If you continue driving towards Panaji, the next beach is Agonda. It. s long and lonely, fringed with palms and casuarinas and dominated by a large hill to the south. However, it. s not safe to swim out too far here. There are no shops or other facilities on this beach: so carry all you need.

Cavclossim

If you leave Mabor behind you, you could turn into the casuarina-shaded beach of Cavelossim. It. s a fishing beach which ensures a good supply of fresh seafood and which in turn could account for the fair sprinkling of shacks-on-hire. The beach seems to shelve rather steeply and visitors should be careful of swimming here.

Mabor

Next, on your journey north, is Mabor: very beautiful, very clean and, in spite of warning notices put up by a luxury beach hotel, it is a public beach. All beaches in India are public beaches. Private enterprise has, however, responded well to the needs of visitors: there are beach umbrellas and chairs and tourists happily broiling themselves in the Goan sun.

Palolem

If you drove in from the southern state of Karnataka and wanted to discover the nearest, reasonably well-known Goan beach, the chances are that you. d be directed to Palolem. It. s a beach of white sand facing a blue bay between two headlands. The little wooded islands on the northern headland are interesting, and if you. re interested, try to persuade one of the fishermen to ferry you across. They do offer to take you out to spot dolphins. Tourists have at last discovered Palolem and so there are a few shacks selling seafood snacks, souvenirs, and clothes of the shapeless, bright, informal kind. Panaji, the capital, is more than 70 km away.

Varca

Though Mabor, Cavelossim, and the next three beaches are really a single strand, they are treated as separate beaches because of the villages they were once associated with. Thus the next one north, Varca, may in time develop a character of its own. For the present, it. s really an extension of the others. It does, however, have deep rows of casuarinas and is long, clean, and quite lonely.