16 Oct 2017. Due to a planned increase in the cost of petrol/gas/benzine (what you prefer to call it), all taxis and tuktuks and buses and other hired transportation options were going on strike today from 06:00. That meant that we humble adventurers were awake at 04:00 in order to be ready for a 04:30 taxi. Needless to say, we made it in time for our flight. We spent some time in the premium lounge (free food, wifi & airco) for a fee, then went through security and hung out near the gate.

We arrived at Goa airport around noon, and took an arranged taxi to our intended hotel. Unfortunately, they had not notified us that their pool was closed for renovations. I called Booking.com and arranged for it to be canceled. They arranged another hotel for us.

I’m not going to put you through the description of our day. The second hotel was far from suitable, on so many levels, so I had to call Booking again to get it canceled. Then we arranged our own hotel. We threw money at the problem and stayed at the luxurious Vivanta by Taj, one of a chain of luxury resorts.

Everything about it was wonderful. The welcome, the pool, the restaurant, the staff, the room, the breakfast, the fitness room, you name it. I can’t recommend it enough. Also, it had an added bonus of being even closer to the entire reason for our trip to Goa. I’ll get to that in the next post. Anyway, once we’d checked in, we spent some time at the pool with beer, then cleaned up and went to dinner in one of the in-house restaurants. It was perfect.