I embarked on a jaunt to Goa recently with my wife for vacationing after a hiatus of 6 years. Much water has flown down the Mandovi river since the last sojourn in Goa for training in 2017. The most conspicuous of the advancements have been the addition of a new International Airport and new bridges over Mandovi and Zuari rivers.
The Dabolim Airport, where my flight from Chandigarh to Goa landed this time around, was only one Airport in the entire state of Goa last time in 2017. To my pleasant surprise, the departure flight of the same airline was scheduled to take off from the new airport at Mopa. While Dabolim Airport is located in South Goa, Mopa airport has been constructed at the other end in North Goa. GOX is the IATA code of the new Manohar International Airport at Mopa. GOI is the code of the old Airport at Dabolim which is an International Airport operated by AAI as a civil enclave in an Indian Navy naval airbase.
Goa is neatly bifurcated into two segments - North Goa and South Goa - by the river Mandovi. To bolster linkage between the two talukas of Bardez and Tiswadi on the national highway, a new bridge has come up over Mandovi river since my last visit. Named ‘Atal Setu’, it stands at a much greater height parallel to the old bridges.
A new bridge has come up over Zuari river also connecting the two districts of North and South Goa. We crossed the new bridge on Zuari river while going to our hotel at Calangute in North Goa after landing at Dabolim airport. New bridge over Zuari is a cable-stayed bridge with four lanes in each direction.
My wife, a first-time visitor, was under the impression that Goa was a city. I dispelled the myth by telling her that Goa was a full-fledged state whose capital was Panjim, situated on the Mandovi river. All the towns and villages in the state are so seamlessly contiguous that Goa appears deceptively like one sprawling metropolis. Our sightseeing itinerary comprised excursions to Goa’s famed beaches, churches, forts, spice plantation etc.
After spending five nights in Goa, we headed back to Chandigarh. Veering off the highway towards the Mopa Airport for the departure flight, we were stunned by a sprawling view of the premises of brand-new All India Institute of Ayurveda.
While checking in at the new airport at Mopa (GOX), I observed a distressed passenger ahead of me talking nervously to the airline staff. Overhearing the conversation I gathered that his flight had already taken off because he showed up too late. He had ignorantly gone to the Dabolim Airport first, whereas his flight was to take off from the new airport. Oblivious to the inception of a new airport, passengers don’t notice the difference in IATA codes mentioned on the tickets.
Embellished with quotidian paintings by Paul Fernandes, Mopa Airport has added one more feather in Goa’s cap. Both flanks of Mandovi have wings now.