The holiday season has ended for me with the return of two family members to their duties elsewhere in the country. Here are a couple of nuggets about the Goa transportation scenario which thought I would like to share for what it is worth.
1. Yesterday I had to make two round trips from Ribandar to Margao railway station, once in the morning and once in the evening -- total travel of 160 kms. In the first case the ticket holder was booked to travel from Calicut to Ahmedabad boarding at Margao. In the second case, the ticket was from Udipi to Mumbai boarding at Margao. A co traveller on the second train was also booked from Udipi to Mumbai boarding a Margao. Is there some special quota for Goa travellers from Udipi station? When discussing the extra cost we concluded that it was about 70% for the Mumbai rail ticket!. As an aside we realised that it is probably a shorter distance from South Mumbai to the Mumbai airport than from Ribandar to Margao railway station. But like Mumbai, in Goa we have to contend with about four railway terminuses -- Karmali, Margao, Tivim and Vasco. 2. The cotraveller mentioned above complained that they were practically confined to their resort during their short holiday because of the perceived rapaciousness of local taxi drivers. One other friend also complained about this saying how difficult it was to divert their taxi a mere 10 km from their route to visit us. We ourselves, however, had a good experience this time with our neighbourhood taxi driver who showed up as requested and even waited for us for an hour till the night train left. Once before, however, we were badly let down by the Quarterdeck taxi service and we nearly missed our train at Karmali as we managed to scramble and make alternate arrangements just in time. 3. Again the co-traveller mentioned above said they would want to explore other places during their next holiday (having spent two in Goa so far). Seems Kerala was one such possibility. Anyone have any thoughts to share on this experience of the Goa travel scene (which is in addition to the problem of sharing sleeper berths in buses)? A very happy and prosperous New Year to all Goanetters!