Digha Chronicle Part 1

As mentioned in my earlier post, we went on a 3 day trip to Digha beach. Digha is the most popular sea beach and tourist spot in West Bengal. It is known as “Brighton of the East”.

9th Dec 2010: It had got dark by the time we reached Digha station; all because we had missed the first train, took the next train to Digha and got delayed by three hours. Digha station looked quite new and clean. I guess to promote tourism, WBTDC has spruced up the place. Also there are 4-5 trains from Kolkata to Digha!

Nice carriage like rickshaws are available outside; something which I haven’t seen anywhere in Kolkata. Digha is divided into two areas – Old Digha and New Digha. We decided to stay at New Digha. There are many hotels,lodges and restaurants in Digha. We stayed at Hotel Sea Bird. Rates in Digha vary seasonally. Hotel Sea Bird is a good hotel located near the beach, with okay rates and an in-house restaurant on the ground floor with good service and tasty food.

After freshening up, all of us went for a stroll on the beach. The beaches of Digha are flat and wide. The sea looked ominous in the dark. The tide gets high at night so there are stone embankments to prevent the water from flooding the town. Due to high tide and chances of theft, it is advisable to not go to beach side after 9-9.30 pm. New Digha has a lively market which we planned to explore the next day as most of the shops had closed down by that time. We came back to our hotel, had tasty dinner and retired to our rooms.

10th Dec 2010: Woke up to overcast skies and lovely cool weather. Had breakfast and went out to beach with our cameras. Had fun roaming and photographing around the beach and the sea.

One strange thing about Digha is, unlike any coastal area, the vegetation doesn’t consist of coconut trees. There are sort of pine trees along the beach! There are hardly any coconut trees in the area!

Beaches of Digha are interconnected and if you can walk, you can explore from Old Digha to Talsari Beach on foot. But we just explored till the end of New Digha Beach. (Screenshot from wikimapia)

Due to weekend, the beach was crowded as lots of people had come over from Kolkata. There were pony and horse rides available. Also there were several green coconuts i.e. daab stalls on the beach with long benches for people to sit. The daabs were very tasty!!

Roamed around till late afternoon. Was feeling ravenous by then. Headed for the hotel restaurant for lunch. At Digha, there are several cheap eateries too which serve good quality Bengali food and all sorts of fish delicacies. It is difficult to find a pure veg restaurant at Digha. I don’t remember seeing any. After lunch we retired to our rooms.

To Be Continued.

Goa Chronicle Part 1

So I spent my Diwali vacation in Goa in 2010.  It was my first trip to Goa and the people to go on the trip were my parents, hubby and I. This time, in my travel post, I have watermarked my photos due to increasing number of photo thefts without proper credit on Internet. Will be doing so in future too. The watermark is the url of my original blog.

# 4th Nov 2010 day 1 :- Arrived at Madgaon early morning from Pune. The feeling of being in Goa starts from Madgaon station itself because of all the cartoon drawings of Mario Miranda on the walls of Madgoan station  Colva beach is only 10 kms from Madgaon so it is no use staying at Madgaon. So we hired a pre paid taxi to Colva beach. Checked in to Star Beach Resort – a good medium priced family resort just 100 m away from beach. Nice place but bad service and rude staff. 

The afternoon and evening of that day was spent at beach only. Colva beach is the best beach of Goa! The sand was so soft and the beach is well maintained, not too crowded like Calanguate or Baga beach and the water is not that deep so less number of lifeguards. People are people ..throwing packets and bottles on beach..  It used to get cloudy after 3 pm in Goa and that weather was awesome. It was lovely taking a long stroll on the beach and discovering starfishes, crabs and molluscs on the beach trying to crawl back to sea.

There are good places to eat at Colva beach. There is a Subway outlet and a Cafe Coffee Day place at Colva market area. So I was happy  There is a Bengali outlet even which serves typical Bong food. So Dad and Mom were quite happy!! 

# 5th Nov 2010 Day 2 :- The system of renting two wheelers in Goa is good. One just needs to have a license and another ID proof. The rates are quite cheap (petrol cost not included) The only strange thing in Goa is the lack of petrol pumps..Colva doesn’t have a single one!! People sell petrol in shops!

Anyway,so D and I hired a Honda Activa for 200 Rs for 8 hrs and went to Panaji which is around 40 kms from Colva. Google Maps app on D’s phone was most helpful..I was backseat driving legally!! It was quite thrilling going on unknown roads. The roadways of Goa are well maintained thankfully. After seeing the number of churches one comes across in Goa, I have named Goa as the land of Churches! One of the Churches on way to Panaji at Utorda -

One of the bridges on Mandovi river on the way to Panaji

It takes 1 hr 15 mins to reach Panaji from Colva on Activa. While we were stretching our legs at a road side bus stop bench, a woman sitting beside us said hello on her own accord. I started thinking how friendly Goan people are! But after sometime when she started to leave, she gave us a brochure of some church/society. I found that bit strange.  After having lunch at an outlet called Edu’s Restaurant, we went to Donapaula, a bay where Mandovi river meets the Arabian Sea.

The clothes market at Donapaula

The famous statues at Donapaula

The view of the bay from Donapaula view-point

Then on our way back, we entered Panaji’s narrow lanes and by-lanes..the city has such a wonderful quaint Spanish sort of look just like in movies. But we didn’t have much time to explore as dark clouds had started gathering. We just visited the famous church at Panaji town square – Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception built-in 1540.

By the time we reached our hotel, it was already dark. Driving in dark in South Goa is risky as it gets quite deserted and there are no streetlights even on highway!!

Ended the day with a wonderful dinner of prawns at one of the outlets at beach (did not have the guts to try squid or shark fin  ) and a stroll on the beach at night.

To be continued….