I came to Goa for 2-3 weeks with Gaurav. Since Srijan had an office here, it was a long pending trip.

While Gaurav was working, I intended to cover Goa as much as possible. Visited beaches 3 days in a row, Benaulim twice and Varca once.

Looking at my determination to travel; luck lady smiled and I got an invitation from Goa Tourism to witness Bonderam Goa festival with them in Divar island. Since I never attended any Goan event I got really excited on this opportunity. Thanks to Jai it was a wonderful day spent all together.

Visit to Meera Mar beach

On saturday around 12:30 pm we left our guesthouse for the festival. It was raining all over south Goa. We hired a local cab, which proved to be pretty expensive, I admire the flexibility Ola and Uber gives to travellers. Wish Goa tourism bring them back. At Meera mar we took a break to have our lunch before visiting the beach.

Meera mar beach unlike other beaches we visited (Benaulim and Varca) was decently crowded with non-goans. I think that’s one clear difference one can see between north and south goa. It was much dirtier than other beaches as well. We took a nice long afternoon walk and as usual I took some pictures.

Shot a video of the crowd at Meera Mar too. Will upload it soon.

Meera mar had some lovely view of an island (not sure which one). Tides were also higher comparatively with other beaches in south.

Ride to Divar island

After an hour break we started again to Divar island on a ferry. Ferries were quite frequent unlike my experience in Andaman and within minutes we loaded our car in the ferry.  Ferry ride, was short and sweet. In 10 minutes we reached at Divar. I took lots of selfies on Ferry.

https://instagram.com/p/6rwq_4pMsf/?taken-by=kajalmishra

Divar island was looking very colorful with differently colored flags all around. My eyes were blooming with curiosity to see the bonderam festival of Goa. I also bought a red flower tiara from a local guy there. It complemented my red white Gingham dress perfectly.

When we reached the festival we realized it was way too crowded, I guess we were not prepared for that. With lovely Goan songs being played it was hard to control on not been able to see the event. I am still singing that tune, La la la la …

Thanks to Jai and Goa tourism people we got some very nice seats to view the festival. Different groups belonging to different communities were presenting their collection. Every group had different theme, different dance and different costumes.

It looked like there was no age limit, I saw people from 5 yrs to 60 yrs dancing in the festival. It was a rally event with different Goan activities like Fish market, Farming, Carpenter scene., Plumber scene etc.

This was the 32nd Bonderam festival and had banners written “Biggest Monsoon Festival of Goa”. This was the first Goan festival I attended and it make me love Goa so much more. Goa Chief minister ( Laxmi Kant Parsekar) who was the chief guest acclaimed it to be world’s best festival.

Bonderam festival shows why Goa is a completely different place when compared to other cities of India. All over people were full of energy and excitement. After 2hrs while I was tired, the energy in the crowd was still going on. Excitement was still the same.

At last at 9pm we decided to come back to our guest house, while we are back but our heart was still at the festival with the awesome Goan music runing in background La la la la la…

Thumbs us to Goa tourism on treating us so well, we loved our conversation with the driver while going back. He was so determined on not maligning Goa impression on the tourists (there was some problem with the taxis availability). He was treating us like childs and telling us not to be very adventurous. I respect the attitude.

Who says Goa is amazing only in winters. I am sure people saying that never witnessed Goa closely in monsoon, there’s so much in Goa that people keep missing. Next time anyone planning a trip in monsoon, should definitely look at Goa and witness beautiful Bonderam festival.

I hope you enjoyed this post and saw Bonderam festival with my eyes.

<3

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