Unforgettable moments in Goa and Evening at Mandovi

The Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary also known as Mollem National Park is one of the most thickly grown forests of India and if I believe what the local guards said about the place that some of the areas of the forest are so dense with trees that it remains dark as no sunrays reach there.

The famous Salim Ali bird sanctuary is right inside this forest where you can watch hundreds of famous birds including fairy bluebird, golden oriole, greater Indian hornbill, Indian black woodpecker, drongo, emerald dove, Malabar grey hornbill. Oh, I don’t even remember all the names of all the birds now.

We did not stay there for long enough and started for our return journey. While passing through the place called I wished I would have brought my bag with me so I could have gone to my town which was close by from that place. But I realized it later that in the evening that had I gone back from that point I would have missed perhaps one of the best evenings of my life.

We had reached back Panaji by 6.30 in the evening and when going to our rooms we had decided to take our dinner together in a nearby restaurant so we decided to take a bath and go out at 7.30 again.

I came out at 7.30 after taking a bath and changing into a comfortable Indian dress of my choice Kurta and loose trouser. I was sitting in the lobby of the hotel looking at the headlines of the newspaper when the couple came out of their room.

As per our program we walked out of the hotel just on the bank River Mandovi in the center of Panaji city when I noticed a queue. Oh it hit me immediately it was for the famous one hour Goa Boat Cruise with lots of fun on the board with lots of eating and drinking (yes, drinking of all kinds of stuff from hard to very hard including Fenny the famous local product).

I had heard about that but never had a chance to enjoy that by then. The lady was bit reluctant in the beginning but finally agreed to join and when she saw a number of ladies on the upper deck of the boat, in fact there were more ladies and children on the upper deck than men (probably they were all on the lower deck where drinks were available).

It was fun all the way, everyone was allowed in fact invited to dance and sing and even boozing was allowed on the upper deck. The hosts of the program on the dimly lit stage sang wonderful Spanish, English, Punjabi, Portuguese and Hindi songs in the company of guest dancers from the crowd dancing Bhangra and or whatever one wanted to dance and I tell you children beat everyone when it came to dancing.

That was one of the most memorable day I had ever spent in Goa enjoying evening cruise, boating in Mandovi River listening Spanish and Portuguese songs watching dances and watching people booze. I tasted fenny danced Bhangra and had the best trip of Goa of my life.

Image source https://pixabay.com/en/forests-valley-nature-mountains-179269/