A Gorgeous, Unspoilt Spot

Galgibaga Beach was exactly what the French lady (I feel terrible that I have forgotten her name) had promised. Very quiet indeed. At first we felt a bit like it is never good to get what you wish for as it was so remote that we felt it was not somewhere to have a break; we could not even walk to a local shop easily but the lure of the hammocks, the empty pristine beach and the very slow pace of everything there soon sucked us right in and we stayed for 5 nights.

Development has been really restricted here as the beach is a turtle nesting site and we were staying in the only house on the beach.  We were not too sure of the accommodation when we first arrived as we found that all of the rooms shared a bathroom (well, toilet with a bucket for showers and cold water) and we had not had shared facilities before but it turned out OK in the end. There were only 3 rooms sharing the bathroom and they were often empty.

Our first room there was a good size with 2 windows and the most terrible fan that looked, and sounded like it was just about to fall off and decapitate someone. The room also had no lights, so, we asked about swapping and were given Kumar’s room (the manager of the place). The bed in his room was only fractionally bigger than a single but the fan worked well so we stayed. When we came to go to dinner we found that Kumar’s room did not lock so he said we could put our valuables in the first room and lock that. So, for the first night we had 2 rooms but we soon realised there really was no one there who was going to steal anything and we moved everything into the small room with the working fan. 

The only restaurant option nearby was the Blue Whale restaurant on the beach, about 200m away from the house. So , we made this walk several times a day for a late breakfast and dinner. 

Long Waits For Food 

The food was excellent but you really had to be patient. The average time for a coffee in the morning was 45m, one breakfast took 1hr 45m and our last dinner there took 2hrs 7m (we started timing it for fun).  They only had one gas burner which explained the speed issue but everyone was warned by other guests as soon as they arrived to order early and no one really seemed to get upset by it (there were not more than 5 tables there, so it was not as if it got really busy at any point.) 

We spent a lot of time in the hammocks near the restaurant sipping beer, cold pop and eating lovely fruit salads in the shade of the fir trees.  Amazingly, I could pick up the wifi from the house on my iPad although Henry was not so lucky with his Macbook Air.  I was able to upload all the old blog posts and get right up to date which was great. 

Sunset through the trees.

Adventures Around Galgibaga

We only went on two little adventures the whole time we were there, the first was to Chaudi, the local town. We needed to get a few essentials and money from the ATM so we took a rickshaw there for a quick evening visit (the shops everywhere are open until at least 9pm and it is much nicer to go to town when it is cooler). Nothing exciting happened there but I returned with a string of fairy lights (about 80p for a long string) intending to be able to cast a different sort of light in the evenings when we were staying in rooms with only a fluorescent strip light (most of the rooms we have stayed in). I plugged them in on our return and as I was arranging them BAM! a full blown electric shock went right through me and Henry made me put them straight in the bin. He says I have to get battery ones if I must get some more. On reflection, I’m surprised neither of us have had shocks before now as there have been some very dodgy looking wiring jobs in lots of the places we have stayed, including in the bathrooms. 

The other adventure was when we decided to try and walk to another restaurant, but we did not make it. We did find this local church which was quite well lit up though… 

After 5 nights relaxing there and looking for another quiet beach to go to we decided to return Agonda, the quietest beach in South Goa with wifi.

Galgibaga Beach, 4th – 8th January 2012