December 13, 2023

Wednesday, 11:30 PM

Joie de Vivre Goa,

Boutique Villa Resort,

Candolim, Taluka Bardez,

District North Goa,

Goa, India

We followed the plan I talked about in yesterday’s post/newsletter, and left our place of stay to explore Goa a little after midnight, which means in the very early hours of today. The original plan was to just drive around the city and see how the night life is here. We hadn’t planned of entering any restaurant or cafe, but the plan changed while we were driving around. So we returned to our place of stay, where I changed from the pyjama and t-shirt I sleep in, into something a little better suited to visit a restaurant. I insisted on changing because I felt I was the worst dressed of the four of us. So I quickly slipped into the first decent set of clothes I found lying around and made a quick exit. 

We tried a restaurant but they did not have much on the menu. Then another, but by the time we were ready to place the order, they informed us that their kitchen was closed and all they could serve us were drinks. So we left. And then we found a pretty good place at about 1:30 AM, and they were glad to have us in. Not just that. They were also glad to play old Bollywood songs on our request. We ate and stayed there for quite a while. In fact, they had told us that their kitchen closed at about 3:15 AM, and it did close on time, but by then we had eaten all that we had to eat and needed nothing more from the kitchen. There was no other customers there except us. But the restaurant staff was so amazingly cordial that we stayed. 

One of the staff members sat at the computer and kept finding and playing our requests one song after another. We requested songs by Late Shri Mohammed Rafi sahab, Kishore Kumar, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and so on, and then we also heard a few songs from the film Zakhm (1998). It was such an amazing experience that we stayed there until about 4:30 AM even though the restaurant had closed at 3:30 AM already. The staff assured us that we could stay for as long as we liked and they would happily be at our service, and they were with visible pleasure. They seemed to be enjoying the Bollywood songs we were requesting them to play; and if they weren’t, which possibility is there even though remote, they acted just as well as any professional actor. One of them remarked, “Puraane gaano ki baat hi aur hai”, or some equivalent of the same in different words, for I might not be quoting him word for word, given that I am reporting it a while later and human memory for words is not very accurate though we are good at remembering the meaning and tone. The food here was also good. This place is Uptown Multi-cuisine Restaurant in Candolim, Goa.

We left Uptown at around 4:40 AM and were at our place of stay at about 5:15 AM, but slept at different times after 6:30 AM.

Having slept as late as we did, we got up late, but still I got up at around 11:00 AM. There was today’s Vlog to be worked upon. Our editor had stayed back, so he was up at his usual time. We worked on the Vlog until the evening.

Later in the evening, we went to Goa’s Morjim Beach, which is known for being a nesting beach for Olive Ridley Turtles and for that reason it is also called the Turtle Beach. It is easily one of the most calm and tranquil beaches of North Goa. Although we did not find any turtles there, we spent quite a bit of time at the Morjim Beach, staying there until about 9:30 PM, after which we went to another restaurant at Morjim Beach, called Tomato’s, to have dinner with Mummy Khurana and her two friends, who are visiting her from Delhi. 

At Tomato’s we were joined by Irshad and our editor, Sanket, and all nine of us had dinner there, after which we left for the villa resort we are staying at.