I've watched these machines at work in the Med. and round the beaches in Sydney among other locations. I,ll be amazed if this scheme ever gets of the ground,the PPI financing of the project will no doubt be fertile ground for creative accounting. Sinquern beach of course is no more, so thats one beach less they will have to bother about. Every year, depending apon the severity of the monsoon storms the beaches in question change shape year on year. Sometimes different tiers or levels form, some years a flat section becomes steep sloping, and so on. All the beaches I've seen cleaning machines on, such as Bondi and Manley beaches in Sydney, and the Med. beaches are uniformly fairly flat and level and lend theemselves to this machinery, but I fear the Goan beaches are a different kettle of fish, and there well may be some abandoned machinery joining the River Princess, if this scheme ever goes ahead.
Alan

I seem to remember the same proposal last season , and nothing came of it .

xx lassi

But its not so much the beach that needs cleaning as usually the shack keeps that clean, its the backs of the shacks where they stockpile all the plastic bottles and all the other rubbish. It ends up stinking and then someone sets fire to it so you then have plastic bottles burning for days.

Yes that'll be where the spotless (or not) toilet is usually located, that then slowly leaches its contents into the sand, not a 100 miles from the kitchen, which is also at the rear of the shack, and please dont anyone be so deluded as to thinking the shack toilets are flushing into a septic tank, because they most certainly are'nt !
Alan

The staff of the shacks do not use the shack toilets, they use the bushes at the back of the beach, and have you ever seen any of them wash their hands when they get back to the shack. I have not.

Not always, the edge of the sea early morning, is the favourite location, as any early jogger would confirm !
Alan

Dave10 wrote:

The staff of the shacks do not use the shack toilets, they use the bushes at the back of the beach, and have you ever seen any of them wash their hands when they get back to the shack. I have not.

Think you need to change your shack then. the staff of ours have there own.

But do they wash their hands?

fizzy2 wrote:

But do they wash their hands?

Dont Know,but they wear latex gloves

fizzy - we all hope that they take care with hygiene, but something we all know we will never find out (is someone on here spying on a guy taking a leek ?) I suppose you could say the same with any restaurant/bar/hotel/canteen/food outlet/take-away, around the world - even in our houses ! do we have hygiene standards we keep to - doubt it very much..

Good point - well made, Spike.

They say "what you don't know, can't harm you" not that I necessarily agree with that but until my next bout of Delhi Belly, "ignorance is bliss"

Fizz

We all love the shacks, certainly in our case no shacks would mean no Goa. But as far as food preperation and general hygene behind the scenes, it's a pure gamble whether you're laid low for a day or so or not. I firmly believe that the more often you visit Goa and other foreign destinations, your system builds up a resistance to the bugs that years ago, seemed to lay you low, more often or not. It's about five years since my last episode ( a club sandwich in a hotel in Amritser if you must know) Having said that I'll likely be smitten as soon as we arrive next month.
Alan

Fair point gramps - but when people get the dreaded stomach bug, they will always have a go at the place they last ate in, I have said this many times on here - was it the food / too much alcohol / too much sun / not enough water, could be any..

Getting back to toilets though, hygiene and cleanliness is far far better than it used to be - remember the times of no toilets, head towards the scrub and dig an hole !
As for beach cleanliness, they do give it there best but as usual could do better (a lot better). All shacks are guilty of rubbish dumping and burning, apart from plastic bottles as these are now collected for cash.
Will things ever get to a top standard ? No.

Will things ever get to a top standard ? No.

If they do it will only cost us more!!

Gramps has a good point and one I would support.

Usually within a day or two of arriving anywhere I would come down with a bug but as the years have progressed it happens less and less.

Not saying it never happens but less than it used to.

I find it better not to think too much about hygeine in the shacks or restaurants too much.

Papa

I remember years ago going for a picnic on the beach with Goan friends and being shocked when they just left the resultant bits of litter on the beach, we took ours back to the hotel in a bag and disposed of it in a bin there, seems to be more down to education (or lack of it). My Mum always made me take sweet wrappers and the like home and not to just throw it on the ground and this has stuck with me all my life and my own kids have been brought up the same. If they ever dropped litter I would make them pick it up straight away and put it in their pockets to dispose of later in the correct manner.

In our own small way we have tried not to add to the mess on the beach, the only thing I leave behind is the imprint of my bum on the sunbed and my footprints in the sand

We stay in the South and I must say the beach where we are has always been very clean, however, further back towards the land, if we look closely we can see plastic bottles piled up.

I agree what has already been said about tummy problems.

In my early trips I too had tummy problems and assumed it was something I had eaten in a shack, however, over the years the problem became less and less. Unfortunately, for the past three years, I have had stomach problems, but I put that down to becoming complacent as I had been so many times before and therefore thought I was immune. I saw a doctor because I didn't want my holiday spoilt by me having to stay in my room.

In the doctor's opinion, my problem could have been caused in one or a mixture of things; heat, sun, food, dehydration or being so fair skinned that I burn really quickly. He said that people like me travel to places such as India and change their eating habits. For example, he asked me whether I had a sandwich for lunch at work to which I said I did. He then asked what I had had for lunch since being there and I said I had mainly cooked meals; deep fried prawns, chicken korma or chicken and chips etc. The doctor said that a sudden change in diet, coupled with the heat and the sun and dehydration, would most probably cause me problems and I could not always blame the shacks although he was most insistent that we do not use shacks that do not have electricity.