To get to Cabo-De-Rama-Fort & Shree Gramdev Temple from Palolem you will need to hire a motorbike. Its mainly country roads but make sure you have an international licence before coming. The police here have roadblocks all the time and pretty much just want to extort you for money. We saw a roadblock every day of riding. If you’re lucky try to not stop or time yourself with a car or truck to give you cover. I was stopped once with Australian Car & Motorbike (C+R) and he let me go when I explained R class was a motorbike, But my Canadian friend wasn’t so lucky. So I really don’t know what the deal is but an International licence is worth it for insurance at the least. Sean had the proper International licence and had no issues. I just left mine in Australia which was no help for me.

CABO-DE-RAMA-FORT

The fort is on the tip there are 2 sides of oceans with spectacular views. There is also a church inside the compound. Entry was free and we were asked by a local upon entering if we wanted a guide which we declined. It’s definitely worth walking straight upon walking through the gate to enter far side. That is the view in panorama photo below.

The fort has some of the best ocean views seen in India. Worth the trip there if you close. But inside there is not much else interesting but a church inside.

Shree Gramdev Laxminarayan Temple

Village View on Motorbike to Above 2 Attractions

House Boat Cruise – Kerala

So part of our 3-day package was an overnight houseboat cruise. It was quite relaxing watching people go by there daily life bathing and washing their clothes in the river, to transporting a whole small boat of freshly harvested rice. There is a whole network of shops set up along the river and narrow canals that you can explore on smaller boats (not houseboats)

I’m not going to leave the details of who we booked our 3 day trip with because I highly don’t recommend them.

The Boat & Food

Room

The View

Watching Locals Go About Their Days

Periyar Tiger Reserve – Thekkady

So as a part of our terrible 3 day trip through Kerala, we arrived at a tiger park for a tiger boat cruise as it was marketed to us. Now don’t get me wrong, The place is beautiful, Just don’t set your expectations too high when it comes to seeing animals! There is a reason they hire out binoculars before getting on the boat. We saw some wild deer as well as a few birds. I had more fun going oohhh and ahhh and WOW! Whist looking into the scenery pointing my finger at nothing having people desperately trying to take photos of what I could see… When I asked the guide on the boat where are all the tigers will I see one? He just laughed and said they are in the jungle. By the way, he said it I don’t think he has seen a tiger there either.
Don’t let me talk you out of going, Just drop your expectations first.

Avoid taking food with you and keep drinks in a bag until on boat. There are wild monkeys hanging around the entrance and we will rob you. We witnessed a lady’s water bottle get snatched bitten through and thrown at her by a monkey. It was pretty funny but scary for her!

Random Animal Pictures

Yes its true. Cows wander freely through the streets everywhere in India.

That about sums up India for me. No real desire to return. I’m not going to complain about it. Just my impressions are. If you want to go and do Yoga or get in touch with your spiritual side. Yep go. Not a great place to party.

We wrote one other piece on India about the food check it out here

We traveled from Mumbai to Goa, which we stayed in Baga for 5 Nights with a day trip to Anjuna then Palolem for another 4 nights before heading deep south to Kerala.

I’m going to post everything in India all in this Blog posts which I will link together Food of India, Activities & Accommodation. The main reason being myself and the friends we travel with have no interest in returning to India at this stage in our lives without going into too much details on it. Anyway, back to the foodstuffs….

Wazwaan –
Kashmiri Restaurants – Mumbai

This restaurant is at the top because it was my favourite out of the whole 3-week trip. The food was all amazing and will be my positive food memory of India as a whole. We had the pleasure to dine here 2 times. The head waiter was very friendly with good English and the curries and naan bread were the best I have ever experienced. I also tried my first Indian desserts (as a take away as ate so much) from here one was a sweet carrot dessert called gar jar halwa and the other was caramel custard.

Spice Dreams -Baga

We ate here about 3 times because was 2 shops down from the Hilton DoubleTree & our apartment next door. The food was all very tasty. We either ordered the same in a different style or all Goan food is orange 🙂

Cuba – Palolem Beach

Madhu Restaurant – Agonda

Rahul’s Cooking Class – Palolem

This was quite an informative cooking session to one who has never attempted Indian food from scratch. It went for around 3 hours learn the basics of when to cook certain herbs and what is and what makes a good garam masala. Also, a secret to Goen food is the type of chilli, Which is Kashmiri chilli as is bleeds red colour into the food and is a mild spice with lots of flavours. Rahul was kind enough to email the recipes of the day to us as well as some others we can try. We have a video that will come in some time.

Dropadi Bar & Restaurant – Palolem

More expensive, Food was not very enjoyable. They have a good location first restaurant on the beach road

Hilton Double Tree – Baga

Got to be India’s best spicy chicken pizza!

Double Dutch -Arambol

Now after eating here I wish I never took lonely planets advice to dine here. I got food poisoning and was bed & toilet ridden for 3 days. It was horrible, the food and the aftermath! Arambol is where all the hippies hang out so they were probably too high to remember to cook or wash or something.

Other random food snaps