My memories of Palolem were of a beautiful, empty beach and hoping my friend didn't crash the scooter we rented. We'd come to celebrate a colleague's birthday and spent a couple nights.
Now 10 years later, the beach is lined with restaurants and shacks and hundreds of palm trees poking through. The number of palms is amazing and offsets the development, do it doesn't feel overwhelming.
We arrived on a Saturday of a holiday weekend. The beach was hopping and there was almost nowhere to stay. While I was sightseeing in Pantaji, my other half had walked half the beach to be offered 2 spots for over Rs. 3000 a night. Yikes! There had been a guy at the bus stop who'd mentioned Rs. 1500 and he found me shortly after I arrived. Babush Ocean Star (named for the uncle) has about 10 rooms, each with a balcony. He went down to Rs. 1400 for 3 nights, not much of a difference, but better than other places we'd seen.
The next 3 days were spent swimming, trying to get sunny side up eggs and real coffee for breakfast, reading the news and alternating between feeling inspired and in disbelief, doing some political action work, playing with a litter of puppies, swimming, eating fish curry and drinking beer, walking the length of the beach to explore, swimming while a giant red ball of a sun departed for the night, chatting with a cool dude C had met in Varkala. At 11pm sharp everything was silent. Until the elections on February 4th, there appears to be some sort of curfew, which makes the end of the night a bit stressful and all the restaurants want you off the beach and out ASAP.
Suggested activities:
- Swim: it is a great place to swim as the water is calm and the waves are miniscule.
- Kayak: we never got around to it, but early morning or right before sunset seem like great times to go for a spin. Rs. 100-200/hour
-River exploring: at the north end of the beach, there is a river. It is very peaceful and the light is lovely on the brightly painted boats right before the sun goes down. There are tons of little crabs that scurry into holes in the sand as you walk along. It is also possible to go in a boat in the river. We were told Rs. 500/person for 2, but this was pre-negotiation.
- Sunsets: the sky doesn't turn magical, but the dun itself is fiery red.
- Walk to other beaches: in 10 minutes south you can get to the tiny Colomb beach where fisherman keep their boats.
- Beach cleaning: while it's fairly clean, you can definitely find a stray water bottle or floating plastic and there isn't so much trash that it feels impossible. The guys at Cafe del Mar were cool with me adding to their trash although they could do a bit of a better job keeping their sand clean.
- Reading: a number of the spots have libraries where I assume you can grab a book.
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