didnt struggle to find accomodation at 'out-of-season' price, in fact we got a nice little purple beach bungalow which opened out straight onto the beach for a mere 150 rupees a night.

Although this is one of Goa's more popular beaches, as it was out of season it still felt largely unspoiled. It is about one mile long and both ends of the beach consist of rocks jutting out into the sea, with a backdrop of seemingly endless swaying palms it was the tropical paradise we were hoping for. We also learnt that this beach had been used as the Indian residence of Jason Bourne in the Bourne Supremacy.

As soon as we'd agreed on our bungalow we dropped our bags, changed into swimmers and skipped into the sea, we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming, jumping waves and walking up and down the beach. After watching the sun go down whilst drinking a few ice-cold Kingfisher beers we went to a beach-side restaurant next to our bungalow for some dinner.

We spent the next three days relaxing on the beach, playing in the surf and enjoying the the only state in India to have tax-free beer. Whilst relaxing on the beach we were often approached by women selling jewellery, because it was so quiet on the beach they would sit and talk to us for quite a while even after they realised we weren't buying anything from them. It was interesting to learn from them how they had had a fairly quiet peak season on the beaches this year, a combination of the 26-11 Mumbai terror attack and the demise of the worlds economy has stopped some people from venturing to Goa's picture-book beaches. Nobody it seems, has managed to escape the global crisis. We also realised that this was the first time we had had proper conversations with Indian women; we've not often found women who speak good English and if they do they're not in a position where they can openly chat to tourists so it was refreshing and enlightening to speak to the jewellery selling ladies of Palolem beach.

We managed to relax completely here but after three days we were starting to get itchy feet and were ready to move on. It was a great place to spend some down time and plan our next moves but we could imagine that during peak season it is a completely different place.

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