The flight to goa was pretty uneventful, apart from in India they expect you to keep your ticket with you through security and it gets stamped once you've been frisked. Well there was no signs that tell you to keep your ticket and as there are separate queues for men and women; Dan had my ticket.
The security woman was not impressed and to be honest I wasn't either! She kept telling me to get out of the queue to get my ticket and I kept telling her that Dan was through security so how was I supposed to get my ticket by leaving the queue?! This same argument happened about three times before finally when she asked me to leave the queue I just said no and stood there till Dan had collected his things and came over to hand me my ticket. The security woman was not cool with a man being on this side of the security and then told him to leave pretty sharpish even though no one was being frisked ( I had halted the queue) and if someone was being frisked it would have been me so it wouldn't of mattered anyway! India does like to make everything complicated!
We had a lovely drive through the countryside of goa and it was nice to see some rural areas rather than just cities. When we arrived we went down this tiny dirt road where there were piles of rubbish and we couldn't find the accommodation. After getting lost and finding the tiniest little sign but no one around, a tied up dog tried to go for us and its barking woke up the owner. He was not very nice and said he was very tired because people had left earlier - it was 3pm?!
He showed us our room which was dingy and filthy not what you want for a holiday in Goa.
We went to look at the beach and went down the main street to the beach. When we got there we were in for such a shock; there must have been about 4000 people there! Not the exotic destination we had imagined. Not only that but my flip flops broke wit only 4 days left of the holiday! Today was really not my day!
We decided to look online for a better hostel but couldn't really find any that cheap- goa is expensive! We asked around and one a few doors down from us gave us a price of £12 a night but the hotel was used by Thomas cook, so we decided to go with it.
It would have been on the cheaper end of the scale for a Thomas cook hotel but it had a pool and the rooms for cleaned everyday which we haven't had in the whole of India!
The next day we lazed around the pool and talked to a person from england who had been there a week and he told us a better place to head to the beach. We decided to try that on a different day.
HOWEVER that night it was my turn to have the stomach bug and it was horrible! So the next few days consisted of me in bed and dan venturing out for food, one day we even got a dominos pizza and it was lovely!
Our very last day in Goa we managed to get to the beach! Yay! It still wasn't what we imagined it would be like and still quite busy, there are also a lot of Russian tourists here who are fun to watch! We had our last curry for dinner but the table next to us got the biggest lobster I have ever seen! So we were a bit jealous!
The next day we headed back to the airport and this had even more shenanigans than last time. Firstly before we checked our bags in we were meant to put them through an X-ray ourselves but even when we asked someone working there they said we didn't have to. So this led to even more pointless queuing to then go back and get our bags scanned and queue again. And the queue took forever because for some reason all the Indian people wandered off and then hekd up the queue looking for wandering family members. And this happened every single time?! Do they not see the people in front and think o we should go find the other members of our party before we get to the front of the queue? Nope!
The second shenanigan was that the security had massive signs saying no liquid! After our big bags had been checked in. I had my little cleat plastic bag with liquids which included my perfume and was ready to have a massive argument with my second security guard but luckily they didn't even notice! Very secure security!! They did still do the stupid ticket stamp but luckily I came prepared this time!
The flight was short and sweet, its so weird landing in Mumbai though because the slums literally are touching the runway, just like on slum dog millionaire!
We had to get a taxi from the domestic airport to the international airport and there a security guard tried to scam us for an 'airport surcharge' but luckily we were too smart for his game and didn't pay! Our taxi driver wasn't very happy though as I'm sure he would've also got a cut.
Then came the largest shenanigan of the day, in Mumbai airport your not allowed in until 6 hours before your flight, we had a good 14 hours to wait, where we thought we could sit in the airport, look round the shops and then get something to eat. No no no. We had to eat. Outside arrivals at a crappy cafe that didn't even so curry?! Beside a stinking bin. Then we had to pay for the privilege to wait in a waiting room which only had one coffee shop and no food! For the next 8 hours. The seats were also horrible! Then finally with 6 hours to go we joined the MASSIVE queue to get into the terminal. We then found that Qatar airways desk wasnt open for another 2 hours. And the terminal didn't even have one seat to sit on?! So odd.
We wasted the time by asking every single exchange place their rate to exchange rupees to dollars as every place had the exact same sign saying that it was illegal to take rupees out of the country unless you were Indian and that on the other side they wouldn't accept rupees from foreigners. Well what a lie that was as we found out later. So not only didn't we get a terrible rate to get dollars then on the other side we got a really really really terrible rate to pay with dollars. Scams all round!
Finally after being able to check in we went through immigration which took a good hour of queuing, and then another half an hour of security queuing we were through! It was now around 2am and we were shattered! The plane to Qatar was OK, but the meal was horrible and we slept the whole journey. And then again more sleep until we were finally home!!