I apologize for the photos—they are just whatever I had on hand that was somewhat relevant to the topic, taken on the fly without any intention of publishing them. It will get better!
Spending the winter on the shores of a warm sea has been a long-held dream of mine, and I already tried to do it once in Samui. The test drive only lasted a month, but I came to some important conclusions. The main one is that it’s awesome!
And now, having worked remotely for quite some time, I decided to discover this popular Indian state for myself. Why not? I’ve never been to India before, and that’s reason enough. Plus, I wanted to understand what everyone finds in this small (by Indian standards) piece of land sandwiched between the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. What is this mysterious Goa syndrome and how contagious is it compared to coronavirus or rotavirus? Is it possible to work remotely normally, or will you immediately get tropical brain syndrome?
Indian Visa
You need one, in any case. Whatever news you read about visa-free travel to India, it’s all just at the level of discussions and proposals, and only for group trips.
Visas are issued through a special Indian government website. There are three options: one month, one year, and five years. The first two cost $40 each, and the five-year visa costs $80. It seems obvious which one is better to apply for, but I was advised not to be too bold on my first visit to the country and to ask for a one-year visa.
Telegram channels were quite helpful, it all works, and for a small additional fee (on average about 15–20 dollars), they will help you apply for it. This is relevant and even recommended for those who do not want to fill out the form on the website.
I wanted to see the application form for myself, what’s so scary about it, and I have a foreign bank card. The application form is really impressive, several pages of different questions. But everything is quite simple and understandable if you can read English even a little. The only caveat is that the checkbox for having relatives in Pakistan is checked by default, so don’t forget to uncheck it.
A day later, you will receive a notification by email that your visa is ready. You need to enter your passport and application number on the website and download the document. It is best to save it to your phone right away so you can show it at the border and at the airport when checking in for your flight.
Yes, an important point: the visa is valid from the date of application, so it makes sense to apply for it a few days before departure. But just before I started the application process, a friend of mine, who had traveled to many countries, was denied a visa. Apparently, she didn’t uncheck the box about Pakistan. So I got the document first and only then bought the tickets, and this precaution turned my one-year visa into an 11-month visa.
Another important point: when checking in for a flight to India, you may be asked for a return ticket. According to the internet, this does not happen every time, but I was asked for one and had to book it urgently just before checking in at Oman airport, as we were actually flying one-way and improvising as we went along.
The flight to India
Well, everyone has their own way of doing things — open Trip.com or other air tickets search website and start looking for a suitable option. You can buy tickets through the aggregator or directly through the airline website.
I flew from Istanbul, and I bought a ticket for an Air India flight from Muscat. Why? Because there are many inexpensive flights from Oman to India and Southeast Asia, and my friends and I were planning to fly to Thailand as a group of four. But then our plans changed somewhat, and I had already bought a Pegasus Istanbul-Muscat ticket on sale, even before applying for a visa to India.
Yes, there was a direct flight to Goa, but if you’re going to dive into Indian reality, you might as well dive in head first, i.e., to Mumbai, so after the flight from Muscat, we had another day in Mumbai, and only then an evening flight to Dabolim. There was another reason: Natalie needed to buy a laptop, and it was better to do it in a Mumbai shopping center than to look for one in Goa.
Mumbai Airport
This country has many peculiarities. It would seem that globalization has made it impossible for anyone to surprise us anymore. But India still has a few tricks up its sleeve, starting right at the airport.
Well, I knew that you could only enter the airport building with a ticket. But the fact that you can’t leave it was a surprise. In Mumbai, we checked our luggage into the luggage room, where we were warned that we would have to pick it up from the street before our next flight. This is because it is checked into a part of the airport that cannot be accessed from the inside. We were only able to find this part with the help of an employee who led us through the corridors for about 10 minutes.
The smoking area is on the street, but you can’t just smoke on the street. You have to go up to the 7th level of the parking garage. However, the elevators only go to the 9th floor and somewhere else, but not to the 7th floor. We walked there, but then it turned out that one of the four elevators does stop on the 7th floor. Yes, you have to pick up your luggage “outside” on the 4th level, where the elevators go. And the entrance to the airport is on the 10th level.
To pass the time until the shopping center opened, we decided to go to the airport without our luggage to rest for a couple of hours, have a snack, and charge our gadgets. At the entrance, we presented our e-tickets for the evening flight, and even though there was still plenty of time before departure, they let us in, albeit reluctantly. We still had our boarding passes as a trump card, but I decided to keep them in reserve.
But they wouldn’t let us leave. Well, we tried. There is basically no exit, and at each entrance there is a very convincing man with a mustache and an automatic weapon. We had to find an Air India employee, show her our boarding passes, and make up a story that we had forgotten to pick up our luggage from the storage room.
Taxis are ordered as follows: downstairs, on level 4 (the same place where you pick up your luggage), you need to go to a special booth and give the address. It’s good that there is a shopping center nearby, but even then they didn’t understand me right away, and showing a map was completely pointless, as I later found out that Indians generally don’t understand them very well. The booth accepts payment by card or cash, issues a receipt, and the taxi driver picks you up by the bronze handles.
Taxis in Mumbai are an adventure in themselves, but we got where we needed to go, bought a laptop and a SIM card, had lunch, and rushed back to the airport on a tuk-tuk. That was also an adventure in itself. We agreed on 300, but of course he didn’t have any change from 500. You always have to keep this in mind, but after two sleepless nights, I was too tired to think straight.
Here is the sneaky tuk-tuk and how it drives:
You can compare it to a taxi driver:
The cherry on the cake was the inspection at the airport. In my carry-on luggage, they found — oh, horror! — a lighter! And not just one, but three! Ordinary gas lighters. Thanks to this either foresight or forgetfulness, they gave me a real search — they examined my backpack from top to bottom. The paper, tobacco, and filters for rolling cigarettes caused such a reaction that I thought, “That’s it, we’re done for. Maybe they’re like vapes — banned?” But after confiscating all the lighters, the guys calmed down.
How to light up in the smoking room? With a stationary electronic lighter, which, of course, is the only one available, so there’s a line. I was finished off by a Whopper at Burger King — well, I thought I’d try lamb instead of beef (they don’t serve it in chains). I wish I hadn’t — it was disgusting.
Arrival in Dabolim
As my friend said after our crazy trip to Armenia in the summer, “I think we landed, and that’s already good.” The flight with two sleepless nights somehow added to my Zen Buddhism, and I didn’t care where and how things were happening, because that’s how it should be.
We drove to Antonio’s guest house, who said he wouldn’t be able to meet us himself. But actually, he does meet guests, and I can give you his contact details. He has an excellent house with six rooms, equipped with everything you need, and a 15-minute walk from a quiet beach. If he can’t meet you, you’ll have to take a taxi.
Airport taxis are ordered centrally at two or three stands, and apparently they compete with each other. But no one really lowers their prices. They asked for around 1,600 rupees to get to the desired location. There is also a stand for the local taxi aggregator Goa Miles, but they don’t call taxis, they offer to install an app and advise on how best to do it! I installed it, but there is no cash payment option, and my Turkish card cannot be linked to it. In the end, we left for 1,500 rupees in the traditional way.
So here we are at Antonio’s, in his Joao Xavier Palace, with an excellent balcony and breakfast (this will only become clear in the morning), a hot shower, and the thought: yes, we did it! After a completely idiotic and exhausting flight, spending a day on a tour in Oman and buying a laptop in Mumbai, we finally made it to these beaches.
Tomorrow we will start looking for long-term accommodation, renting a bike, and generally exploring and understanding where we have ended up. But now it’s time to sleep!