Where to stay in Goa?

PALOLEM BEACH GOA? WHERE TO STAY?

• Hi. Planning to go to Goa in first week of October. Want to Stay at Palolem Beach because of its white sand, blue waters n dolphins. What are my options? Where can i stay? Please help me soon, i need to make bookings.

• Answer:

  stay the hell out of palolem if you want clean, uncommercialized, peaceful environment. i don't know what you read about palolem, but it is nothing like it was 10 years ago (when you could indeed enjoy white sand, blue water and see dolphins). it is crowded with wall to wall of ugly accomodation and food places. extremely polluted and very noisy. forget about dolphins going anywhere near this hell. goa, in general, is losing it, and is catering these days mostly to fat rich americans and europeans. there are still some beautiful spots left, but they're hard to find. for a beautiful beach environment, that is only now stating to get discovered by the mass tourists, i'd recommend checking out gokarna, about an hour south of palolem (by train), in karnataka state. the small town is very nice and there are four beautiful beaches just south of town. the nicest, in my opinion, is paradise beach, the "last" one. i would avoid the second beach, om beach, which is full of aggressive macho israelis straight out of the army. be aware that at the start of october there might still be some rains lingering here and there from the monsoon season so the sky won't be totally clear. you'll get deep blue sky from the end of october till next may. and no, you don't need to make bookings in advance anywhere in india (unless you're staying at 5-star hotels. if you do, you might as well stay home and not go to india). a word of advice to make life easier on you, before going to india - leave your american lifestyle and mindset at the airport. it totally doesn't fit india and will save you a lot of suffering. go without any concepts or judgements of how things should be, otherwise you won't survive. yes, goa is a lot more westernized then the rest of india, but is still very very different from everything you're used to in america. in short, people are actually living life there and have an immediate connection to nature (outside the cities). not anything like the synthetic life and the car culture in america.