Goa - Arambol & Anjuna

Goa a place that we always wanted to visit... rumours about wonderfull beaches, crazy parties, warm ocean and nice people made us curious about goa and obviously we imagined a lot of things... arriving to Goa wasn't easy as we wrote in the post before so the expectation and curiosity was really high. Also... we both needed a small break to relax from the "crazy India".
On the last bus to Arambol, we met a guy called Goram that is travelling for four years so he had already been in Goa several times.. we asked him for some tips for acommodation and talked for a while. He told us he teaches yoga and also makes good thai massages so we exchanged phone numbers in case we needed classes or massages. When the bus was approaching the main road to the Arambol Beach he started to yell to the driver to stop the bus but the bus only stopped a few meters away... Pedro and I looked at each other thinking "Is it here?!" We could only see jungle and unpaved roads with a redish tone.. everybody started to leave the bus and we just followed with our backpacks... we made a few circles around the street without knowing where the beach was and ended up asking Goram.. he pointed to the opposite direction that we were thinking and we both started to walk... excited about the jungle around us we both questioned how Arambol would be... After crossing some dunes with palmtrees, our feet finally touched the sand and our eyes saw the ocean... in front of us we had a small paradise almost virgin... we felt accomplished and extremely happy.. but we had a task.. we needed to find a room or a hut. We decided that our bargaining power would be low if we walked in with our backpacks so Pedro went to the guesthouses/huts while I waited at the beach. He tried to go to the left side of the beach first but there wasn't much offer so we both walked a bit to the right side and immediately saw two places... one of them wasn't that nice but they lowered the price really easy so we both thought it wouldn't be that hard to find a place..  the other one was nice and for 450 ruppies it was a bamboo hut with private toilet and mosquito net... it was really cosy but we didn't want to choose that fast so Pedro kept walking through the beach while I waited at the restaurant of the nice huts "laughing buddha". After almost 1h Pedro showed up all sweaty and exhausted... he had visit a lot of places... some of them he wanted to show me but they were a bit far from where we were and we could definetly feel the heat.. we both decided to stay in the cosy hut for one night and we could both visit the other places later. Happy with our choice and after nice lunch and a cold beer, Pedro started to show me what he had found, one apartment with kitchen for 700 ruppies (we could cook and save on the food) and another hut with shared toilet but facing the ocean and for only 250 ruppies.. after visiting the two places we agreed that with should go for the cheap one.. it would facilitate our budget and the view was simply amazing... it also had a front yard where people could get together... and the manager said we could have a mosquito net as well... we moved the next day!
We had in our minds that Goa would be to relax and to stay for a bit longer than the usual... with no plans ahead except the fact that we needed to be in Sangolda on the 8th of November to work in exchange of a room and food we faced Arambol really calmly. Arambol had nothing to do with what we had imagined, it was way less developed than we were expecting, it really looked like a jungle that ends on the sea.. with a few huts and houses and some bars by the beach. It also has a path that surrounds the mountain and leads to another beach... that path, like the main Arambol road, is full of stores selling clothes, jewelry, shoes, bags, swimwear, flipflops and sarongs. During the night we walked through the beach several times trying to find the popular parties but nothing was happening... a few bars passed transe music all day but around 10pm everything was closing... some would keep open but only with ambient music nothing like a party... we were told that the season hadn't started yet. We could see locals building more bars (all in bamboo) and that things were still slow.. the only thing that happens in Arambol after 10pm are fireworks... random fireworks at the beach with no special reason... the fireworks happen every night but sometimes they are a bit dangerous... in one of the days, we were at the beach when the fireworks started but instead of throwing them to the sky they threw them to the beach... One, stopped a few meters from us and everybody decided to leave the beach...
On the main beach of Arambol things were not as expected as well, we could see foreign tourists in the sand but there were also a lot of Indian tourists and as most of the Indians they couldn't avoid staring... they stop, stare and they even take pictures of female tourists without any discretion... at one point it became uncomfortable... not exactly the relaxing beach we were thinking about. But on the other hand, the water was really warm and it felt very good to swim and refresh..
On our third day we decided to rent a motorbike and visit the beaches around Arambol, first the Kerim Beach that was 10 minutes north of Arambol, the beach was almost empty... just a few people on the beach beds that belonged to two or three restaurants.. no unwanted pictures and looks... we could definetly relax there and enjoy the beach... On the way back home Pedro shaved the hair and the huge beard.. he hadn't shave for one month and a half..  it was a nice experience.. I could see that Pedro was tense by the time the guy was shaving on the neck area! On that night we met Laura, a girl from Germany that was studying in Pune for four months and now that her studies were over she chose Arambol to relax. Laura became our partner for breakfast and dinner. On our second day with the motorbike we went to Anjuna, we were told that most of the parties were in Anjuna but Anjuna was expensive so we went to investigate.. check the room prices and also to see the famous Anjuna Market where we bought our beautiful beach towel. We also had one of the weirdest experiences so far.. a guy started to clean Pedro's ear, he cleaned and cleaned and even removed stones of sand and wax... another guy did it to me as well... obviously they wanted money and we didn't want to spend it but both of our minds blocked with the wax and stones that we were seeing coming out of our ears... at the end we negotiated the price and left but we still couldn't believe it.. gross but nice at the same time. We were surprised with Anjuna.. seemed a bit confusing and very spread... not compact like Arambol but we would have time to know it better... we were planning to stay in Anjuna for a few days before starting to work in Sangolda. Our third and last day with the motorbike was to go to Paradise beach, a beach that people talk as being perfect located in Maharasthra.. We had our omelets at the Red Cabin and bought some fruits for the day.. one huge papaya, three bananas and two custard apples (anonas in portuguese). When we stay for a longer time in one place it becomes easier to find cheap options to eat... The paradise beach was huge and when we arrived it had no one except a few street vendors by the palmtrees. Later, some people arrived but not even twenty. It was a nice and relaxing day. After dinner, we went with Laura to a bar with live music.. there we met her yoga teacher and talked for hours until the bar closed. In Arambol our curiosity about yoga increased a lot, we definitely want to try it and maybe make it an habit. Our days after the motorbike had zero plans at all, we went to the beach on the other side of the mountain, we found new ways to lower the budget by making vegetarian sandwichs ourselves (bread, tomatoes, capsicums, garlic, cucumber and salt for 40 ruppies +- $0.60), tried an excelent pineapple at the beach and investigated about yoga classes, we found one place for 250 ruppies per class so we ended up deciding to go but we would have to wait for the next day since the classes were at 8h30 am. We setup the alarm for 7am but it was so hard to get up that we ignored it.. we could try to call the teacher and schedule classes in the afternoon. We don't know if it was good or bad that we didn't go but the truth is that when we woke up, Pedro couldn't move the left side of his back... it was blocked and hurting a lot... maybe if we had gone to yoga it would have fixed it or make it worse or maybe if we had gone the pain wouldn't even exist... but it happened like that so now we had a problem. Pedro stayed at the hut while I went to search for a credible place for massages and I found one guy that teaches other people how to make massages so we both went there. He analyzed Pedro's back and said it would need a special treatment, we both believed in him and Pedro went for an hour and a half of relief and pain at the same time... the guy pulled, pushed, punched, streched, cracked Pedro's back but at the end he left with free movements again... he had a strong pain from the massage but he could move... at the end the guy said "no yoga for three days" it has been hard to finally start practicing yoga. Since the day was basically to rest, at night we decided to do something different, we went for dinner at the "Eyes of Buddha" where we had the delicious chicken Tikka roll in Naan bread but this time we would eat desert... we tried the famous "hello to the queen"... we shouldn't have done it.. the desert was one of the best deserts we had in our lives... it's fried banana, smashed cookies, ice cream and hot chocolate. That desert became a small problem..  now, when we are on the budget we always think about having an Hello to the Queen... we definetly need to be careful with the walet and with the belly! On the next day Pedro still had some pain but he was feeling better and better, we walked to the left side of the Arambol Beach for hours until we reached the Ashven Beach. We got tired but the walk was excelent... On the way back, almost at sunset a group of people were playing music at the beach, others dancing and others just chilling... an environment that was closer to what we had imagined in Goa. In Arambol we could see a lot of people with children, we both agree that Goa is a nice place to bring the kids... it is safe, nice and cheap and so far.. no parties. After nine or ten days in the ssme location, we both felt like we needed new experiences, we were already getting used to the confort of Arambol and this trip is to try new experiences and to get out of the confort zone. We also felt like we really need to work on finding a volunteering place with children.. we are going to work for an Eco Farm Stay but it is not volunteering, it is working abroad in exchange of food and bed. We agreed that after the two weeks in the Eco Farm Stay we would look for an orphanage to stay during the month of December and maybe spend our Christmas there. With the feeling of getting new experiences, we rented a motorbike for one more day in order to book a room in Anjuna.. we were ready to leave. We went to Anjuna very early and we found a place to stay, Mary Holiday Home, we booked the room for next day.. we would have 4 days in Anjuna before going to the Eco Farm. We stayed in Arambol for a total of 11 nights, it was the place that we stayed longer so far and a place that even different from what we expected we both feel like going back. Maybe for new year's eve or maybe for vacation when we have kids.. on our last night in Arambol we met a nice couple that checked in in the hut next to us, they were from Finland and they had just started their 3 months trip.. we had had a great conversation and even had dinner together! In Arambol it wasn't as easy to connect to people as we thought.. the majority of tourists are from Israel or Russia. With Israelis is hard to connect because they are with big groups and they speak only in Hebrew. With the few of them that we talked, we learned that in Israel everybody goes to the army, the guys for 3 years and girls for 2. It is weird to think about a country where everybody has military training.. if all the portuguese population had gone to the army we wouldn't be as pacific as we are. Curiously everybody thinks we are from Israel.. at the beginning we thought it was because of Pedro, brown hair and beard but actually it's because of me, they said my face looks like Israeli..
We checked out from the Noah's Arc (our huts), said goodbye to the amazing family that runs the place and lives from fishing and we went to Anjuna. We arrived early, we had our room with private toilet and a motorbike waiting for us everything was pointing to a great day. We grabbed the motorbike and started to explore, we went to a supermarket that we saw on the way but surprisingly we were stopped by the police... the police said that Pedro couldn't drive a motorbike with his drivers license so he immediatly said we would have to pay something... a ticket was around 950 ruppies but we could give him 500 and he would be able to forget it.. he even said that after giving him the 500 ruppies we could drive the motorbike for the following days that he wouldn't stop us again... it was the first time that we saw the curruption in the police in India.. we could see that they are after the tourists.. they don't stop locals. That was a bit disappointing but we tried to forget that episode. We tried to enjoy the beach by the most famous bar in Anjuna, Curlies... we had some beers and suddenly a party started. We stayed and enjoyed the party that we wanted for so long but because we were not used to clubbing anymore we got tired around 2/3am. The way back home was through the middle of confused paths in the dark, we used our phone's flashlights and eventually got a ride from some nice guys. On the way we heard about stories about the police... in Anjuna the bars are not allowed to have loud music after 10pm but Curlies has an arrangement with the police, they pay them to close their eyes and the bar is open almost until 6am. We also heard that police hides in the paths behind the bars and searches the foreigners looking for drugs, they scare them and ask for bribes or sexual favors and obviously the ones that are caught pay without thinking twice. We know corruption exists and actually people shouldn't be doing those things but the image of the police becomes ugly and dirty and with time it might even ruin the tourism in the area. The next day was hangover day, everything was done very slowly... our body is not used to beers anymore. We chilled in the room, restaurant and beach but nothing major happened. Same for the following days, we were about to start working in the Eco Farm so we used the time to enjoy the beach and the ocean. We saw that Anjuna has more parties than Arambol, we saw people drinking at the beach.. we notice that a lot of Indians come to Goa to party and they are not used to freedom so they don't know their limits.. we saw one guy completely wasted, rolling on the water and sand like crazy and none of his friends knew how to help...
Now that we are about to leave Anjuna we are happy that we came but we are not sure if we feel like coming back... the energy is not as chilled as in Arambol. We are now ready to work and to meet new people ate the Eco Farm Stay, it will be a different experience and a nice way to stay under the budget... we will see how it goes!