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Beach Huts at Goa
Sunrise and the Arabian Sea shimmers silver. Waves break gently onto golden sands that seem to stretch into infinity. Although India isn’t generally synonymous with cleanliness, Goan beaches are pristine.

Certainly on Candolim’s wide beach there’s no cause to worry about stepping in something nasty that’s been left behind by a fortune-telling cow. It’s swept clean by women in emerald green and cerise saris, who are employed by the beach shacks fronting the dunes.

Along the shoreline, one young woman lays out a mat—not to sunbathe, but to practice yoga. Further along the beach, under the instruction of their guru, another couple of vacationers enacts what appears to be a sun-worshipping ritual.

It’s hard to think of any expat hideaway that is quite as exotic as Goa. Baking below a tropical canopy of banana, coconut, and mango trees, this drowsy world of beaches, backwaters, and spice-laden breezes is stamped with more than a few reminders of Old Portugal. 

Most people associate colonialism in India with the British. However, Goa’s 450 years of European settlement followed a different pattern. This was Portugal’s first colony in Asia, and the state only gained its independence in 1961. According to one taxi driver, many Goans still consider themselves as “separate” from the rest of India.

One comes across balconied mansions with red-tiled roofs and small garden shrines to the Virgin, some decaying, others restored to colonial magnificence. Sun-faded signs advertise port wine from the Old Country. Villages often have distinctly non-Indian names like Salvador del Mundo (Saviour of the World). 

The hinterland abounds with simple whitewashed chapels—around 40% of Goa’s population is Christian. Kids spill out of a building named the School of the Little Flowers of St. Teresa. Dedicated to St. Tomas, St. Francis Xavier, and a number of other saints, ramshackle country buses have rosary beads dangling above the driver’s window. 

In Old Goa, the state’s former capital, a collection of gloomily baroque churches indicates why the city was once known as Asia’s Rome. Looking at the gold-leaf altars, azulejo tiles, and saintly Catholic bones and body parts encased in silver caskets, you have to keep reminding yourself that this is India, not Portugal.

Goa is also a world of spice plantations, rice paddies, and water buffalo...of ancient Hindu temples and Ayurvedic massages...of spiced pomfret fish, sear-the-throat pork vindaloo, and milder, coconut-laced chicken xacuti. And if you need more assurances that you’re many miles from home, numerous cows wander the resort-town sidewalks. 

What draws the expats here?
Despite India’s stringent property laws, foreigners do buy here. At least 800 British expats have been enticed by Goa’s laid-back lifestyle. English is widely spoken, the political climate is peaceful, and crime rates are fairly low.

What else draws them? Well, for starters, the affordability of real estate. Resale studio units can be as little as $14,000. Of course, as with everywhere else, you get what you pay for—some cheaper properties have leakage problems during the monsoon. 

However, with prices starting at around $31,000, better-quality apartments (590 square feet) are still reasonable. Bought off-plan, two-bedroom villas (2,075 square feet) in well-landscaped developments are available from $117,000. 

Rentals are ridiculously cheap. Simple village houses (with no air-conditioning) and one-bedroom apartments can be found for less than $100 a month. Even in touristy Calangute, you can rent a beach house with air-conditioning for $560 monthly. See: www.goaholidayhomes.com. 

The other big attraction is the cost of living. Having bought a property, a couple can live comfortably in Goa for less than $800 per month. Including four beers, two people can eat in a beach shack for less than $10. Go to a better restaurant such as Candolim’s Seashell and the bill is still less than $22. (For us, that included plates of shark steak and giant shrimp.) 

Health insurance costs are also inexpensive. An annual premium of around $150 covers tests and hospitalization for most illnesses. Goa has a number of private hospitals and clinics. All the expats I spoke to were satisfied with the quality of medical care.

Another factor is the desire to escape the cold. Goa is hot—and I mean frying pan hot—year round. The optimum time to visit is between December and March, when daytime summer temperatures may cool from a torrid 100° F to a more manageable 85° F. (Note: During my early March visit, it was above 90° F.) However, you can expect rain at any time during June to September’s monsoon season.

Flower power, raves, and beer bellies
Covering 60 miles of the west coast, Goa is India’s smallest state. Over the past few decades, it has gone through a number of strange incarnations. 

In the late 1960s, its beaches became a hangout for flower children on the overland trail to Katmandu. After the Beatles’ George Harrison and his sitar turned up, the secret was out—and backpackers began arriving in droves. Although those peace-and-love days are well and truly over, if you’re into a spiritual menu of yoga and meditation, there’s plenty to keep you mellowed. 

Sometime in the 1980s, the strumming guitars were drowned out by blasting techno-trance and all-night rave parties. Still sex, still drugs, but not exactly rock ’n’ roll.

Change again. With a recent ban on late night music, beach partying has become far more restrained. And Goa has positioned itself as a mainstream destination. As more and more sun-starved Europeans arrive on winter charter flights, so, too, are increasing numbers of homegrown tourists with money to spend.

Today’s foreign visitors are a peculiar mix. Grungy backpackers stumbling out of bamboo beach huts, wondering where the rave is; package-holiday pensioners staking out claims to poolside sun-loungers; shaven-headed Neanderthals from Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia with an insatiable thirst for beer; 50-something couples playing “let’s pretend we’re still hippies,” and gold-toothed Russians in search of casinos and whatever else Russians search for. 

Most peculiar are the young New Age dreamers who think it’s still 1969. Foreheads spotted with red blessing marks, carrying the obligatory cloth shoulder bags, they’re milling about in their dazed dozens at Anjuna’s Wednesday market. 

Nirvana or hell? In truth, Goa can be whatever you want it to be, but its dream of becoming an upscale destination hasn’t yet been realized. A handful of five-star hotels and over-priced “shabby chic” retreats don’t automatically bestow classiness. On the other hand, perhaps Goa’s tourism authorities believe that anybody outside the normal backpacker profile is an up-market traveler. 

For most Europeans, Goa is just another sun-and-fun destination. Their “India Experience” often consists of a 10-minute elephant ride, shopping at the Anjuna flea-market, and excursions to spice plantations, waterfalls, and crocodile farms. Culture doesn’t figure too highly on the agenda. 

There’s little concrete uglification, but if you’ve ever experienced a down-market Spanish resort, central Goa’s coast may seem depressingly familiar. With its rip-off taxi drivers, wall-to-wall bars, and timeshare touts, Baga is particularly dispiriting. 

If you want to escape the masses—and Sunday roasts with Yorkshire pudding—the beaches of north and south Goa are much less crowded. However, most developments are on the central strip.  - Article Continued Below -
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Unraveling India’s property laws “A foreign national of non-Indian origin resident outside India cannot acquire any immovable property in India by way of purchase.” Advice from India’s Reserve Bank suggests buying a house or apartment is a non-starter, but the important phrase is resident outside India. If you’ve stayed for a minimum of 183 days in the previous financial year, you’re deemed a resident and thus legally able to buy a home.  But here’s another question: “How can I legally stay for 183 days when tourist visas expire after 180 days?”  Dr. John Britto of Acron Developers (a company that has been selling to foreign buyers for almost 18 years) explained how the system works. To facilitate foreign purchase, Acron signs a five-year lease agreement with the buyer that’s renewable periodically. This lease contract allows the purchaser to obtain a visa of more than six months duration from overseas Indian Embassies andHigh Commissions; or obtain a six-month non-tourist visa which can then be extended within India. Once the buyer has negotiated the 183-day rule, Acron will convert the lease into a freehold deed, and the home can be registered in the buyer’s name. It sounds like a tortuous method, however, none of the British residents I met at a house-warming party at Acron’s Villa Rosa development had encountered problems with converting leases into freehold deeds.  Nor were they too concerned about the other major drawback to purchasing property here: If you sell, you cannot repatriate the proceeds of the sale. As things stand, rupees cannot be taken out of India. You can bequeath the property to your heirs or deposit the sale proceeds in an Indian bank to spend whenever you return.  These laws are designed to discourage foreign speculation, but I was told there are ways around them. For example, you could buy gold or diamonds and take out the proceeds that way. Not a route for the faint-hearted.

What’s with the swastikas? Swastikas on neck-chains...on matchboxes... decorating Hindu and Jain temples... adorning the walls of Goa’s Swastiks High School. To Western visitors who associate the symbol with Nazism, being faced with a surfeit of swastikas usually produces deep shock. Throughout India, swastikas are associated with the deities of Ganesh, Vishnu, and Lakshmi. Meanings are many, but in essence it’s a good luck symbol. With a history going back thousands of years, its arms can bend either to the right or left and are upright. Nazi swastikas were tilted. Goa’s Dark Side Goa keeps its beggars well hidden. There’s also little evidence of the grinding street poverty that greets you in cities like Bombay. But despite brochure blandishments, Goa is no unspoiled Paradise. You can expect to see rats, stinking mounds of garbage, and creeks choked with litter. Such delights aren’t uncommon in India. Hygiene standards are often frightening. In Candolim’s Sonesta Inn, I saw a waiter drop a slice of bread onto the ground. Instead of discarding it, he simply popped it into the toaster.  In Third World countries, tourism growth often goes hand in hand with an increase in sex-for-sale. The sex industry here is much more discreet than in Thailand, for instance, but along with beer and fish curry, some Goan beach-shack owners also provide $2 prostitutes. But posters warning about the penalties for paedophilia indicate the sex trade has a more disturbing side. Dinner for two at Mokshi’s in Candolim Four Kingfisher beers: 120 rupees ($2.69) Dal (lentil curry): 50 rupees ($1.12) Chicken Rogan Josh: 95 rupees ($2.13) Butter garlic prawns: 125 rupees ($2.80) Two chapatis (Indian flat bread): 20 rupees (45 cents) Rice: 25 rupees (56 cents) Total: 435 rupees ($9.75)

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Complete serenity 
Linsey and Toby Patterson invited me to see their home—Peacock Villa. A couple of years back, they bought a one-bedroom apartment for $31,000. They are so taken by the lifestyle here, they’ve sold their original apartment and bought a duplex villa in Acron’s Riva development. Their choice of furnishings and jewel-colored fabrics give it a real “Last Days of the Raj” feel. 

About a mile from Candolim’s center, the gated complex is far enough from the tourist bustle to offer complete serenity. Landscaped gardens come with an inviting swimming pool, the twitter of birdsong is everywhere, and the properties themselves look well constructed. All the villas here are taken—and most were sold off-plan.

I wondered if Candolim had become over-touristed, but Linsey explained that not everybody eschews a lively atmosphere, or wants to live at the back-of-beyond. Proximity to a resort means shops, banks, supermarkets, and medical services are almost at your doorstep. 

Tennis matches...a dinner party circuit...meeting friends for European-style coffee at Candolim’s Cinnabar bistro...living far from home, most foreigners appreciate a support system of compatriots. 

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Goa’s property choices Title issues for resale properties aren’t always straightforward. Understandably, many expats buy a new apartment orvilla where titles are clear. Purchasing off-plan is common—the price increase between pre-build and post-build stage averages 35%. Due to the monsoons, most properties take around two years to build. Only two units remain unsold in the completed Villa Rosa development, venue of the housewarming party. One is a 345-square-foot studio apartment for $30,000, the other a 1,265-square-foot apartment for $111,000. Annual condo fees for the larger apartment are $494. Set among mango and palm trees, the complex is less than a 15-minute walk from the beach. Off-plan buys include: Villa Violeta—one-bedroom apartments and three-bedroom, semi-detached villas in a gated community with two swimming pools, a landscaped garden, and a gym. It’s close to the northern beaches of Morgim and Mandrem. Shops, markets, and other services are five minutes by car. Prices are from $55,700 to $151,000. Completion: April 2007. Villa Maria—one- and two-bedroom apartments (570 to 1,100 square feet) in the countryside near Siolim. Shops and services are nearby; beaches are 12 minutes by car. Prices are from $33,000 to $73,000. Completion: December 2007.

Contact: Acron Developers, “Montemar,” Retreat House Road, Baga, Goa; tel. (91)832-227-6147; e-mail: homes@acronindia.com; website: www.acronindia.com. 

Portuguese mansions and piggy toilets
Homes & Estates have other development properties and resales. For example, a five-year-old countryside bungalow with a garden is for sale for $77,000. Having obtained residency—either through leasing or long-term rental—you could purchase a second-hand home. However, when explaining the purpose of my visit, the initial greeting was brusque: “What do we get out of it? Why do you need photographs?”

The director, Michael Lobo, got summoned from home. It needed to be established that I really was a journalist and not some reprobate wanting to view properties before approaching the vendor privately. And that I wasn’t working for another agency and trying to obtain illicit photos. 

As we drove through the Bardez countryside, Mr. Lobo explained that some of my fellow Brits have a bad reputation. Plus, we’re insatiably greedy.

“You British—you want to buy for peanuts and sell for gold!” he exclaimed. (Doesn’t everybody, I wondered.) 

He’s also enraged with taxi drivers. Rather than pay an agency commission (2% for buyers, 2% for vendors), some people prefer giving a sweetener to a go-between—many cabbies apparently supplement their income in this way. (Baffling considering India’s nightmare property laws.)

If Mr. Lobo is correct, to avoid residency requirements, some witless Brits hand over suitcases of cash to taxi drivers and register the property in an Indian’s name. It’s hard to imagine that people can be so senseless. 

For $169,000, Homes & Estates have a restored 120-year-old Portuguese mansion with a courtyard on a 10,740-square-foot plot at Salvador de Mundo. Glowing a wonderful old gold color, the house has carved wooden doors, lofty beamed ceilings, and 3,887 square feet of living space. 

Similar unrestored houses can cost less than $56,000, but they require lots of work. One rather unpleasant feature of old Goan properties is the “piggy-toilet”—an open-hole trench with a snuffling pig waiting to make its contribution to recycling. (Yes, they do eat what you deposit.) Although I enjoy pork, I didn’t sample it here. 
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