Just got back from nearly five weeks in Mumbai and Goa and thought I'd do a quick report.
We flew into Mumbai from Manchester on Qatar Airlines. I don't usually comment much on the flight - it's just something you have to endure to get yourself to Goa. However, Qatar were really good. Great in-flight entertainment with a choice of dozens of films, excellent food and flight staff that looked great and actually seemed to care about your comfort. They made Monarch look like an airborne soup kitchen.

Getting through Mumbai immigration was a lot less hassle than Dabolim and all went well until a power cut in the baggage reclaim area. As it was 3.30 am, it was pretty dark in there and we all just stood there in the darkness for 10 minutes - welcome to India! I had little expectation that the taxi promised by the hotel would be there but it was and we sped (boy, did we speed!) through the Mumbai suburbs in the pre-dawn light to the Residency Hotel in central Mumbai.

As Mrs Roma was celebrating a landmark birthday, I knew I had to get the hotel right. You can pay very serious money for a good room in Mumbai and after much deliberation, I chose one of the "Club" rooms at the Residency. It was a great choice because not only was it not serious money - but the "Club" rooms are excellent. They're in a separate building from the main hotel and are spotlessly clean, air conditioned with fridge, flat screen TV, DVD with surround sound and lovely bathrooms. The bed was one of the most comfortable I've ever used - a million miles away from the Goan spinemanglers we're used to.

Mumbai was really great and you can easily fill three days with interesting stuff. We had a look around the luxury of the Taj hotel, strolled around India Gate and did some shopping. The shopping is good - there's a mix of swish and basic. We went in one old store, Whiteaway and Laidlaw, which is like Grace Brothers. Staff attend the counters and your purchases are sent to the despatch desk and you pay the woman in the little cash kiosk. Very antiquated and labour intensive but quaint! We also went on a boat trip to Elephanta Island, which is home to several important Hindu shrines and lots of monkeys. There are huge rock sculptures of Hindu gods and it's a great place to explore for a few hours.

We celebrated Mrs Roma's birthday at Indigo's - one of Mumbai's swankiest and expensive restaurants. These places are not my natural habitat - I'm more of a beach shack man - so the prices put me in shock. I managed to steer Mrs Roma away from the wine list - a decent bottle of anything was at least £40.......OMG! We did have a lovely veggie meal and got away with £60 for the two of us.Cue smelling salts. Having got the celebration out of the way, I was able to resume my normal eating and spending patterns. We went to a cracking little local's veggie restaurant just behind the hotel and on the way back I had a haircut - 148 rupees for the meal and the haircut - about £2. Dip your bread!

We asked a taxi driver to show us around and we saw CST Railway Station, Marine Drive, Chowpatty Beach, Ghandi's house, Malabar and visited Jain temples and the immense dhobi ghats area, where Mumbai does its laundry. Mumbai is not all slums - there's some stunning, if slightly neglected, architecture and parts of the city are actually quite sophisticated. We really enjoyed Mumbai, never found it threatening or intimidating and would certainly recommend a 3 day stopover to anybody who's thinking of it.

We flew Jet Lite down to Goa from Mumbai's very modern new domestic airport - how much better it is to arrive at Dabolim on a domestic flight! We were through the airport in minutes and in the cab to Candolim in no time.Once there, one day flowed into the next and we did very little besides eat, drink, read, listen to some music and generally chill out. We ate well but to be honest, avoided the dearer places because we were there for a month and needed to make the money last! Restaurants used were Viva Goa (lots of times!), Plantain Leaf, Anand Sagar, Moonlight Bar, Sheetal, Bean Me Up, Carvery, Nick's Place and we went to a comedy night at Cinderella's with a Brummie comic called Fred. I found him very funny but the politically correct and easily offended would probably be better staying away! A new find for us this year was Bhojan -it's a restaurant in the Fidalgo Hotel in Panjim - I'm a big fan of thalis and they don't come much better than this. Six curries, rice, breads, puris, curd, ice cream and orange juice, constantly being topped up, and all in spotlessly clean, air conditioned luxury...and all for 135rps a throw. Bliss! At the other extreme, I also developed a liking for the "Delhi Chat" fast food place near the Calangute steps. Great food, nothing more than 40 rupees and all prepared in front of your eyes in conditions that would get you locked up and closed down over here! Delicious though!

We had a day at Presa di Goa at Nagao - it's a lovely boutique hotel with swimming pool that you can use if you spend more than 250rps on lunch. A great place and a lovely change from the beach. It's run by a very discerning German bloke and we love it there.

Once again, we hired a scooter and enjoyed getting around. We avoided serious injury but I've now discovered that the most dangerous thing for scooter riders isn't the nutter coming the other way with all his family on board, not the buses or lorries, not even the macho Mumbaikers on their Royal Enfields....no.....it's......sand! Yes....sand. I took a wrong turn in Anjuna and immediately ran into some sand. I can now tell you that once you hit dry sand, your steering doesn't work and you quickly grind to a halt. In order to sort things out I asked Mrs Roma to dismount (while she reminded me what a pi***ck I was ) and the thing still wouldn't budge so I dismounted as well and started to push the scooter but no luck; it wouldn't budge. By this time I wasn't thinking very clearly because I tweaked the accelerator and the scooter shot forward with me hanging on. Of course, as the scooter shot forward, my grip on the handle moved round, causing the scooter to go faster. I eventually let go but not before I seriously grazed both knees in the sand. Mrs Roma managed not to laugh for all of 5 seconds before resuming her verbal assault; this time I thought I detected a note of derision in her invective. I spent the next two weeks with scabby knees sticking out below my shorts - I looked like Dennis the Menace!

Scootering is a calculated risk. It is dangerous and a glimpse of the local paper shows just how dangerous. One poor lady died after she fell off the back of her husband's scooter at the speed bumps near Bombay Bazaar in Calangute. She had been riding side saddle - if you land on your head, you don't have to fall very far to do some serious damage.

The local papers were full of the problems allegedly being caused by Russians in Morjim. In one incident a local taxi driver was murdered by a Russian man. It seems many businesses have simply been taken over by Russians and menus and signs are only in Russian. We didn't venture up that far but we visited Chapora and it felt like a gulag - Chaporagrad. I still like the place, though. One or two classic headlines in the newspaper made me smile - "Disappointment as Dabolim misses out in Airport Awards". The correspondent seemed to be genuinely surprised that Changi and Hong Kong had pipped Dabolim to the gongs! He needs to get out more. Another article referred to water supply problems in a place that goes by the glorious name of Pissonem. No further comment required!

Goa continues to change, yet much remains the same. Taxi drivers continue to bark "Taxi" down your ear at every opportunity. In Calangute, I was just getting off my scooter next to a taxi when the driver shouted, "Taxi" at me! Why would i want a taxi when I've just got off a scooter? I think they have a little known medical condition called "Taxi Driver Tourettes" where the involuntary urge to shout "Taxi" at anybody in earshot overcomes the illogicality of doing so.

Prices, especially in the shacks, are nudging up but not enough to worry about. Far more worrying than prices going up was the pound going down. At one point we were getting 66.5 rps to the pound. I don't recall it being as low as that - nice one Gordon!
Driving around on the scooter, it's amazing to see just how much building is going on all over the place. It makes you wonder who's going to fill all these rooms. Those parts of Goa that aren't being built on seem to be being dug up. They are building a pavement along the main road into Candolim from Calangute- not really sure why because in places it doesn't look wide enough to be much use.

It was certainly quieter this year and I guess the recession, visa issues and bad publicity have all had an effect. I felt sorry for our shack owner who lost the early part of the season through the licensing nonsense and wasn't getting the numbers he needs to make a decent crust. We saw several shacks that were just completely empty - and yet they plan to issue more licenses next year. Goa is screaming out for a well researched tourism strategy but it's not going to happen with Mickey in charge, is it?
We went to most meets at the Carvery whilst we were there and had a great time and met some lovely people - too numerous to mention but they know who they are! I think we all agree that Goa is a little bit crazy, more than a liitle bit scruffy , could be improved in so many ways without a great deal of effort.... but we all love it! Will we be back? Of course we will!