For Andrew Taylor, it was an easy choice. Retired from the oil rigs and travelling alone, he made a quick decision that he would be staying put in Goa despite the option to go back home to London in the repatriation flights that the UK government is organizing for British citizens stranded across the globe.
“I look back at the situation in London where there are thousands of cases a day and I think it is safer here,” Taylor, who is staying at Agonda in south Goa, said.
There are around 20,000 British nationals across the country that are stranded in India of which a few thousand are in Goa. The British government has arranged three flights from Goa from this week and four others from Mumbai and Delhi but the repatriation is expected to be a long drawn process with wait lists already running into thousands.
Some tourists have chosen to stay put and wait it out in Goa.
“I’ve been thinking the same but I’m leaning towards staying here in Goa. I’ve got a place to stay, with plenty of food and water now. Lots of restaurants reopened for home deliveries. Also, the locals have been very caring and friendly to me. I also don’t have my own place in the UK and would have to stay with my parents. I don’t want to put them at risk in case I pick up the virus on the journey,” Josh Baxter, another traveller to Goa staying at Calangute, said.
“My only worry is if things get worse in India. And if we did contract the virus, the healthcare would not be as good as the UK. We’ve got another week of lockdown at least. Maybe wait until then and make a decision next week,” he added.
Travellers to India usually visit other locations of India as well. Yet, Goa is yet to report its first case of a foreigner contracting the coronavirus (Covid-19).
“I’m in Arambol (north Goa) with three of my friends I met. I came here with a girl I met in the hostel I was staying at in Udaipur and then the other two came from Jaipur and we met those at the airport coming here and shared a taxi and ended up staying together,” Charlotte Collins said. “We are having such a nice time and in the same boat as to whether or not to go home. I’m from northeast England, my friend is from Oxford, my other friends are from Mexico and Germany. We all think we want to stay here but due to it being so unpredictable, we are unsure what to do. Plus flights are pretty expensive right now.”
A factor on the minds of Britishers in Goa is the price of the repatriation flights which are upward of 600 GBP and the situation in the UK once they land, especially since they will be quarantined upon landing.
While initially with the lockdown being near total and a lot of tourists afraid of police brutality as well as hostility from locals, the Goa government has moved to reassure tourists that they will be taken care of and asking hotels and guesthouses to charge tourists only half the rack rates while also providing provisions to some who were caught unawares.
“The tourists who are staying in Goa have come much before and are not carriers of the virus so no one should target them,” Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said.
The Goa airport has handled 19 relief flights taking around 3,300 tourists back to their respective countries, including Russia, France, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Kazakhstan.
