Bollywood & the Beaches of Goa

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We arrived in Mumbai mid afternoon and was hit straight away by the heat (OK it wasn't that hot, but we had just spent the last 2-3 weeks in almost freezing conditions). The other big notice was how big Mumbai actually is, it felt like that we had been travelling into the city for hours and when we did finally stop we then found that we had another 30 min cab ride to reach where we had planned to stay in Coloba.

After viewing about 5 different hostels and realising that we were going to have to pay twice what we had been paying elsewhere for a tiny dirty little box room, we decided to get out of the room ASAP and explore the city. The population of Mumbai is 17 million and over 55% live in the slums.

We vistied Gateway of India, which is on the sea front and took a boat cruise around the harbour. There was an India fashion parade happening that evening and we watched the rehersals for a while. We then took a walk around Coloba through the main streets and into the parks. In one of the parks, which was about 2 to 3 football sizes long we must have seen over 100 games of cricket going on. We weren't quite sure how the games worked but it apears that anyone in the park is classed as a fielder, even those just cutting through the middle footpath.

We caught the 6:55am train from CST in Mumbai to Margao in Goa, where we headed for the quieter destination of Colva beach. When we arrived at our hotel we were pleasantly suprised to find out that it wasn't where it was meant to be in the town centre, but instead it was situated less than 40m from the beach. We wasted no time dumping our gear in the room and headed straight for the golden sands and the clear blue sea. I think we had found paradise. We spent the next 3 days soaking up the sun and tasting the local sea food. Between us we ate Shark, Red Snapper, Tuna Fish, Pomfret, Seabass & Jumbo Prawns.

We decided to head up to Anjuna for a few days as it was a famous hippy jaunt in years past. The hippy scene was still very much alive there but the beach couldn't compare to that of Colva. We took a day trip to the Waterfalls and the Spice Plantation.

With a heavy sigh we headed back up to Mumabi on the overnight sleeper for one last day there before jetting off to Singapore. On the last day both me & Liam got scouted for a film photo shoot, but mintues before we were meant to leave for the shoot we found out it had been cancelled. Slightly disappointed, we headed for our final indian meal which a fantastic way to finish off a great month in India.

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Photos

Red Snapper
One of the many fish we ate in Goa - along with Shark, Kingfish, Seabass, Pomprey, Tuna Fish & Prawns

Sunset in Colva
Everynight the sun sets like this - paradise!!