It is so much quieter, little traffic, no taxi's sellers ect, but it looks so lovely and green as the rain washes all the orange dust of the plants,

Lin

Flying out tomorrow for 5 months,and realy looking forward to it.

john

Wish It Was Me, Well Jealous

And me Enjoy, give us a report when your back.

The good things: the rain washes most of the garbage away, everywhere is green, less traffic, no taxis, no beggars, beaches empty with no hawkers
The bad things: hot and/or wet, no taxis, beaches empty with no shacks!

Socially, the monsoon is actually the best time of the year as there are less places open, so more chance of bumping into people you know at the few places that are open. In season these days there are simply too many places to go. Watch out for dry days though: bars were all closed for 4 days last week for panchayat elections, and will be closed again early next month for the assembly elections.

For those who have been in Goa during several monsoon times- are there any signs that more people are giving it a go then?

The first year I was here (I arrived September 04) I remember thinking I was all alone (when it came to seeing foreigners), the year after and each since I thought there were lots more - not huge amounts, you'd see a handful each day... Although I don't spend that much time in Calangute now-a-days so I don't expect to see many this year unless they're shoppin in Mapusa...

Which are the popular places during monsoon?

Cavala in Baga on a Saturday night when The Music Company are playing - get there early or it's so packed you can't move.

Souza Lobo, Capricorn and Infanteria in Calangute all stay open.

Candolim is pretty dead.

Bharats remains open as well

Anyone still in Goa then? I'd love to see a monsoon holiday report

Too much rain
but seriously - muggy - can't get clothes dried.
Electricity frequently goes off - depending on amount of rain - for hours on end - more so than in the tourist season.
Insects in abundance.
Not much choice of food and fish in the market due to delivery interuptions.
Not bothered about restaurants not being open but the sea is quite rough and the beach can be awash with rubbish.
Cable tv was a pain in the bum - always going off but now Sky is there the only interuption is the electricity supply.

Just thought i would give my thoughts on the monsoon. It has now rained virtually non stop since Friday afternoon, it has brought the temperature down a lot which has been a welcome relief, nearly eveyone we know, us and locals included were suffering badly with prickly heat.
The rain is not much of a problem but i'd forgotten how bad the mosquito's were, this morning i had 5 stuck to me despite plastering Odimos on me. The flies are really bad too. Snakes are a common sight.
It takes days to dry the washing, the power is off so much, and the power surges blow any electrical appliances not linked up to a stabeliser, the fan
in our bedroom went with a huge bang the other morning
On the plus side, which i think outweigh the minuses, everything is so green, it's so much quieter, no hassle and there's a great crowd of expats.
The restaurants that are open are mainly ones that are used by locals or expats, so the food is good and local prices.
We went to Morjim beach this afternoon to give the dogs a run, wow the sea was so rough and hardly any beach to walk on

I take it that you have to fly with a charter co then in monsoon months?

Julie
how many monsoons have you done? I'm wondering if there are more folks staying each year?

Julie, what kind of dogs do you have? We were talking to a guy who lives over in Goa that has a boxer puppy, well it will be full grown by now, a couple of years ago, sure his name was Phil, but might be mistaken

Well I left Goa a week ago to return to England for a break and to catch up on some of the charity work here in the UK... I thought it would be nice and sunny, but I returned to horrible monsoon type weather... What made it worse is that it was freezing too!!! (well it felt cold especially compared to Goa)... Today hasn't been too bad actually - fingers crossed for the next 3 weeks....

Here in Bogmalo there are hardly any expats.But where we live most of the people are not from Goa but elsewhere in India so it's not a problem.Most of the places we use during the tourist season are open,so although very quiet there are places to go.

john

Fiona, this is our second monsoon, last year was a mild monsoon we were told, this year it has rained much more so far.
We had gales over the weekend and had no power from Friday around 4pm until Saturday 10pm and it's been very erratic since, hence not been on HT, infact it's just started pouring down now and the power has gone off
I also forgot that everything goes mouldy in this humidity, went to get some shoes out that i hadn't worn for a while, they had a fur on them - yuk
Martin, we have a Jack Russell that we fetched over from England, we also brought our cat over and a Boxer/GSD but he died of old age last September. We got Bella a Boxer pup at the end of January, full of energy thats why we have frequent trips to Morjim beach to let her run some off