Palolem

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This lovely beach is about a 1-hour ride south from my house toward the border with Karnataka. It's the nicest beach I've found yet, but I'm hoping to find more secluded places soon.

I was talked into renting a hut for $9/night by a friendly kid which was cool because I could put my helmet in my hut and not have to carry it around as I wandered the beach. There is a point on the south end of the beach where I took a lot of pictures (or "snaps" as they call them here). I find these flowers especially beautiful (you can click on the image to get a higher resolution image). 

This next image is actually 3 snaps combined to form a panorama from the point (again, you can click the image for a higher res version). 

While swimming in a little cove, I met a group of travellers that consisted of 2 Israeli guys, an Israeli girl and an Australian girl. They invited me to wander around with them so we walked south to a beach called Patnem and had lunch at a place called Cuba (a local goan chain which isn't bad). Here are the Israeli dudes chillaxin. 

"Dub Side of the Moon" was playing on the sound system. We joked around, went for another swim, played with puppies and watched the sunset as we walked back to Palolem. 

There was an outdoor dance party going on that night on the point called "silent noise". Since there are strict noise regulations after 11pm, the promoters sell headphones and broadcast 2 channels of electronic music for everyone to dance to. If you aren't wearing the headphones, its a trip to see everyone dancing in unison in complete silence (except for an occasional hoot or scream). 

The headphones cost 1000 Rs but you get 500 back when you return them, so when I got tired I sold mine to a guy who was just arriving for 750. Back in my hut, I slept well until I was awoken by a rodent (probly a rat) "investigating" me. After the third investigation event, I decided I wasn't going to be able to sleep in that hut and went and passed out in the back of a bar filled with drunken English people until dawn. By that time the rodent was gone, I slept for a few hours, had a great breakfast of meusli and curds with honey and a pineapple juice, and explored the north end of the beach. There's an island on the north side called Monkey island which was perfect for a circumnavigational swim. The water temp here is wonderful, but the visiblity isn't that great.