So… if you haven’t been following along, I just wrapped up four incredible weeks at my 300-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) program in Rishikesh, India.
It was a wonderful experience, but it was intense! It was basically non-stop 16-hour days of learning, which my middle-aged brain hasn’t really had to do in quite some time.
Which led me to a beach. In Goa.
But only after the worst airport layover experience I have ever had in my entire life.
Story time: When I originally planned my whole big trip to India, I intentionally bought my return ticket back to the U.S. for two weeks after the conclusion of my YTT program, knowing I would deeply regret it if I spent $1,600 on airfare to fly across the world, and didn’t venture outside of my ashram at all.
Ryan agreed to fly out separately from me and meet me in Rishikesh so the two of us could travel together for a few weeks before coming home.
While we didn’t have a firm itinerary for our two weeks, we’d tossed around a few ideas, and came up with the rough plan to stick to north India.
While I’m normally pretty big on pre-planning and advance booking, I took the Ryan Johnson approach here: I didn’t play anything for my time after YTT, figuring I’d wait until I got to India and see if any of the friends-I-had-yet-to-meet had suggestions for me, and then I’d just play it by ear.
Throughout my YTT program, my plans kind of evolved a bit. I got suggestions for Tosh and Leh, so Ryan and I decided to do that right after my program.
But then we realized that it’s a bit of a journey to get anywhere in the Himalayas, we only had two weeks to explore as much as possible, and we didn’t want to spend half of that two weeks just stuck in transit.
Also, I didn’t really pack for cold winter weather.
Also, flights were like, insanely expensive with 9-hour-long layovers.
And, finally, we realized that sticking to northern India kept us downwind of Delhi’s current air pollution crisis, which we’d both been struggling with quite a bit during our time in Rishikesh.
So, Ryan and I decided to head to Goa the day after my YTT program ended, with the intention of traveling from there to Gokarna in a few days and reevaluating our travel plans while on a beach.
Because, again, last-minute decision, we took about 30 minutes during our last night in Rishikesh to book a flight, Google “best cities in Goa,” look at hotels and make a booking.
During that research, I picked Anjuna. I read a few reviews saying that it — along with Candolim and Calangute — were great cities for tourists, and Ryan was easily able to book a nice-looking Marriott since he does the Bonvoy rewards program.
Although, we almost didn’t end up in Anjuna because of some ✨airport chaos✨!
I mentioned it several posts ago, but I am a very anxious traveler.
Like, if I have a 5 p.m. flight? I’m doing nothing that day. My entire day revolves around getting to the airport two hours before my flight.
Ryan, on the other hand, will cut it as close as he possibly can to boarding cut-off. He intentionally boards last. Not last in his boarding group — last. I don’t know how he doesn’t panic about running out of overhead bin space, but somehow, he does not.
Rewind to our flight to Goa. There aren’t any direct flights from Dehradun to Goa, so we booked a flight with a 60-minute layover in Delhi.
Our IndiGo flight had us arriving at and departing from the same terminal at Indira Gandhi International Airport. Should be an easy-enough transfer, right?
That’s where you would be wrong.
We arrived in Delhi only to find that our flight to Goa had been bumped up by 10 minutes, and that we had to go back through security…
And that line was long.
We sprinted to three different security checkpoints before we found the shortest line. Thankfully the airport workers were merciful, and when we flashed our boarding pass(es), allowed us to cut to the front of ticket scanning lines and to the front of the security screening lines.
I’d checked my bag (additional panic, because again, everything I travel with goes in my single backpack) so I didn’t have too much of a hassle getting through security, but Ryan’s bag was flagged about six times, and he was stuck rescanning while airport security agents pulled out various things: instant coffee, a chocolate bar, an electric toothbrush charger, etc.
In all the chaos, I’d grabbed both of our passports and sprinted to our gate. Indira Gandhi’s gates are weird in that there are multiple gates to get to your actual gate, so you’re supposed to scan your ticket at the first gate, and then again at the second gate.
I did not do that. I jumped over the first gate’s barrier and ran to the second gate to scan my boarding pass.
Then I realized Ryan was not behind me.
I ended up stuck in limbo. I couldn’t board the shuttle to get to the plan without Ryan, because I had his passport. And I couldn’t leave the vestibule between the airport and the shuttle to get to Ryan, because I had already scanned my boarding pass.
After THE MOST NERVE-WRACKING SEVEN MINUTES OF MY LIFE, Ryan appeared. He ran down the stairs and the two of us made it onto the last shuttle to our flight with two minutes to spare.
I have some serious grievances to air with the person who set up the double-security-on-a-50-minute-layover system.
Regardless, we made it on our flight, and landed in Goa at about 9 p.m.
We took a pre-paid taxi to our hotel (the Marriott Fairfield in Anjuna) and immediately passed out for our first night.
While we’d originally planned to spend two nights in Anjuna and then two nights in Gokarna, Ryan’s voice of reason went back to the whole do-we-really-want-to-spend-this-much-of-time-in-transit argument.
The answer was still “no.”
So, on our first morning in Anjuna, we both sat down on our balcony, drinks in hand, to hash out an actual itinerary for our trip, and to book as much stuff as possible.
That’s kind of how our two days in Goa went. We spent our mornings eating our hotel’s buffet breakfast and then sitting on our balcony planning, and spent our afternoons venturing out and exploring.
Our hotel was super, super nice, to be honest, and I had a really hard time leaving. It just felt like a cozy little luxurious cocoon after YTT, and I really enjoyed relaxing by the pool, or on our balcony, or in the pool.
But… there’s literally zero point in flying across the world and holing up in a hotel, so off we went.
We spent our first night exploring the area south of Anjuna. We went to lunch at Toro Toro, where I had the best shrimp curry of my life, and some ✨alcohol✨ for the first time in a long time since Rishikesh was a dry city and I (of course) didn’t drink at all at the ashram.
From there, we walked down to Baga Beach, which was… an experience.
As a (very pasty) foreigner, I had known to prepare myself for a little bit of ogling and staring while in India, but it was something else to actually experience that during my time on the beach. I was fully dressed the whole time (long baggy pants, a loose shirt with my shoulders and chest covered, big sunglasses… you can see the pictures in this post) and still received so many blatant stares. I never once stripped down to my swimsuit or anything.
While I was prepared for people to ask if they could take photos with me (it happened quite a bit in Rishikesh), I wasn’t prepared for the amount of people who didn’t ask, and just… did.
During our walk down Baga Beach to Calangute Beach, men pulled out their cellphones and started blatantly recording us. They would walk right up to us and record selfie videos with us. That part was… definitely weird and unexpected!
I’ve heard that staring — especially at things that look out-of-place, like the very pale redhead on the beach — is quite normal in Indian culture, but it’s definitely a little unnerving to actually experience it.
We’d planned to sit on the beach for a bit and read/ relax before watching the sunset, but ended up going home sooner rather than later. We didn’t really get to watch the sun set since it kind of just faded out as it lowered into the smoggy haze along the horizon.
We started walking back north, saying “no thanks no thanks no, not interested, but thank you” to about two dozen club promoters trying to solicit us into their venues along the way, and then we were off the sand and onto the pavement.
We’d read Google reviews of Baga Beach before going and we expected noise, crowds and parties, but I think we got a totally different experience than what we were expecting.
We stopped at some markets on the way home, grabbed gelato at Tiamo Gelato, and then spent the rest of our night drinking by and swimming in our hotel pool, which we had to ourselves.
Safe to say, we picked a different itinerary for day 2.
This time, we decided to go north. We started our day at Artjuna at the suggestion of two of my friends.
I loved Artjuna. It’s a hip combination restaurant/ marketplace/ music venue/ co-op. Ryan and I had lunch (an eggs benedict for him, a chia bowl for me) and watched a local band (Dropajaw) play for a bit while we looked around the displays and vendors stationed inside.
After Artjuna we went to Cream Choc for more gelato, and then went to Anjuna Beach.
Anjuna Beach was much nicer than Baga Beach, so it felt a lot like I’d redeemed my Goa getaway. Nobody stared at us or filmed us. We got a few curious glances understandably, but nothing that felt malicious in any way.
The two of us went to Elephant Beach Cafe for drinks and a smoggy sunset, and then walked back to our hotel.
We stopped at some shops and markets along the way before changing and heading out to dinner.
We had originally planned to go to the Baba Au Rhum restaurant right next door to our hotel, but apparently it closes early on Tuesdays.
Luckily, there’s a second location just a quick taxi ride north, so Ryan and I headed there.
It was a super cool restaurant. It’s a huge cavernous space with an outdoor ropes course and an indoor swimming pool.
While it was empty when we arrived, it quickly started filling up. It turns out it was the restaurant manager’s birthday party that night, so we got to talk to her and the restaurant’s owner for a bit after we finished our food.
Then, that was it. We took a cab back to our hotel so we could shower, pack and get ready for our 4 a.m. airport departure the next day.
A few more notes. When I was hastily researching Goa, I read a lot that north Goa is more for parties, and south Goa is more for family-friendly beaches. While I was originally looking at hotels in south Goa, Ryan convinced me that our hotel’s location (about a half an hour walk away from the beach) likely meant it wouldn’t be too problematic in terms of party noise, and luckily, he was right.
I really liked the beachy, boho, hippie and eclectic vibes of Anjuna. Everybody told me that southern India feels like a totally different country from northern India, and from the little bit of Goa I did get to see, I think they were right.
While I do wish Ryan and I had had a bit more time in Anjuna so we could check out the Wednesday market or some trance parties, and more time in Goa so we could venture outside of Anjuna and check out some of the architecture and surrounding nature (like Dudhsagar Falls), I’m glad we had a chill stay. A two-day hideaway in a nice hotel with some beach time and a few really nice meals was exactly what I needed after my YTT program.
I’m hoping I can come back to Goa in the future to check out a few more cities, though, so maybe I’ll eventually have a chance to visit those south beach towns and see some of that famed Portuguese-influenced architecture in Old Goa.
Anyway- Ryan and I are still on the move around India. We have longer than two days at our next stop, so hopefully we’ll get to cover more ground.
