In news that will send shivers down the spines of khaki-wearing, all-inclusive package holiday enthusiasts, the great British public has been warned: Goa, that fabled spice garden of the soul, is losing its global appeal faster than a gin in my fist on a Tuesday morning. Safety and cleanliness, it seems, are in terminal decline, and the glorious beaches are now less a tropical paradise and more a municipal tip with a sea view.
Let us begin, as all good tragedies must, with the facts. Or rather, with the fiction that passes for facts in this sanitised age. The Goa Tourism Board, that esteemed body of clipboard-wielding bureaucrats, has reportedly raised the alarm. They have noted, with the sort of understatement that would make a vicar blush, that the state’s “brand image” is tarnished. Tarnished? My dear fellow, it’s been spray-painted with the grim graffiti of neglect. Tourists, those delicate flowers of disposable income, are voting with their feet. And their feet, I wager, are heading to Bali, or Vietnam, or anywhere where the most dangerous thing is the local firewater rather than the local sanitation.
But what, you ask, has caused this paradise to sour? Let us count the ways, each more absurd than the last. First, the beaches: once a symphony of golden sand and gentle waves, now a cacophony of plastic bottles, broken dreams, and the faint scent of rancid coconut oil. Cleanliness? Ha! The only thing being cleaned out is the tourist’s wallet as they are charged for a sun lounger that has seen better days, better decades, better millennia. Safety? The only safe bet is that you will be hassled by a tuktuk driver within minutes of stepping off the plane, their sales pitch a desperate aria of “very good price, my friend”.
Then there is the infrastructure. Or should I say, the lack thereof. Roads that were designed for bullock carts now groan under the weight of hired scooters and stray dogs. The water, my god, the water: it is said to have more bacteria than a parliamentary select committee. And the power cuts? Reliable as a politician’s promise. The only thing that flows consistently is the cheap booze, a fact I can appreciate but which does little to offset the growing sense of foreboding.
The British tourist, that hardy soul who once braved Benidorm’s neon haze and Blackpool’s bracing winds, is now being warned. Warnings from the Foreign Office, that great oracle of doom, are being issued. They speak of “increased crime” and “medical facilities that are basic”. Basic? The only thing basic is the audacity of a state that once promised enlightenment and now delivers only a hangover and a bout of Delhi Belly.
But here is the true satire: the decline is not just a matter of fact, but of spirit. Goa was never just a place; it was an idea. A dream of freedom, of cheap beer and spiritual enlightenment, of staying out all night and never once looking at your watch. Now it is just another destination, commodified and crushed by the very industry that was meant to save it. The bars are filled with the same sad faces you see in any high street Wetherspoons, the beaches littered with the same discarded dreams.
So what is to be done? The locals blame the tourists; the tourists blame the locals; the government blames the previous government; and the sea, that eternal witness, says nothing at all. Perhaps it is time to accept that all paradises are lost, that the only thing left is the memory of a time when the sun seemed brighter and the gin colder. But until then, I shall raise a glass to Goa: gone but not forgotten, fallen but, like all great loves, never quite forgotten. And if you are still planning a trip, my advice is simple: pack your sense of humour, your strongest antibiotics, and a willingness to find beauty in the most absurd of ruins. It is, after all, the British way.
