Knowing what to do if you have lost luggage in transit is one of the most vital travel tips you will ever learn. You can lose luggage anywhere and at any time during a long trip, no matter how you travel.
Tourists lose luggage regularly in taxis, on buses and trains and anywhere in between a trip. Sometimes, luggage is stolen. However, lost luggage is a problem most commonly associated with airline travel.
Goa and I go back a long way – back to 1972, in fact. That’s when we came over from Germany and settled in India. My dad saw wisdom in easing the extreme culture shock for us by ferrying us to Calangute within a week of touchdown. It was an inspired move.
I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember Calangute, Goa’s erstwhile Queen of Beaches, from way back then. It was certainly different from the swarming tourist anthill it is today. There were only a few shack shops at the plaza (Alex Cold Drink House among them), and fewer tourists to patronize them. We had standing bookings at the Calangute Tourist Resort over the years, until it lost its rustic charm with renovations.
Last month, I took a week off and went to Goa, and one of the places I visited was my cousin’s farm in the hinterlands. His farm is maybe 20 kilometers away from Margao, at Netrolim – and it is an amazing place.
Completely off Goa’s beaten tourist track, it is a serene and bountiful world untouched by modern civilization. My cousin took me around coconut, cashew and spice plantations in the unspoiled, verdant greenery of Goa’s hilly countryside.
