A Week Off The Beaten Touristy Path In Goa

Discovering a new Goa & reliving memories from the past ...

- Marianne Furtado De Nazareth

MY siblings were down from Australia and so a snap decision was made, to drive down to Goa for a week, to the old homestead in Pilerne, Bardez, Goa. “Let’s take the Belgaum route for a change,” said Gregory de Nazareth who usually drives down via Karwar in around 11 hours. “I have been told it’s a shorter route.”

To beat the horrendous Bangalore traffic, we packed the car the night before and headed out at 5am, when it was still pretty dark. But it’s a great ride and one finds the roads are clear, especially of truck traffic, which can be difficult to handle, and clog the roads.

Buns lathered with butter and Chicken salami were carried, along with hot tea, so we chomp happily without a break in driving. The tolls all the way really gouge one, but the spanking new roads with medians, festooned with bougainvillea and Oleander, make the drive so much easier and a welcome change from the past, bone jarring potholed variety. It was just the worry of whether we would get change on the way, with the demonetization juggernaut, still making it’s presence felt, so we emptied our piggy banks of change, just in case.

As the car sped by through the ghats we were greeted by a sudden blaze off and on, of the Coral tree or the Flame of the Forest in spectacular bloom. The trees looked amazing in an otherwise very green and drying jungle. They are difficult to grow and so it was amusing to see a farmer had left one to grow in his field, which was otherwise ploughed and fallow, waiting for the rains.