Goa, the very mention springs images of beaches, beer, babes and bongs. Of late it seems that rape and murder is almost as popular an activity in the region.
Personally i never got the attraction of Goa, for me the beach has always been South Beach, Miami but the attraction is not hard to see. Goa has beaches, miles of it, cheap housing, cheap food and cheap booze. This serves to attract a wide range of people - students holiday, junkies looking for a cheap score and retirees, ex army folk from Israel. It is one of the few truly international/cosmopolitan cities in India due to its tourist make up.
Add to this a lax administration at the best of times (the entire civil administration is only out to make a buck shaking down people) and you have the easy availability of drugs and contraband. Then you have people trying to take control (Russians)
the Bohemian make up of Goa is at stake. The hippy mindset is beginning to blow up in peoples face, take a jaunt down to Curlys in Anjuna its like Amsterdam, you can get pills, bongs are passed around in the open, the falafal platter is 200 bucks you will start to see what the attraction is.
So what is the big deal? This has been going on for a while, the trance, the pills, the sex, so whats the fuss all about? The fuss is that crime is becoming a big part of this little state. People are being murdered and the drug use is getting out of hand. The hippies forget that everyone is not a hippie, free love, peace and all that bullshit. Plenty of people are there just to make a buck or take advantage of the situation.
Add to this the overtly aggressive and repressed Indian male and his propensity to consider all foreign women as easily available and you will see a pattern emerging which will end with acts like those forced upon Scarlett this past fortnight. The authorities need to wake up, to the threat this sort of situation holds for the entire tourism Industry.
The hippies need to wake the fuck up as well and figure out that they need to be safe first and then enjoy life and all the jazz. Ridiculous shit like sex for rent and sex for food is not the way to go through life. It will almost always end up blowing up in your face. I have seen so many women walk around unaided at 4am that its a sheer surprise you dont hear of more women being attacked.
Overall, i think Goa is dying, a day will come when the shit will hit the fan, people will be kicked out and then the locals will be left holding the shit bucket. One they helped fill.
yes, Goa’s charm is surely dying. one would think that we would go forward with time, but we seem to be going backward! I guess it is true what they say - overcrowding or induction of new swarms of people into an existing town or city always leads to a rise in criminal activity.