It is that time of year again, when weather in most of India is great and we love to visit our family and see some of Incredible India!
Our tickets are booked for December and luckily we are touching Goa even this year. It reminded us our last year vacation in Goa at around same time. Goa is a popular vacation spot internationally famous for beaches & nightlife. But travelling with toddler doesn't allow much of night life, so our Goa tourism involved lot of eco-tourism and we were totally satisfied about it. Rather this part of Goa sightseeing is still off the beaten and picking up popularity locally and internationally.
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| Elephants in Sahakari Spice Farm |
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| Clockwise- Black pepper, Nutmeg, Clove, Chilies |
The best of our trip was visiting Sahakari Spice Farm in Ponda. Being Indians we love using spices in our food, but never knew much about where they come from. So it was a great delight to take educational tour to know more about spices. I didn't even know that Indian bay leaf comes from cinnamon tree. One of the big attraction for my son in spice farm was elephants. They have kept few elephants, you can also bath them in the stream flows through the farm. At the end of our spice farm tour, we had the most tasty spicy meal in Goa!
I would highly recommend visit to this spice farm, it's educational and fun. Their trained staff tell us lot of interesting facts about spices. And you get to go up close with these fresh spices, you don't even recognize them.
Rest of our days obviously we relaxed on beaches, played in sand, collected lots of shells and soaked in waters. Saw lots of interesting insects, fishes, starfishes and what not. When you don't have to worry about time, it's so much fun to observe small insects with your kids and go behind them.
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| Sun, Sand and much more... |
To add some thrill, one day we decided to walk to the end of beach and explore other side of the small stream meeting sea on that beach.
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| The stream we crossed & hiked the hill, Dead sweet-water fish |
As we came near the stream, we saw lot of fishes were lying dead on beach. Obviously they were sweet water fish from the stream. As soon as they enter salt water of sea, they don't know how to survive and once they are dead they are washed on shore. We also saw tiny fish in stream swimming opposite the water at the mouth of stream. They were struggling hard to save their life but were not moving much. We crossed the stream through knee high water, there was little force of water, but we felt great when we reached other side of stream. We walked the hill till we reach a point where we did not find it safe to walk with our son in arms. So we returned back. But seeing the busy beach from this peaceful and secluded side was interesting.
Goa is a fun place, but there are so many interesting things there which are still to be explored. We decided to do that in our next trip. So this time, we are going to stay on a farm, not exactly in Goa but very close to it. And I promise this time I won't take a year to write about it ;-).
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| Goa |
