On Christmas Eve we checked into Manchester nice and early so that we could get 2 seats near the window. We hadn't flown with Thomson before but found the legroom to be adequate. The downside was that there were communal screens so the view wasn't great. It did say on our tickets that Thomson will be upgrading their longhaul fleet in May so hopefully it will then be on a par with First Choice - get your act together Monarch!
The flight was half an hour late leaving Manchester. The captain said that because we were arriving on Christmas Day the runway was opening half an hour later. The flight was OK and food not bad and it was a direct flight.
We landed at 6.30am on Christmas morning and found ourselves a queue to wait in until we could get through passport control. Surprisingly the baggage claim was fairly civilised but having checked in early, it was a wait until our bags turned up, being at the bottom of the pile on the plane. We let one of the porters help us to the transfer coach hubby won't pay for a taxi when a transfer is included. The porter's face was a picture when he was tipped in rupees. He said he wanted a pound instead because it was Christmas Day. Needless to say, it was rupees or nothing.
It was a fairly uneventful transfer to the Ticlo at Calangute. We booked a couple of months before travelling and only settled for the Ticlo because we knew where it was. We have stayed in 2* accommodation before at Christmas (Colonia de Braganza and Park Avenue) but this was by far the worst. We had the usual sitting room area, bedroom with minimal furniture and the bathroom was a bit grotty. We like a drink when we are getting ready to go out in the evening but had to defrost the fridge before we could make ice. We were on the ground floor so had a terrace rather than a balcony. The trouble was that there were fluorescent tubes lighting the pathway outside our room and our windows had frosted glass but no curtains in the bedroom. The sitting room with a high-up window had curtains but not the bedroom, strange.
After we had had a couple of hours sleep we went out to mooch around. We started by having brunch at the Redonda, one of our favourite places in Calangute because it's at the junction with Baga and Calangute and it's a great place to see the world go by. I can't remember where we ate that night.
After spending a night bright as day in our uncurtained bedroom I decided that we needed a curtain. We sellotaped my sarong to the window so that we had a bit of darkness at night. If we wanted to use the terrace we had to unstick our makeshift curtain to get at the doors. It was a couple of days before we could sit outside as we hadn't been provided with chairs but they turned up while we were out on the day we requested them so no problem there.
When still in the UK we had made an appointment with the Goan Estate Agency with a view to buying an apartment. So on the day after Boxing Day we turned up. After having a chat with us about why we wanted the apartment Roy first showed us the development at the Palmarinha. We decided it was too far away from town for us as we like to be within walking distance of the nightlife. Then Roy took us to Candolim to look at the Regal Park development near to the Highland Beach resort. A beautiful development of 78 apartments set around 3 swimming pools. It was love at first sight!
After four nights at the Ticlo our brother in law phoned to say that his family had arrived and taken possession of their apartment at the Highland Beach Resort in Candolim and he was going to see if there was another one free that we could use so that we were close by. So on Friday we checked out of the Ticlo and moved into a brand new 2 bedroom apartment at the Highland Beach and we were the first ever occupants - bliss!
A lot of mention has been made on this forum about the building work at the Highland Beach and we were able to watch from our balcony the ongoing construction of what was to become "our" development. Although we are now biased, if anyone is worried about the building work I don't think you would find it a problem. The new part of the Highland is now well away from the main buildings and "our development" is in between.
As we were with family and doing the flat-hunting thing, we only got 4 proper beach days during the whole fortnight. We tried the Beach Queen and one I can't remember the name of, but are always drawn back to the Big Banana in Baga which is where we went on our first holiday in Goa five years ago.
Places we ate at - Inferno, Alexandras, East Meets West - there were 16 of us so things were a little slow but no problem, Fisherman's Cove and Just Chinese. We also decided to give Britto's a try. We didn't rate the food at all and it's the only place we have been to that overcooked the prawns but what surprised us the most was the number of Indians. They must have comprised at least 80% of the customers. It reminded us of the sketch in Goodness Gracious Me about going for an English. In fact at a beach shack a couple of days later we overhead this Indian girl on the phone telling someone how fantastic it was and she was going again that night.
New Year's Eve was spent at Bobby's shack. It was quieter than expected but Spotty's next door was providing the music. After the comments about Spotty's the other day, we will probably give them a wide berth.
The journey back was fine apart from our taxi picking us up at 3 in the morning. We queued outside the airport until the doors opened at about 4.30am. We did make the mistake of putting a couple of bottles into Mr P's rucksack but didn't realise that the no liquids rule applied on the way back as well. He had the choice of either handing over the bottles or checking it in. He decided to check the bag in, actually it didn't occur to him that he could have relinquished the bottles so they took him back to the Xray machine pushing in front of the other people queuing there - sorry if that was you. We expected to arrive in Manchester to a soggy rucksack full of glass and honeybee but everything landed in one piece.
We are now planning our next trip in April.
Thanks for reading.
