The Walk Around the Not So Famous Goa

There we stood in the middle of nowhere. No board. No sign. Nothing. Just a narrow road.
A road that looked like it led to our deepest fears.
Summoning all our hard-to-find courage, we took a few steps forward. Still no one around. Kept walking. Finally, a board showing Chapora Fort was visible! At least, we were on the right path. On continuing further, we reached the base of the fort, where we saw so many people. It was a relief.

This was the point, I had the guts to take a pic.
It was steeper before this point.

Walking towards the fort, I heard most of the people speaking Malayalam. Are we in Kerala? Evide thirinjaalum Malayalis.

We climbed the steep hill, which looked more like a wall. Sreejith mentioned it was a bit steep but I hadn't expected this. Veruthe alla aalkar ee fort ittechu poyye... Entry okke road side il aakikoode...

I turned around to see where we were. Whoaaa... Everything was moving around me. This wasn't a very good idea...
Going down was not an option anymore. And I couldn't stay put. So... up, it had to be!
I kept climbing, locking away my fears about the time when we would have to go down.
DT stopped and sat down on a stone to take a pic. I walked up and sat down on another stone and tried to take it all in slowly. I closed my eyes.
It's okay. My feet are still on some ground. Breathe easy. Easy now... Eyes open. Mummeee...

DT looked back at me and asked if I could come down and take the pic of her sitting.
"No way. I'm not coming down. If you want a pic, come up and sit on a stone."
She obliged, seeing the frozen look on my face.

Chapora Fort

After what seemed like a Roadies task, we entered the fort. "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek", as quoted by Joseph Campbell held very much true for this place. The view from the top is indescribable.
I realized what I would have missed out on, had I given in to my fears. We took numerous pics.
Then, the dreaded moment came. We had to walk downhill. And I remembered what the conductor said about the shortcut. If the longer route is this steep, what was the shortcut like. Gulp!



Just before beginning our descent, I took one look down and...
"DEEETEEEE!" I almost cried loud in fear. DT quickly came beside me, caught my hand and she stepped in front of me.

"Don't worry! Just look at my feet!"

She continued, mainly to keep me off my fear, "Shirl, you know? Actually I have fear of heights."

I said, "DT, if you have the fear of heights, I have a SEVERE fear of heights!" Nope, I couldn't think of anything else.

As we almost neared the ground and I felt safe, DT decided she had enough of one pair of sunglasses. She needed to change it. With all her eagerness, she took the other out of the box, only to see the screw come out from one of its legs.

This is one sight you don't see everyday. At the base of Chapora Fort. 2 engineers. A pair of sunglasses. We tried to create history, by rotating the tiny screw back in with our fingers. Our motto was never say die with each unsuccessful attempt. As the sun beat down on us and our fingers became sweaty, it was time to give up. And hence, DT folded her desires along with the sunglasses back into the box and continued with her old pair.

We continued down. As we were about to ask where Vagator was, we saw a board showing the direction and a board above saying, "Don't ask, just look and go." (No prizes for guessing what the frequently asked question here was.)

In the midst of
 the forest

Well... now you can't ask after seeing a board like that. We walked towards where the board showed Vagator was. It seemed like a forest with houses very rare in between.

Some houses had boards with 'Goan Fish Curry Rice' in bold letters. I remembered Sreejith's words that such places served the best food. I thought aloud if we should stop here. Since we both weren't hungry, DT said we could check out other options.
We kept walking and then we didn't see any other boards or arrows pointing to Vagator. What did they exactly mean by "look and go"? I can go but where should I look?
At that moment, we reached a busy junction. People! We asked around and after a few more minutes of walking, reached the beach.
The beach was sparsely populated as it was slightly raining. As we held our umbrellas, it dawned on us - we were planning to get wet in the beach. Why on earth do we need these umbrellas?

We splashed around for a while. Then, took some selfies. After 1 hour, we realized we had enough. We were way past our lunch time. It was time to go eat.

Sreeram had recommended the restaurant, Thalassa, before this journey. We decided to go there. I put it in Google maps. It showed a 10 min walk from our spot.
As soon as we got out of the beach, we checked the route with a girl, sitting in front of a shop. She gave a long set of directions.

DT's attitude towards Google Maps

Since it was too long, I turned helplessly towards Google maps. I turned it on and again put Thalassa in. It told to take a turn right into a forest.
By now, DT had known better than to trust Google maps. She denied to do so.

We decided to walk straight and see if the map re-routed. It didn't. It was hellbent on sending us down that long and dark road.

We kept walking straight, till we reached a junction, where we checked with some people. All said to take a left at the next junction and walk straight. We did. We kept walking. And walking.
Maps confused us further and seemed confused itself.

Just then, as if God sent, a couple on a 2-wheeler came by. And what would you know, the guy riding the moped asked us for Thalassa. We said that we also were looking for the exact place. The guy said he would go a bit and if it's nearby, he would wave towards us. He sped away and all we saw was his dust. Keeping a faint hope in my heart, I kept looking for him to magically wave from nowhere.
Shoulders down, we kept walking down the same road. On the way, we saw a small restaurant and a security guard standing in front of it. We asked for directions. He said to go straight and take a right next to Hilltop.

The road beside Hilltop

He also mentioned that Thalassa was closed due to the monsoons. DT was not ready to accept his words because it looked more like he was canvassing us to eat from his restaurant. We kept walking.

Next to Hilltop. Must be a chain like Hilton. Well, if Thalassa is closed, we could eat here.
We walked a bit far and we saw a big board saying Hilltop. It was... just a hilltop.
We took a right to Thalassa and it was indeed closed.

Now what? Since we had reached here, we decided to walk to the nearest beach. There was a long flight of stairs leading to the Ozran beach. We went down. Took some selfies and decided to have lunch at the shack we saw there.
When we got in, from far DT spotted that guy who promised he would wave at us to give us a signal. The guy didn't expect us there. He gave some dumb explanation on why he didn't come back to tell us.

We ordered Goan fish curry rice. It tasted good. Again we split one because of the high rates.

Goan Fish Curry Rice
The fish looked raw
but in reality it was cooked
very well and tasted really good.

Once done, we could not find the way out of the beach. 2 college boys were busy building sand castles. We walked over to them, interrupted their creative exercise and asked for directions. They pointed straight behind us. Oh, yes! How silly of us! Going up had more stairs than coming down.
On reaching the top, we asked for the bus stop and people discouraged us saying it was a long walk. We had no other option. And a long walk it was. There weren't many people on the road. So, when we saw 2 girls standing at the side of the road, we thought we'd ask them. Turned out, they were scared of a group of dogs on the road and were waiting for someone to rescue them. We being the good people we were, decided not to get involved. When a gang of college kids came in bikes, the girls screamed out to them to help them.
After much walking and enquiring, we got over to the bus stop. As soon as we reached, we got a bus to Mapusa. At Mapusa, we caught the bus to Calangute. The conductor kept calling out for passengers, saying that that was the last bus to Calangute. Just in time. And we set off - with some Goan music playing. I can say I'm not a big fan of this kind of music. I decided I didn't want to take the ferry ride with this kind of live Goan music.

Finally, we reached the hotel. Had a shower. Saw movies. Ate the minibar snacks. Slept off soundly.

Yes! We had successfully traveled around Goa for just 150 Rs.