It was the month of June and both me and my wife were getting restless. Frequent travel is an addiction and it so happens that if we are in Hyderabad for a few weeks, we start yearning for a vacation. This time, a random search of flights gave us a nice price for Goa, and pronto we booked air passage for a four-night trip.
June is supposed to be peak monsoon in Goa, and we were not in mood for a place from where sea is at a distance. This is where research took over. We located couple of places and finally zeroed on to Bogmallo Beach Resort, located at a beach only 6 km from Dabolim airport. We negotiated an off-season rate of Rs 7,200 per night inclusive of breakfast and booked the place for four days. Pre-check of weather told us that there was going to be rain during these days, but not at full fury.
We took a flight from Hyderabad and reached Dabolim airport around noon. The pre-paid taxi counter was prompt to arrange a cab for Bogmallo beach for Rs 370. We passed through couple of green villages and were soon at the hotel lobby.
The resort has six floors and is bang on the beach, by which I mean the sand starts from the edge of the resort. All the six floors have sea facing rooms, and you almost look down from the balcony to the sea below. The top two floors were under renovation, and we chose Room No 409 on the fourth floor. The room and especially the balcony gives a 180 degrees’ view of the sea. As we found out on a clear evening, you have an excellent sunset view from all the rooms.
The hotel also has a nice relaxing area with a swimming pool where you can just sit and relax with a nice view of the sea. One of the restaurants Coconut Grove has a glass side where you get complete sea view. Beyond the restaurant, there are some sea facing cottages as well.
Lunch was at the restaurant on the lobby. We had a coconut based Goan Prawn Curry with rice. Evening we went to the beach itself and hung around. Bogmallo beach is not very long, with beach front restaurants dotting one side. Late evening it started raining, and we scrambled back to the hotel.
One thing peculiar about rains during our trip was that it came down suddenly and came down hard. And it always stopped after 15-20 minutes. This happened many time during the four days we were there. We had planned a relaxing holiday and expected much more rain than we faced.
For dinner we had Squid Fry and Rawa Prawn Fry at the hotel, pairing them with Feni-Based Cocktails. The squid was not upto our expectation while the prawns were good. The cocktails were strong and gave a happy buzz. We decided to try out a few beachfront restaurants from the next day.
Goan thali is something we can never miss out in Goa. During my earlier visits, I had tried out Gomantak Thali as well as the Goan-Portuguese dishes at various locations from Anjuna to Palolem. This time, I was advised by one of the hotel staff to visit Antique Mardol at Verna (they have two other branches in Panjim and Ponda) to try out their Seafood Thali.
As we entered the restaurant (about 15 km from Bogmallo) we noticed an ad by the great Sachin Tendulkar saying that it is his favourite thali place in Goa. The Seafood Thali was priced at Rs 375 and included three types of fishes, plus crab, squids, prawns and sea shells all for a price of Rs 450 – and each dish tasted different. One was Xacuti, the other green Cafrael and the third one was Ambotik and so on. There was a large Surmai Rawa Fry too. It was easily the best meal during this trip.
After the meal, we travelled a distance to a place called Usgaon near Ponda to visit the Ramakrishna Math. The temple is located in a green surrounding inside a village. It is heartening to see Ramakrishna Mission working at every nook and corner of India.
It was evening by the time we came back. We headed to Filomena’s another recommended place for their Rawa Prawn and Chorizo Fry along with some Goan beer. The Rawa Prawn here was even better than the previous night. The chorizo fry was the sausage crushed into pieces, and cooked in oinion and tomato.
Over the next couple of day, we visited the beach, walked around the village and tried couple of more food places in Bogmallo. At Joet’s we savoured the Goan Sausage along with Squid Fry. The Goan sausage here was spicy and tangy, I enjoy this variant immensely.
Another place we loved for seafood was Claudis Corner, a small shack inside the village. This was unfiltered Goan food. We really drooled over their Surmai Masala Fry and came back for some lovely Vindaloo on the last day.
The four days at Bogmallo was absolute bliss. We came with zero expectation, and this turned out to be one of our best trips to Goa. We eschew peaceful places and Bogmallo in monsoons provided us just that opportunity. Less crowds during off-season and the untainted sea was completely Godsend. The weather Gods were kind. Adding to it was some lovely rustic and untouristy Goan food. As we headed towards Dabolim on the last day we could not but feel a bit sad. Bogmallo we will come back.
Hotel location:
Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa
Call 9168628472