We fly for an hour NW to Goa and then hire a taxi to look for an hotel. The Lemon Tree only has studios available (it’s approaching high season) and quotes us 24,000rp plus taxes. (43rp=US$1 so that’s about $650/night!). An American couple in the lobby tells us they used a “cheap on-line booking site” and that they paid $200/night for a regular room). We have no idea why you would choose to stay in such a place while in Goa. We take the taxi to look for another hotel and have to park 400 yards away, since there is no vehicular access, and we walk down a narrow dirt track and meet “Jessica” (she tells me that her Indian name would be too hard) with her 20-room hotel Dona Florina. All the rooms face the beach and are simple but clean with tiled floors, en-suite flush toilets and showers, whitewashed walls and a double bed with a mosquito net over it. Room fan, no a/c. 850rp/night (about $20) and we have found our place to stay for our planned three night visit to Goa. Shower is usually cold, a gecko and a beach frog share the room but it’s a barefoot 200 yard walk to the beach and a great sunset over the Arabian Sea. We eat at “Pete’s”-one of the many beach shack restaurants here and it’s great. Good Indian food and a drinkable bottle of Indian wine for less than $20 for both of us. The beach is good and the ocean is warm.
Jessica is a 53 year old widow and has a four year degree in English Literature from Bombay University. I grab an old paperback copy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” from the hotel library and will donate a book back.
We rent a scooter for $3/day but after wobbling along the dirt track and then looking at the chaos of the street traffic we decide against it and take the scooter back. I have had too many two-wheeler accidents.
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