Goa, A Different Vantage

Just back from a deeply meaningful, and absolutely amazing four day trip to Goa. 

This was a just vishakha and me time, and one that was being planned on and off for over three years now. And it finally fell in place. It was so well worth the wait,  that we've decided to now make up for all the earlier years, by making it an annual feature :)

Why does it become so special?

There's multiple factors. Travel with friends, especially girl friends is something the millenial generation might take for granted, but to us, it comes at a cherished and earned space of choice. At the cost of sounding dramatic, a space reached through the proverbial blood, toil and tears. In fact Diksha was quite amazed when I said it was our first trip together. We go back a long long way, and we've done travel together......with families, initially parents, then husbands, then husbands and children, but never just us. And considering our relationship is a core space between us, this is where it really fits to perfection.

A vanilla trip.... no occasion, no sight seeing, no frills, no add ons......just being together, just getting our 'selves' there minus all the other facets that make us, family, work, interests...the life of detail so to say. And that was reveletory. A space where magic happens.

We did what we love best, walked and talked. Walked and talked along the shore almost twenty kilometers a day, and in that process discovered that 'something great can get greater'.

We so lucked out in getting miles and miles of empty beach...to walk barefoot in the sand, with the waves lapping the feet

Not to miss our footsteps here

Stretched those boundaries in ways more than one... how else do we move out of comfort zone, how else do we bridge gaps that you first need to find, how else does growth happen.

The mind reached such uncluttered space that the aha's started to flow.

This is to say how we can by choice enter the unfrettered spaces to discover more of ourselves. Unfrettered is not as much goa, as it is within you. Goa and the ocean was the enabler, offering its varying facets....it's quiet, it's fun, its abundance, its beauty, it's relentlessness, it's resilience, it's power. And you soon see all of that reflected within. Seek and you shall find. Ask and you shall receive.

This is beginning to sound poetic and abstract to my own ears....know that that's but the surface of the experience.

Here's pictures of the less abstract...pictures in time and space

River Mandovi as we came in to land. I love catching rivers from flight...talk of different vantage points :)

Bridges over Mandovi and the Delta, where the river merges with the sea

From Airport to South Goa

Some yummy pakodas and mirchi bhajjis shared with Ibrahim (my cab driver) on the way from the airport to Varca beach, and also took back for vishakha of course (and lots of wine too:)

The Mahindra Resort at Varca, a lovely lush and green property bang on the shore. Thanks vishakha, was a lovely choice.

A huge python that crossed the path of our car one evening....it's an unclear picture but I had to put it in to preserve memory.

A couple of selfies :)

Sunburnt and Satiated