Goa known for its beautiful coastline and amazing beaches is really place to visit. Goa is very scenic BLAH BLAH BLAH........ everyone knows and I hate to repeat what others have already written. Let me give my experience about Goa.
Last month I went to Goa with my wife and my 18 month old son. This was my third visit to Goa, my wife’s second (of which one being our honeymoon) and our son’s first. My wife and I just love Goa for obvious reasons. In past we have flown to Goa but never gone by train, thus we decided to go by train (Konkankanya Express) by A/c III Tier, which travels through the most beautiful terrains/ mountains/ tunnels in the country. Since my wife’s cousin stays in Goa, they offered to book the hotel on our behalf but not before staying with them for couple of days. After staying couple of days at my wife’s cousins place, we were move to Hotel Delmonte.
On the second day, suddenly my son fell ill and had a fever of about 99F at 11 p.m. We gave paracetamol, but the fever it did not subside and thus called up the doctor in Mumbai. The doctor prescribed medicine to be bought from a medical shop. Obviously I reached out to the yellow pages, just to find to my surprise that there are NO Day & night chemists in the entire Goa. In desperation I also tried to call medical shops just trying my luck to check whether they were still open at 11.30 in the night. We drove almost the whole night and tried convincing the hospitals to open their inhouse chemists, which many refused to do so. Finally I had to rush my son who by then had a temperature of 103F at 4 in the morning to a maternity home (yes I mean it maternity home), who did manage did the temperature down to 100F. It was such a nightmarish experience that we flew back to Mumbai the same day.
It is so unimaginable that a tourist destination like Goa lacks basic facilities like a day and night chemist. I am not sure whether the state Government or the Central Government can do something about this. Infact I will extend this logic to other tourist destination where the state alongwith the cental Government has to adhere to certain conditions and minimum facilities to be made available before declaring as a tourist destination.
This review would sound more like a personal tour story, but I thought it would be nice to make aware others and be prepared. If someone reading is from Goa, please let me know if there are any day & night medical shops in Goa for the benefit of all of us.
Please let me have your comments/views/suggestions
Regards
Vijay