Goa - Bogmallo

The quest for diving in India continued. Apparently there are three places to go diving in India, two are fantastic and one is ok. The two fantastic places are the Andaman Islands and Laskshadweep. Both take a bit of an effort to get to and we just could not manage it on this trip. So that left us with Goa, which is a bit hit and miss.

So we got to Bogmallo and we had not booked anywhere to stay. At the first cheap option no one answered the door, at the second cheap option, well it was horrible. As a princess I don’t do horrible. So that left us with the expensive places as there is no midrange in Bogamallo. Then we went to the dive shop and booked our dives.

The first was to a sunken steam boat S.S. Mary that was about a hundred ft long. We only dived about 9 meters but the visibility was very poor, (maybe3/4meters). We would be moving along and then suddenly there would be big hunks of metal looming up in front of me. My anxiety levels increased, my lungs expanded and I floated up too the surface. Bad scuba diver. I decided to end my dive and I swam the 200meters back to the boat. The lovely Terry kept me company. Terry did the second dive and he said the visibility was better but that that it was not a great, although he had fun messing with the surge.

We had to launch the boat off the beach and drag it back up using logs as the winch was broken. That was fun!

There was an overnight trip to a place called Pigeon Island, I did not want to do the trip and in the end Terry decided against it.

Otherwise the rest of our time was spent relaxing by the pool or on the beach, as there was little else to do in Bogmallo. We had no flights booked to anywhere but figured we might head to Singapore or Kuala Lumper.

Goa - Baga Beach

It turns out Terry really likes the beach.

For weeks all I heard was “when are we going to the beach?” up to 10 times a day. So imagine how happy he was that we were finally going to one. Baga beach is one of the most touristy beaches in Goa with loads of package tours going there.
We decided on Baga beach because we could go diving and drinking. We had only really been able to drink in Darjeeling while in India.

After checking into a hotel with a really great pool, we hunted the internet and asked the locals where the dive shop was after we wandered up the appointed street multiple times and could not find it. Taxi drivers told us where it was but they too could not locate it. We found out later that the shop closed due to owners splitting it seemed like diving was not going to happen in India. Between looking for the dive shop we hung at the beach, ate and drank. Oh, and talked about where we might go after baga beach. We hoped to be able to go to the backwaters of Kerala but it was very expensive to fly there and I was unwilling to spend 3 days on the train.

We did a small tour of the south of Goa which was nice. We also went to a night market on the Saturday night. That was really cool. The market was bustling with the typical stalls as well as food and bar stalls and there was a band playing. There was a great atmosphere and we hung out there, doing some Christmas shopping till about 11pm.

So, when we realized that we would not be able to make it to the back waters of Kerala we booked a two day trip to Karnataka.

It was strange being able to wear shorts and swim wear after so many weeks of making sure I was covered up. Seeing the difference between how European and Indian women are on the beach was mad. Indian women swim and hang out on the beach fully dressed. Big gangs of Indian men go on holiday together and watch the European women while wearing orange thighty whitey’s. We even noticed the men using their phones to take secretive video and photo footage of any and all women on the beach. Every time went into to water Terry made be keep walking until I was neck deep in the sea! Baga and Goa are pretty much a European sun holiday in India.