After making Goa my second home for 20 years, and spending the entire October to March season here, it is with a heavy heart that I am joining the hundreds, if not thousands of Europeans before me, who have stopped coming to Goa. My reasons – excess of shacks on the beaches and the loud music.
For the last three years I have battled against loud music to the extent that last season I went to a shack to complain at 2 am and was attacked by the owner and waiters.
There was no one in the shack at the time and they were playing very loud music all for themselves.
From the start of this season I have called the police five times since one particular shack was playing very loud music till 2 am and even sometimes even to 5 am…….the question I ask is (after reading in Herald last season that continuous offenders would have their sound systems confiscated and even the shack closed) why has this action not been taken with this shack?
Tourists cannot have a relaxing and peaceful holiday, when you constantly have to be thinking when is the music going to start or will it ever stop? The shack owners who are causing this problem do not spare a thought for you, as Goans. I know of beach bungalow complexes from Colva to Benaulim which at this time of the year used to be full to capacity.
These same complexes now have only a maximum of three rooms full and this will impact on money which was spent in villages and towns by these missing tourists. Your tourism minister is wasting his time and your money going to Europe in the hope of finding new tourists.
The English, Germans, Dutch and Italians were the main tourists who came to Goa for many years up until about eight years ago and these are the tourists who have been driven out by your selfish shack owners. These tourists have moved on to places like Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam where loud noise is controlled.
