GETAWAYS IN GOA

You will never get tired of the beaches or the temples or the churches at Goa in India, but just in case, you want to try something different, then there are many getaways in Goa, India.

FORT NEAR TIRACOL

Drive along the full length of Goa's 130 km coast line and when you come to the last beach of Goa in India, Arambol, just look across the Tiracol river and you will find a pretty little fort which looks as if it has come out alive from a fairy tale. This fort has now been converted into a hotel.

To reach this fort at Goa in India, you will have to take the road which winds up through a little settlement of comfortable Goan cottages: wild lush gardens, coconut palms throwing dappled shadows on the red tiled roofs. After a slight uphill-climb, you reach the little Fort-hotel run by a husband-and-wife team who promises to make your stay a memorable one.

A beautiful little Goan church dominates the central court around which the fort of Tiracol rises: a living church full of light and quiet elegance. Cross the court and walk up the narrow stone stairs through short passages into split level rooms which follow the contours of the headland: old furniture, superb views over the river and the beaches and out to the blue horizon of the sea. The Portuguese had sailed in from there, established themselves in the old conquests like this one, taken over an existing outpost, converted it to a fort to repulse the latest technique of attack.

Tiracol gives an insight into the attitudes of the old colonials; invading Iberians determined to maintain their hold on the seemingly inexhaustible cornucopia of India.

WILD LIFE OF GOA
There is this little Bondla Sanctuary at Goa in India with its unique wild life rehabilitation centre which is a major tourist attraction. Here the animals which have been orphaned or injured, wander into inhabited areas where they get tender loving care. And this way they, thrive. There has been a population explosion of porcupines who now rustle around with their usual, bad-tempered bustle. However, Bondla's greatest attraction is its profusion of birds. In twenty minutes you can spot 11 different species including a Grey Hornbill.

FORESTS IN GOA
Thirty per cent of Goa, India, is covered with dense forests and though tigers and elephants do wander into the 240 sq. km of the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa, they don't stay for long: possibly because there isn't enough of their favourite food available or perhaps because centuries of hunting by the Portuguese had built in an instinctive fear for these forests among the larger animals. However, if lucky, you can spot Indian bison, the Gaur, in the forests of Molem in Goa, a part of this large sanctuary.

If you are a lover of greenery, then the forests in Goa, India, are definitely going to interest you. Goa jungles vary from moist deciduous to evergreen. Giant trees roped with lianas and decorated with hosts of epiphytes like orchids, tower into the sky. The undergrowth in this Goan forest is so thick that an army of wild animals could have been lurking inside hidden from one's eyes. Very often, those creeper-palms entwined up the trunks of their hosts seeking their place in the sun. You feel lost in a civilization of vegetation, a vast self-perpetuating environment. This forest of Goa in India gives you a feeling of being the first human being to visit this jungle.

WATERFALL IN GOA
Once out of the dense forests of the sanctuary in Goa, India, you can emerge into the dramatic Goan valley of Dudhsagar. A tributary of the Mandovi river cascade down for 600 metres. Its water gushes under a railway bridge and foams white towards the spectators. If you cross the bridge by train you will chug over the mid-point of the highest cascade and, if the wind is right, you'll feel the spray in your compartment. But if you see the falls from below, this 'ocean of milk' which is what Dudhsagar means, seems to be pouring out of the sky!