Hotel near BOM

[CarbonMan]

Well, if you're there only one night and probably staying centrally in Panjim/Panaji, the Marriott or the Grand Hyatt are your best bets, but you'll need a driver and a car to get around. Go to Mum's Kitchen if you only have one meal to try Goan food.

Sounds like a great idea! Thanks, Savage!

[viraj735]

Well, if you're there only one night and probably staying centrally in Panjim/Panaji, the Marriott or the Grand Hyatt are your best bets, but you'll need a driver and a car to get around. Go to Mum's Kitchen if you only have one meal to try Goan food.

The GH Goa is a brand spanking new property and though I've only spent a couple of nights there I can definitely second that recommendation.

[CarbonMan]

Thank you everyone, Savage25, viraj735, 9V-JKL, for all your input on GOI and BOM. Took up your advise and traveled on the Sunday which let me get some rest before the meetings started.

Stayed in Panaji/Panjim at the Vivanta. Very nice place, very friendly staff, pretty new, secure, relatively good food. I would certainly recommend it to anyone to doing biz in that area. I also visited the Marriott by the beach, it's very nice too but felt it was more of a vacation hotel than a biz hotel.

As for restaurants, I would recommend Mummy's Kitchen (near Marriott) and the Upper Room (in Panaji town). I liked the latter more, though it was a harder find. The flavours of Goan food is exciting though it has had a huge dose of Indian influence ... and the pork ... I've not had so much fat in the pork anywhere else!

Old Goa is worth a 2-hour visit if one is interested in history - but get a guide to help you around and give some background. It's really wonderful to get the feel that commerce and rivalry have not changed very much over the 500+ years. But Old Goa definitely cannot compare to many other historical sites in the West - requires alot of investment and skilled labour to resurrect this very important place.

One interesting thing I note (not having been to India in about 8 years) is that pax are very punctual for their domestic flights. My BOM-GOI flight was 1255, so I sauntered over to the gate at 1225, early by SIN standards. There was hardly anyone around the gate except the staff by the aerobridge. He looks up to me immediately and asked," Mr C?" Wow, I'm on Y and they know my name!! What service! When I confirmed that it was me, he said with eyes staring right at me, "You're the last to board, sir". Slap.