Exciting Goa Trip - Bangalore To Goa

[mari.parthi]

Exciting Goa trip - Bangalore to Goa

Hi Everyone,

I am back with another thread on our beautiful and refreshing trip to Goa.

Total Distance: Approx 1400KM
Car: VW Vento
Road Condition: Excellent & Good
Mileage: Approx 17.5

I had just returned to Bangalore from a official trip away from my family. It was kind of hectic schedule and kind of needed a refreshment. Me & Wifey decided to plan for a short vacation.

Planning started now.

• Ooty - Not again.
• Kodaikanal - Beautiful hill station. Less commercialized as compared to Ooty. But we had been there twice. ruled out
• Wayanad - Not another hills station now
• Coorg - somehow I am delaying Coorg trip. rejected again
• Managlore - Beaches. Wow
• Goa - Yes! this was on plan for more than 2 yrs now. We decided to fix for Goa

Some teaser pics.

We spotted a new Tata vehicle on transit. They slowed the speed (kind of literally stopped their vehicle to let us pass through) when they came to know that we are clicking pics.
May a new Tata Safari in the pipeline







It was a Wednesday 30th May and we had to travel on 2nd June. Well then the hunting started, where to stay, how to reach Goa, what do we do there etc.

Everyone told it's off-season and there will be no tourists, no restaurants and all suggested not to go to Goa. We decided to go and might be we have to stay in resort and relax. It proved to a very good choice

Checked online booking and my uncle told he can make the booking through his Bank Guest House. Hmm good to have some one in a Government org.

We decided to go in our Vento! I started checking which route to take, road conditions...

After a long research finalized the route.
Bangalore -> Tumkur -> Chitradurga -> Davanagere -> Hubli -> Yellapur -> Ankola -> Karwar -> Margoan -> Panaji

Day 1:
Since this was our first visit to Goa, we decided to hit the road in the wee hours. I prefer to reach before dark to avoid difficulties in finding directions to the hotel, resort if it's my first visit to the city.
Our plan was to reach Goa by around 12-1PM and spend some good time in the evening. Started from Bangalore at around 2:30AM and hit the Hebbal Outer Ring Road to connect to Tumkur road. We have to take this route and there is no other alternate.

Oh man, never thought the truck traffic would be so worse in the wee hours also. It took almost 1 hr & 15 minutes to connect to Tumkur road which if just 25KM drive. It was 4AM when we took the Neelamangala flyover.

From then on it was an excellent 4-lane road till Hubli.

We reached Hubli at around 9AM and we took a break of 30 minutes in between. After taking the deviation for Ankola we halted for breakfast.


From here on it is a 2-lane road and it was a scenic & beautiful road to drive. We could not maintain speed and average speed dropped to 50-60KM.




I was kind of getting restless and when we entered Karwar the excitement started.




While returning, nature at its best..there was heavy rainfall





There was huge vehicle movement and it was about 2 PM when we reached our hotel.

We booked tickets for the evening cruise & took a quick power nap. Much needed one after driving for 12 hrs continuously. I wasn't kind of feeling that tired thanks to my Vento.

We were ready in the evening and left for the cruise ride. We were surprised to see huge crowd and lots of tourists. Cruise was kind of OK, they took thru
the river/sea and there were some cultural programs, dance. Was kind of fun.





We reached back the hotel at around 9 PM, ordered for dinner. We booked for a cab for the next day's visit to North Goa.

Day 2: To continue..

 

[AppU]

Good Start Buddy,

Waiting for more & more pics with details

 

[visran]

Sweet, i am stuck at home with a broken hand i guess a trip like this will be very refreshing for me, can't wait for more pic's

 

[sethumurugan]

Fantastic trip. Awaiting for more pics.

 

[nozzlering]

Nice pics. Goa is always exciting. More details please.

 

[allhyundaicars]

great i will be reading this thread in full detail just because i'm planning for goa in october end

will book tickets in 3-4 days. this will be my first visit there so please do tell me about the hotels and places to visit

 

[mbt_india]

@mari.parthi - Nice review and pics. Makes me remember our trip to Goa couple of years back.

BTW, is your VW Vento car petrol or diesel powered?

 

[mukeshus]

Welcome to TAI Parthi..
From Hubli did you take a deviation from that toll booth?
Which leads you to the Kirwati-Yellapur region???
Waiting for more of your experiences.

 

[mari.parthi]

Day 2:

We checked with the hotel about the tour package options they have. They had two options

• North Goa
• South Goa

Charges are about 250/- per head and they take through a cab along with many other tourists.

We were not interested in seeing many places and only beaches & beaches. If we take the tour package we wont be able to spend quality time @beaches. We fixed to start with North Goa first.

We checked for other alternate of renting a car or hiring a cab for 1 day.

• Renting a car - you need to know the route very well if you plan to rent a car. OR if you just wanna roam round in the car then it may be a good option.
• Hiring a cab - local driver will know the tit bits of his city and we can just relax and enjoy the city.

So we decided to hire a cab. After negotiations the hotel came up with a quote of 1500/-. We checked through a reference from our uncle and they were ready to close the deal for 1200/-. Both the rates are for non-ac and we booked the cab for North Goa for 1200.

Day started with a visit for Cocoa beach for Dolphin ride. The driver told us that the dolphin ride might be closed due to monsoon and we can just visit the beach.





Keeping fingers crossed we visited the beach. They had extended the Dolphin ride until 03-Jun and it was the last day. We were excited.

Got the tickets and boarded the boat. The ride to spot a Dolphin started. We were told that if we are luck we can spot Dolphins.

En-route the captain of the boat became a mini tour guide.
A resort near the beach



Beautiful palace - owned by a Diamond Exported. What a one to own!! Fantastic view


Goa prison


A Goa Politician's house


Fort Aguada Fort

Finally reached the spot where we can spot a Dolphin. Eagerly waiting to spot one.





20 minutes passed and still no luck. Where is the dolphin



Many boats returned but our captain was very keen to show us one. He waited patiently and hurreeeyyy we spotted the Dolphin.

And Dolphin was very kind enough to give us dharshan for atleast 3-4 times. We happily returned to the shore.

Next headed to Aguada Fort. We can get some good views from here. Then visited Anjuna beach.




Can you spot the crabs here


It was about 12:30 PM. We asked the driver to take us a very good local hotel to have sea-food, lunch. He took us to one and we were not happy once we reached there.
spotted a theme park en-route


The hotel was kind of OK, we hesitantly placed the order. Once the food served, WOW it was yummy and superb goa style lunch. We hurriedly asked for the menu card again and flooded our table with many sea-food menu

We headed next to Miramar beach. Beach is kind of OK. We spend little time here.


Then we landed in Calangute & Baga beaches. Water sports was available here. Many eating joints, restaurants available here.

Water Scooting ride, Para-sailing options are available here. We took Water scooting ride.

Had a very good time and after 2-3 hours we headed back to hotel at around 7PM.

Relaxed for a while and then the hunt for a hotel for dinner started. Oops, it was Sunday and 90% of restaurants were either closed or holiday. After a long walk we found one Punajbi restaurant.

There was a long waiting time and we finally got our chance. The food was not even OK and this was the only bad experience in the whole goa trip.

We returned back to our hotel.

Now the day three..to be continued

 

[mari.parthi]

Welcome to TAI Parthi..
From Hubli did you take a deviation from that toll booth?
Which leads you to the Kirwati-Yellapur region???
Waiting for more of your experiences.

Yes, I took a left deviation after the toll booth @Hubli. From here it's a 2-lane road. We were able to maintain average speed of 50KM-60KM only. at times is also dropped to 30KM

Bangalore – Tumkur 72 KM
Tumkur – Chitradurga 132 KM
Chitradurga - Davanagere 67 KM (Don’t enter city, take by-pass to Haveri)
Davanagere - Haveri 72 KM
Haveri - Hubli 78 KM [Take deviation to Yellapur]
Hubli – Yellapur 72 KM
Yellapur – Ankola 72 KM
Ankola – Karwar 36.7 KM
Karwar – Margaon 77.1 KM
Margaon – Panaji 34.6 KM

@mari.parthi - Nice review and pics. Makes me remember our trip to Goa couple of years back.

BTW, is your VW Vento car petrol or diesel powered?

I have a Vento - Highline Diesel. You can check my ownership review in this thread http://www.theautomotiveindia.com/f...hline-ownership-review-buying-experience.html

 

[sethumurugan]

2nd day exp was good. Pls post if you have pics of Dlphons and water rides. Very nice write-up

 

[siva2827]

Nice photos. Me too recently visted Goa. Missed all water activities due to the hell 'off season'. You are not posting the photos of dolphins??

 

[Rajvel]

Awesome photos with a nice write up awaiting for much photos.And i had my visit to goa last year may.It was too sunny and heat fried me in beaches.Went to see dolphins but a another chennai people who went for a ride before us told that its waste going so dropped the plans.

 

[carfreak]

Excellent pics and write up buddy! I was planning a Goa visit some time during end of this year or early next year. Your post will surely help me. Thanks for sharing!

 

[mari.parthi]

Went to see dolphins but a another chennai people who went for a ride before us told that its waste going so dropped the plans.

You should taken the sea ride just to enjoy the ride in rough sea. It's fun and thrilling 1 hour ride, when we visited there were huge tides and it was scary also.

Dolphin - i could not click any pics. Even the video dint come out well. When we saw the dolphin i had jumped out of excitement and the camera lens was focusing on the sky .... video has come out very well except to capture dolphin

Held up with office work and will write up about my day 3 & 4 of Goa trip by this weekend