Well, here goes.
I will be brief as we were only away for a week this trip.

We arrived at 6.20 A.M. at Dabolim and being in the Premium cabin we were off quite quickly. They have set up swine flu screening just inside the terminal building before immigration and I would imagine it getting quite chaotic if you were last off the plane.

The baggage carousels started and I noticed something very strange. No porters dragging them off. Even stranger no porters lurking just outside waiting. We got outside the terminal building to the cash point and almost to the taxi before even spotting a porter who was shouted at by someone before leaving us alone. I honestly wondered if we had landed somewhere else. I knew we had not after about 30 seconds in the taxi when as usual the driver tried to break the land speed record.

Amazingly one hour and 30 minutes after landing we found ourselves being shown to our room at the Santa Monica Calangute.

So just after nine after picking up a scooter we were walking down the sand to Calangute beach. A very strange site awaited lots of sun beds and no shacks. We were shown to a sun bed and assured they were not charging provided we were going to buy some food and drink. I have always thought this to be more than a fair exchange and we enjoyed a nice few days enjoying the hospitality of what I later found out to be Café Roma shack. No names up so until we were furtively shown a menu I had no idea of the name.

We were brought food and drinks from the kitchen area just off the main beach and as the week wore on tables and shade were brought down and eventually growing frustrated with the lack of progress over the licence fiasco the local shack owners started to build.

We were only in Goa in March 2009 but as the week wore on I did see lots of changes. First of all let me say how much I like Goa so I am not being negative but sometimes you just have to say what you see.

The streets really are much dirtier as if they could get worse. Hundreds of Taxis parked up with no one to drive them and not enough customers anyway. From Sinquerim to Baga there seems not a square yard without a restaurant. No wonder they look quiet there are just too many for not enough customers. Many more beggars than I remember and I do mean many more. Tuk Tuk drivers now want the same fare as the taxis(at least in my experience).

Most of all what strikes you is still the lack of infrastructure. All this tourist money for all these years and the place still resembles a battlefield.

The hotels are a prime example. Most built over 20 years ago and not as much as a lick of paint since. The Santa Monica a prime example. Lovely staff struggling with a product that is well past its sell by date. Rock hard mattresses that required pain killers for me to sleep and this is not that uncommon in North Goa.

Of course with what the tour operators are giving the hotels per room there is probably not much in the budget for improvements.

My OH and I had a discussion about a major U.K. chain opening a hotel in Goa with all that we have come to expect from our hotels at home. Not that special, say a Travelodge type place but with a pool. Only with our standards of hygiene comfort and professional standards. It would be full all the time but we knew it could never work in Goa.For a start the tour operators would never be able to sell it at a profit.

There I think lies another of Goas problems.We have all got so used to cheap holidays that Goa has become a cliché. Goa equals cheap package tourists. And surely if Goa is to improve it has to attract a more affluent visitor. So it is in a bit of a tough spot.Just my thoughts and feel free to shoot them down.

I know I will get some flak for my next observation but anyway here goes. Parts of Calangute now resemble the Costas. Karaoke, bingo, pie and chips, sweaty loud drunken brits abusing local people just because they can get away with it. It made me really sad to see some of the behaviour of my so called fellow countrymen.

I have commented before about the influx of Russians tourists and their behaviour but they appear to be saints compared to some of the things I saw.

Sweeping generalisations? Maybe but you call it as you see it. Met a chap I know out there who spends six months a year there. He rents an apartment and as he is retired he escapes the joys of England in the winter. His first words to me where "God it really is a s******e this year".

Harsh words but he does spend six months of the year there so is better qualified than me to give an opinion .

So you probably think we did not have a good week after reading the above. You would be wrong. Apart from both of us getting a dose of Goa gut which is a bit of a pain when you are only there for a week and the fact that the heat now affects our appetite so badly that we can never truly appreciate the wonderful food we loved it.

For all the stuff I have written above which is my honest observations you know when you are sat on your sun bed watching the world go by feeling that wonderful breeze on you and just taking in how fantastic it is to be there its worth all the downsides. For now it is and has been for years for us. I just wonder for how many people that is no longer enough.

Will we be back? Well we have a six month visa and 2 weeks off in March. What do you think?

Papa