Goa Trip Part 3

Our activities the previous night went on late into the night and consequently we woke up late the next morning.

On our third day in Goa, we had little to do apart from catching a bus to Ramnagar in order to reach Dandeli. After asking around in Panaji City Bus Stand we found out that there’re buses which leave to Ramnagar every hour.

We decided to go to St. Francis Xavier’s Church as we had sometime at our disposal. Xavier’s church is located in Old Goa and is approximately 15kilometers away from Panaji city.
The ride to the church is pretty intriguing as you can observe the newer buildings of Goa slowly starts to fade away while the old red-tile roofed buildings of Old Goa begins to show.

St. Xavier’s church which was built in the 16^th century holds the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier in a casket. The chapel is huge with intricate designs on their walls. I found a notice in this church which read something like… ‘take photos of the church but not of people’. Weird! But anyway, I adhered to it and took pictures only of the relics inside the chapel.

The Casket which contains
the relics

It was already 3 in the afternoon by the time we were done with St. Xavier’s church. We headed back to Baga to our guest house which was 20 kilometers from Old Goa to pick up our luggage. After settling the guest house bill and bidding adieu to Mrs. N, we drove back to Panaji to return our Activas and board our bus to Ramnagar.

Departing Goa gave me a feeling of sadness as I was getting away from ‘The City of Night’! The beaches, the energetic night life, and the serene forts are some things which definitely call me back to Goa!

Our bus to Ramnagar left at 4.30 in the afternoon. Luckily for us, the three hour journey to Ramnagar was quite engaging. The conversation between the conductor of the bus and a guy who wished to relieve his bladder kept us entertained for quite a while during our journey. The bus driver finally agreed to stop the bus for 2 minutes and the entertainment ended.

We reached Ramnagar Bus Stand at a nippy 8 o’clock in the evening. The owner of the home-stay which we'd booked at Dandeli picked us up from the bus stand and we were 'home' after an hour's drive. There began the Dhandeli part of our 6 day trip. Little did I know then that Dandeli would surpass the fun we had at Goa!