For two years in a row I'd ridden up the western coast to Goa on a motorcycle, and somewhere along the way it had become a tradition. By the third year I didn't need a reason to do it again — just the dates on the calendar and a vague nod from my own better sense. What was different this time was the vehicle. The previous two loops had been done on a BMW F900XR, with all the romance and physical accounting that a motorcycle imposes. This one was going to be done in a Toyota Fortuner.
It was a strange feeling to load up a car for what had previously been a bike trip. No tank bag, no riding jacket, no chain lube tucked into a side pocket. Just two duffle bags in the boot, a puncture kit and an air pump — the way most road trips in the rest of the world begin. I'd be doing the first leg solo. Krishnaraj, who'd done the second half of last year's loop on his Himalayan, was going to fly in by train mid-way and pick up the second half with me — this time as a passenger, not on his own bike.
Cochin to Gokarna in a single push
The plan, the night before, was modest enough: drive from Cochin to Mangalore on day one, sleep there, and continue to Goa on day two. I left at 5:30 in the morning on the 6th of November, the streets of Cochin almost empty, and pointed the car north along NH66.
The coastal highway is a road I've now seen in three different ways — from a bike helmet, from a bike helmet again, and now from behind a steering wheel — and each version is its own thing. From the saddle the road is weather and noise and small terrors. From inside the Fortuner it is hours of quiet, the air-conditioning humming, podcasts playing, and the country sliding past the window with a kind of polite distance. I'm not going to pretend one is better than the other. They are different rides.
I reached Mangalore around two in the afternoon, which was several hours earlier than the plan had assumed. I sat in the car for a moment in a roadside dhaba's parking lot and did the obvious arithmetic. If I was already in Mangalore by two, there was no real reason to stop there. Gokarna — the next natural stop on this route — was another four hours up the coast, and I'd be there by sunset. So instead of checking into a hotel I drove on.
I rolled into Gokarna around 6:45 in the evening and checked into Namaste Cafe, the same place I'd stayed at on the previous two trips. It's a beautiful, slightly hippie property right above Om Beach — clean rooms, an open-air restaurant on the cliff edge, and the kind of view that justifies any detour. The repeat-customer feeling was strong. The staff didn't quite remember me, but the bed felt familiar.
Up to Vagator
The next morning I had a slow start, breakfast at the cafe, and got on the road around mid-morning for the last leg of the drive north. Gokarna to Vagator is one of the prettier stretches of the coastal highway — bridges over wide river mouths, paddy fields, the sea appearing and disappearing on the left. Somewhere along the way I crossed the New Zuari Bridge, one of those modern Indian infrastructure pieces that genuinely impresses you on the way over it.
I reached Vagator early in the afternoon and checked into White Flower Cottages, a small, very Goan property tucked into a lane off the main road. Low buildings, an inner courtyard with a pool, palms everywhere, and the unmistakable November-in-Goa feeling of nothing in particular needing to happen.
The next two days, before Krishnaraj arrived, were a small experiment in doing as little as possible. I read, I walked to the beach, I had long lunches at the shacks. I'd put off washing the car since leaving Cochin, and after two days of coastal dust the Fortuner needed it badly — so I dropped it at a small roadside place around the corner and walked back. There is something quietly satisfying about handing over a dirty car and walking off to do nothing in particular for an hour.
Krishnaraj arrives
Krishnaraj reached Madgaon Junction by train on the morning of the 10th, and I drove down south Goa to pick him up. From the station we drove back towards Vagator the long way — through Panaji, mostly, because there are worse ways to spend an afternoon than driving aimlessly through old Goa.
The one stop we actually built the route around was the Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church in Panaji. I'd wanted to see it in person for years — ever since I'd first noticed it, as a kid, in the Hindi film Josh. The criss-cross staircases, the white wedding-cake facade, the way the church seems to lift slightly off the hillside — it had been sitting in the back of my head since the late 90s, and somehow on three previous Goa trips I'd never actually made the time. This year I made the time. It earns the postcard reputation.
On the drive back to Vagator we passed the famous floating casinos on the Mandovi river — we didn't go in, but we slowed down enough to take a proper look. They are an unmistakable feature of the Panaji skyline now, lit up like small floating cities by evening. We made it back to White Flower in the early evening and went straight out for the rest of the routine.
The Vagator evening routine, for me and Krishnaraj, has now also become a kind of tradition. Mango Tree bar first, every time. It's a long-running place just off the main road — mango-painted walls, a Heineken sign in the corner, friendly staff, and exactly the right level of nothing-very-special. We sat there for a long time talking about nothing important. I think that's most of what we go back for.
Later in the evening we walked over to Paulo's Bar, which is its own kind of institution — a low pink shack with the gable lit up by fairy lights, the inside walls covered in band posters and yellowing black-and-white photographs of regulars who've been coming for decades. It's one of those places that exists almost entirely on accumulated history. The drinks at Paulo's are the other half of why we keep going back — the kind of place where the cocktails arrive looking like they've thought about it.
South to Palolem
On the morning of the 11th we packed up and drove south. The plan was to spend our last Goa night at Palolem, the long crescent beach down south near the Karnataka border — quieter than the north, very different in feel, and somewhere I'd wanted to spend at least one night for a while.
On the way we made a slight detour to Curlies, the long-standing beachfront shack at Anjuna. It used to be a fixture of the Goa nightlife circuit, and while the place has changed shape several times over the years it's still worth a look. We didn't stop long — just enough to walk through, see the beach from there, and get back in the car.
From Anjuna we drove the long way south, picked up the highway, and reached Palolem in the early afternoon. We'd booked a beachside cottage right on the sand — the kind where you open the door of your room and the beach is, quite literally, the next surface your feet touch. It is a slightly absurd setup, and slightly absurd is exactly what you want from a Palolem stay.
We had a long, slow lunch at one of the shacks — grilled fish, cold beer, the sea about ten metres away. By evening the entire beach was doing the thing Palolem is famous for: the long flat stretch of wet sand starts catching the colour of the sky, the candles on the shack tables get lit, and the whole place goes quiet in the way only the right kind of evening can.
The long drive home
We started back early the next morning. The plan was to make Calicut by evening — a long day, but doable, and Calicut had its own reason for being on the route. My close friend Ajit and his wife Jeeta were having a wedding reception there that evening, and the venue happened to be right next to the hotel we were stopping at anyway. The route had quietly arranged itself around an obligation that didn't feel like one.
This was the first day we drove in shifts. With one of us at the wheel and the other dozing in the passenger seat, the long stretches went down easily — certainly more easily than they would have on two bikes. Somewhere on the Karwar stretch we drove through one of the long tunnels that the new coastal highway cuts through the hills, and the inside of the tunnel had the particular sound that only a long, mostly-empty tunnel can produce.
Somewhere along the route we also had to make our first proper Fortuner-specific stop — a top-up of AdBlue. Modern diesel SUVs require it for emissions, and the tank wanted refilling. We pulled into a small roadside place — "Shree Shyam Motors", in big blue letters — that did nothing else, and were on our way again in fifteen minutes. It was the kind of stop a bike trip never asks of you. I quietly added it to the list of small new things this trip was teaching me.
We reached Calicut in the evening, checked in, and cleaned up. My close friend Ajit and his wife Jeeta had a wedding reception to attend in town that evening, and our hotel happened to be on their way back to Cochin afterwards — Ajit is from Cochin too, so this worked out neatly. Once the reception ended, they swung by our hotel and we had a couple of drinks together at the bar. It was good to see them, and good to introduce Krishnaraj to both of them properly — the kind of small social bridge a road trip occasionally builds without trying. They had a driver and were heading on to Cochin the same night, so they didn't stay long. We sat at the bar for a while longer after they left and then turned in. It had been a long day in the car, even with the shifts.
One last stop
The drive from Calicut to Cochin the next morning was the short, familiar last leg — the road I've driven hundreds of times, in every weather, in every mood. We were home by evening, which gave us time for the small detour Krishnaraj insisted on.
Krishnaraj is, in his own words, a foodie. He'd been hearing about Thomsun Fruits for months — a small shake shop near East Fort, Thrissur, that has somehow become Instagram-famous in the local circuit. The hook is straightforward: fresh fruit, a good blender, a long handwritten Malayalam menu of shakes, and prices that have not yet caught up with the fame. We pulled off the highway, found the shop after some asking around, and ordered two.
I had the mango shake; Krishnaraj had the pineapple. Both arrived as proper Thrissur-style shakes — thick, generous, layered, more dessert than drink — and we drank them standing on the pavement next to the shop itself, the way you're supposed to. The mango was the better of the two. Krishnaraj will tell you the pineapple was. We've agreed to disagree.
We were back in Cochin by evening of the 13th, the trip closed. The Fortuner went into the driveway, the bags went into the house, and the routine resumed as if none of it had happened.
The numbers
It comes to roughly 2,400 kilometres of driving across eight days, three states, and the same coastal road I now know better than most roads anywhere. Two of those days were near-full days at the wheel; the rest were the easy in-between kind, where the car barely moved and the point of the day was somewhere else.
The third year of doing roughly the same trip has its own quiet rewards. You stop trying to optimise it. You skip the things you've already done, you go back to the things that worked, you let small new traditions form around the old ones. The bar you go to on the first evening becomes your bar. The hotel becomes your hotel. The shake shop you tried once becomes the reason you take the Thrissur detour every time.
I'll do this drive again next November. I don't know yet whether it'll be on the bike or in the car — possibly the bike, just so I'm not letting the saddle skill rust. But Gokarna, Vagator, Mango Tree, Palolem, the shake stop at Thrissur — those, by now, are fixed points. Whatever else changes, those are coming with me.
Driven in November 2025 in a Toyota Fortuner. Route: Cochin → Gokarna → Vagator (Goa) → Palolem → Calicut → Cochin. If you've driven this loop or are planning your own, I'd genuinely love to hear about it — reach me through the contact page.
