While my wife was getting ready for the day and before breakfast arrives. I went down to the Hotel parking to have a look at my Ferrari, to see how bad it was. It did not look that bad, silencer was not hanging out as I thought it would be. Although looking at the car it looked like as if it came through a mountain rally. I started the car and it still sounded as it was sounding yesterday, like a Ferrari or any other sports car. I thought of getting it repaired at next car service center on the way or in Goa.
Both me and my wife were ready to have breakfast , It was nicely cooked breakfast. To be on the safer side, I had ordered Bread omlette but my wife ordered aloo poori (potato curry with fried Indian bread). I am from Punjab and have certain type of taste ,but after staying in southern part of India for a long time, my taste has modified a lot. Still ,finding food to match your taste is a difficult wish .But surprisingly breakfast turned out to be a tasty one. Bread omlette was tasty as I expected, I took a bite of poori aloo as well and it was surprisingly tasty, which was little unexpected for a Punjabi. My wife really liked it. Usually while traveling , you set your food expectations to a lower level and expect to live with whatever food taste will come your way. But after this breakfast, I was getting a feeling, that on this travel ,food will be Really delicious.
We started for panjim, reached there in an hour. Its such a beautiful place, I have been to many places, but its completely uncommon experience, when you enter panjim, you start feeling the Portuguese way of life and see architecture in the buildings and churches. As soon you enter panjim, you see backwaters alongside the road. On one side you have the backwaters and on other you have Portuguese style homes and churches . Its not a very broad road, but driving between the back waters and those Portuguese styled homes and Goan people is such a pleasure. Road from Ponda to panjim leads to mandovi flyover from there we can take a turn to anjuna beach. But it was my first road trip to Goa, I was not aware of the roads and routes ,so I drove my car to the city. After roaming on the streets for a while, I stopped and used my GPS to find route for Anjuna. It turned out that I had to cross the Mandovi bridge to reach Anjuna.
Way to the flyover was not very clear, My GPS was also playing games with me so used my best guess to pick the right road to get to the flyover. Finally reached the flyover and crossed it, once again there was a round about which had multiple roads as options , one was towards Mumbai and another one to which my GPS was pointing, although the sign board was saying that the road that goes to Mumbai also has way to Anjuna. I did not take chance and followed my GPS directions and took the road it was showing. That road was going through a village, touching the edge of the Mandovi river ,going through that village, you get the feel of the beautiful goan culture , you can see people fishing in the backwaters .Finally , I saw some known names on the signboards, still to be sure of my way, I asked an auto rickshaw driver , then followed his directions to reach Anjuna. On the way to Anjuna there were beautiful lanes going through apparent paddy fields. They looked like paddy fields but I thought it was off season, so no actual rice paddies were visible, just wild grass and weed . Then I reached a place, I think it was Calungute or Baga, it looked like a nice market, lots of tattoo shops and small shops with different types of colorful clothes . Found signboard directing towards the Anjuna, it appeared Anjuna was not too far from there.
After few minutes , I was in Anjuna where the road ends and beach starts. It was 2pm, I parked my car and took my baby out of the car, then me and my wife went to the first shack, which is at the edge of the Beach, on the Rocks, it had nice view and amazing breeze. After more then 10 years I was seeing the sea again. It was wonderful feeling ,beyond words. I just wanted to sit there ,watch beauty of sea and experience that amazing sea breeze with amazing goan food. I was in the middle of heaven.
To be continued..