Travel notes from Goa

- things feel both fast (the roads, the traffic), and slow (cashiers are slow, people hanging out during the middle of the day doing nothing)

- they burn trash here. Put all their trash, including plastic, food remains and metals onto a pile with some leaves and put it to fire to get rid of the trash. Talked to a local (after also consulting ChatGPT when I first saw it), who said that it used to be their only way of getting rid of trash because there was no regular garbage pickup by the city government. Now there is, but many people still do it out of habit. Horrible smell obviously due to the burning plastics

- a lot of people constantly want to take photos of Maya and with Maya. They usually ask now, Anastasiya said last time she was here 7 years ago, they’d just start taking photos (of her)

- People just touch Maya. Had to tell many people, on many occasions, to not randomly touch my daughter. Taught Maya to say "stop" very loudly too. In countries like Spain or Portugal they do it too, but it's often old grandmas. Here it's also often young or middle-aged men. I don’t want anyone to randomly touch my daughter, but definitely, especially not middle-aged men. They touch the face or head, sometimes the hands

- I felt racist quite a few times, even when I think I didn't do anything racist. Two examples: I got approached by a woman when we were at the beach who offered to give me a foot massage for a price. I thought why not, and paid her. But then just felt soooo awkward the whole time while I was laying on my beach bed and she was sitting in front of me massaging my feet. The other time was when an Indian family wanted to take a picture of Maya and their daughter together at the beach. We said no, because we didn’t know them (they randomly approached us) and I don’t want a photo of my daughter on a stranger’s phone. They laughed awkwardly and I wondered whether they thought we didn’t want our daughter to be on a photo with their daughter for racist reasons

- "where are you from?" is often the first question someone asks you, before asking for your name etc

- construction is often made from random bits and pieces - it seems like

- almost everyone speaks very good English. Obviously also because of India’s history. But even a carnival we attended here, which was 90% Indian audience, was moderated in English

- every price is negotiable, very much like when going to eg. Turkey. I don't know if this is a general part of the culture or just something they do to tourists, but if you ask a taxi driver how much a trip is, they say 500, you end up on 350

- Anastasiya said 7 years ago there used to be lots of cows laying on the beach exactly where we are staying in Goa, now there are none, zero. Don't know why that is

- the dogs are super chill. There's a lot of street dogs everywhere, but we've not had a single situation where we felt even remotely threatened. If I compare that to Bali or Turkey, I remember multiple situations where some encounters with street dogs got uncomfortable 

- trash. a lot of trash, everywhere. On the beach, on the roadside, in front of houses

- super colorful houses. People love painting their houses in bright colors. Beautiful

- the elements reclaim buildings / constructions very quickly. Because it’s so humid here, even buildings that aren’t that old, say 5 or 10 years, if they’re not maintained, will be reclaimed by nature, overgrow etc

- lots of abandoned buildings, especially holiday villas, but also trucks, cars, etc. My assumption for the villas is that due to the tourism, many people decided to build holiday accommodations. But either half-way through construction ran out of money, or finished construction but weren’t able to market the accommodation well enough to get enough guests to offset their costs. And then decided to just abandon the whole building and plot of land. I assume that means land is relatively cheap

- Amazing trees. Lots of beautiful trees that feel ancient - jagged and sprawling and tall

- It is true, the mangoes are absolutely insane here. I've eaten more mango here than in years before that - on a different level. And many different types

- You often have to walk through private property to get to official walkways. For example, there was a pathway to the beach behind the place where we stayed. A proper path for motorcycles and even cars could pass through. But the only way to get onto that path was to walk over someone’s private property, or at least what would’ve been considered private property in Germany. 

- It didn't rain for a single second, yet it's lusciously green

- big Suzuki presence

- Car lanes are more like a rough guideline. If there's 3 lanes but enough space for 4.5 cars, there will be 4.5 cars in that lane, plus an additional scooter or two wiggling their way through, which also means the honk is a constantly used tool here

- advertising uses Indian people but as white as they get

- Everyone who is local is wearing long pants. When I asked someone, they said to protect from mosquitos. You can tell who is a tourist by the fact that they wear shorts and t-shirt

- Feels safe in terms of stealing, which is relatively rare for a beachy touristy town

- Phone time. So much, all the time. People spend a lot of time on their phones here, even more than in other places it feels like

- Doors have built-in door stoppers. So smart. I don’t know why I’ve never seen that elsewhere