What are your best and worst experiences visiting Goa?

What are your best and worst experiences visiting Goa?

Goa is an awesome place and a dream destination for almost all the Indian travellers. Everyone make their own good and bad memories in Goa which they remember and cherish throughout their life. Some of them also make bad memory, mostly unintentionally. I also made lots of memories (mostly good ones) during my visit to this dream destination in India. Everyone knows about the good things in Goa starting from excellent beaches to awesome cuisines to great nightlife and some brilliant glimpse of western ghats.

However there are many bad experiences in Goa as well. I would like to mention one small incident that I had gone through. I want other people to know about the same and have this in mind. So here it goes:

We rented Activa to roam in the city as it is best and cheapest way to roam in Goa. First two days were good enough and enjoyed a lot in the city. The third day we decided to visit Doodhsagar [1]Falls which is around 75 KM from North Goa. We started very early in the morning and reached Collem by 8 AM. The ride was awesome as the roads were very good and lush green. From there we need to take government run geeps to reach the falls. We took a geep as usual and reached the falls and enjoyed a lot. We came back to the geep starting point by 12 PM happily. But when I put my hand in my pocket I got a chill as I could not find my bike key. Probably lost somewhere. We searched in every possible way but no success at all. Finally we called the bike owner and asked for help. He bluntly started scolding and asked for huge money for that. He was asking around 4000 for that trivial thing. We got hopeless as none of us had any such prior experience. Also we were far away from the city in the forests. It took us some time to calm down and return back to our senses. We decided to handle the situation. we asked nearby shop keepers to arrange a mechanic who can break the lock and reach the city where we will figure out what to do. After sometime a mechanic came and opened the lock and made a direct connection to start the bike. He took 300 bucks for the same. We came back to Panjim and went to Honda service centre and got the lock changed with a brand new. I was lucky here as it was Saturday and the centre was open otherwise I would have to go to some local shop to get the job done. It costed 1000 bucks more. We happily came back and enjoyed the day again and returned the bike to the owner with proper bill and we did not say a work and moved like a boss ;)

So here are some take away from the incident for others:

• Do enjoy the place to the fullest on your bikes but make sure you do not loose your bike keys.
• By any chance if you loose the keys of your bike, then do not try to contact to your owner. Straight away arrange a mechanic to open the lock and go to the service centre (preferably) or any other shop (If service centre is closed) and get things done.
• Do not argue with anyone. Be it owner or mechanic or service centre guy and try to handle the situation gracefully.
• If you are visiting some far away location like Palolem or Doodhsagar or any other place then have enough fuel for to and fro journey.

After all I had a great day at Doodhsagar with some hiccups later. Also I learnt to handle a very obvious situation. So I would suggest everyone to enjoy the city as much as you can and handle any situation with complete grace. That way you will make the stay memorable.