Calangute Beach
 Calangute is
Goa's busiest and most commercialized resort, and the flagship of
the state government's bid for a bigger slice of India's
package-tourist pie. In the 1970s and early 1980s, this once
peaceful fishing Village epitomized Goa's reputation as a haven
for hedonistic hippies.
The road from the town to the beach is lined with Kashmiri-run
handicraft boutiques and Tibetan stalls selling Himalayan curios
and jewellery. The quality of the goods - mainly Rajasthani,
Gujarati and Karnatakan textiles - is generally high. Haggle hard
and don't be afraid to walk away from a heavy sales pitch - the
same stuff crops up every Wednesday at Anjuna's flea market.
The beach itself is nothing special, with steeply shelving sand,
but is more than large enough to accommodate the huge numbers of
high-season visitors.
To escape the hawkers, head fifteen minutes or so south of the
main beachfront area, towards the rows of olf wooden boats moored
below the dunes. In this virtually hawker-free zone, one'll only
come across teams of villagers hauling in hand nets at high tide
or fishermen fixing their tack under bamboo sun shakes.
Cavelosim Beach
 Sleepy
Cavelossim, straddling the coast road 11-km south of Colva, is
the last major settlement in southwest Salcete: its only claim to
fame. A short way beyond the village's picturesque church square,
a narrow lane veers left across an open expanse of paddy fields
to the Cavelossim-Assolna ferry crossing near the mouth of the
Sal River.
If one is heading south to Canacona, turn left off the ferry and
carry on as far as Assolna Bazaar, clustered around a junction on
the main road. A right turn at this crossroads puts you on track
for Canacona.
MABOR
Carry straight on at the junction just past the square in
Cavelossim and one'll eventually arrive at Mobor, where Colva
beach fades into a rounded sandy spur at the mouth of the Assolna
River. This would be an exquisite spot if it weren't the site of
South Goa's largest, and most obtrusive, package tourist
enclave.
Crammed together on to a narrow spit of dunes between the surf
and estuary, the holiday inns and beach resorts combine to create
a holiday camp ambience that has as little to do with Goa as
their architecture
Chapora Beach
A Leisure Paradise
Crouched in the shadow of a Portuguese fort on the opposite,
northern side of the headland from Vagator, Chapora, 10-km from
Mapusa, is a lat busier than most north coast villages. Dependent
on fishing and boat building, it has, to a great extent, retained
a life of its own independent of tourism. The workaday
indifference to the annual invasion of Westerners is most evident
on the main street, lined with as many regular stores as
travellers cafes and restaurants.
It's unlikely that Chapora will ever develop into a major resort,
either. Tucked away under a dense canopy of trees on the muddy
southern shore of a river estuary, it lacks both the space and
the white sand that have pulled crowds to Calangute and
Colva.
Chapora Old fort
 Chapora's chief
landmark is its venerable Old Fort, most easily reached from the
Vagator side of the hill. At low tide, one can also walk around
the bottom of the headland, via the anchorage, and the secluded
coves beyond it, to big Vagator, then head up the hill from
there.
|
