India – Goa

So now we are coming to the tail end of my trip. As we were all pretty exhausted from trekking across India we were all pretty glad to have a couple of days with nothing planned.

We went in the pool until it was closed because of Corona virus concerns. My mother in law had a pedicure but the next day the Spa closed along with the gym because of Covid 19 precautions. Me and my husband went to the beach but were pretty much set upon immediately by hawkers wanting to sell us massages. Unlike like in Lefkas where there all Chinese women with boards saying what they can do; these are locals with only a bottle of coconut oil in their pocket so you can’t pick them out at all and avoid them. After a 2 minute trial which was in fact a 15 minute leg massage I retreated to my hotel.I paid him but not what he was asking as it was too much and he couldn’t enter the hotel to argue. I got the impression that he frequently gave massages to people on the beach who didn’t have money on them and later they gave him money as they felt bad.

The next day we went to a cafe that was halfway between the beach and the hotel with some Americans we met that we had discovered had mutual friends with us. They were much more adventurous than us so had been checking out the local area but they hadn’t found much besides a pizza place. It was as the hotel said in its documentation, a resort they had created out of nothing. Since there kids club and activities like archery had both seen better days and closed for health reasons they were unsure what to do. They had initially planned to tour southern India spending a lot of time in Kerala but since this was hit bad and Goa didn’t have any they had decided to stay put for the time being.

I also tried to find out where the nearest shop was and was told that they would need to organise a taxi to take us the 10 minutes to its location, wait while we shopped and take us back again. I decided against this with my previous experience of shopping in a service station being full of unpriced items so you never know whether your getting a good deal or not. I could also wait until Mumbai which was a much bigger town. I was surprised that the hotel didn’t have a shop selling items it didn’t provide. In Mexico there was and in Berlin there were corner shops but no such thing in India.

After a couple days of reading the newspaper at breakfast and checking social media as you do, we left for Mumbai having explored the rest of the resort and had drinks on the beach.

For the rest of the posts in the series look here:

India – Delhi (part 1)

India – Taj Mahal at Agra

India – Agra

India – Ranthambhore Tiger Sanctuary

Parsis and Zoroastrians

India – Jaipur

India – Udaipur

India – Mumbai

Mumbai airport