Goa

Shopping Delights

Your travel to Goa is obviously incomplete if you don’t carry back trinkets and souvenirs typical to this land! The lanes of Panjim are obviously filled with interesting shops and stalls selling handicrafts, exotic fruits, shaped bottles, sculptures and the eternal feni! Among the traditional handicrafts, crafts made of terracotta top the list. Pots, urns, pigs, frogs, bulls, frames and miniatures are some of the articles carved of terracotta. Cuncolim has artisans creating green and red wooden lacquer chitaris and Mapusa is known for its brass wares like brass bells and brass oil lamps. Get your hands on some of the handmade needlework table cloths, bedspreads and cushions made by artists from Chimbel. Artisans at Pernem and Valpoi create exquisite goodies made of bamboo – these include pen stands, lampshades and wall hangings. A must buy – coconut shells shaped into heads of gods, hair clips and bangles and jute handicrafts. Goan handicrafts are available in abundance at the Crafts Complex. In addition, Goa Handicraft and Rural Small Scale Industries Development Corporation has its branches at Margao, Calangute and Vasco.

Check out the several stores owned and managed by private owners, which house artifacts including Kashmiri wares, marble carvings and colourful scarves. Famous stores include Oriental Arts and Kashmiri Government and Arts Emporium. An especially popular place is Shalala at Calangute – its specialties include gold, silver and semi-precious stone jewelleries. Extensive use of seashells, jute and bamboo are made to create exquisite local crafts. These are available at Goa Handicrafts and the Art Cottage. Pick up village scenes spun onto jute mattresses available at Ancestral Goa. Typical to Portuguese influence, the Velha Goa Galleries is the best place to get your hands on the beautiful hand-painted glazed blue and white azulejos tiles. Use them as you want to – wall hangings, photo frames or coasters.

A feature peculiar to Goa is small shops housed in old Goan mansions, which have been restored and offer various household articles. Among the several mansions, Camelot is particularly interesting and has on sale mirrors, linen, leather and fabric footwear, religious prints, silver accessories, antiques and tile collections. Sangolda is another restored mansion in Arpora, which has curios and antique furniture arranged in such a way that you can walk through and examine them thoroughly before buying. Similarly Casa Goa in Calangute, Antiquarts in Porvorim, The Attic in Mapusa and Manthan in Benaulim offers Goan pottery, sculptures, handmade papers, oil paintings, charcoal and water-colour paintings, stained glassworks, Goan lamps and antique furniture.

You can’t come to Goa and not indulge in some beach-side shopping, especially since colourful stalls selling a range of goodies line every corner of the beaches. Especially popular among these is the stretch at Baga-Candolim-Calangute, which sell ‘I Love Goa’ t-shirts, sea-shell jewllery, silver and semi-precious trinkets, leather goods and sarongs. What’s even better are the restaurants, cafés, juice and snack bars that surround these stalls and are the best place to chill while watching the surreal sunset. Of course, among all these beachside shopping, you must visit the Anjuna Flea Market held every Wednesday and offering t-shirts, trinkets, funky jewellery, bedspreads, mirror-work garments and electronic goods. Similar to this, the Saturday Night Bazaar at Anjuna and Ingo’s Saturday Night Market at Arpora offer similar goodies accompanied by lively music and fortune-tellers! Along with these, the Friday Market at Mapusa offers a whole variety of eatables that are distinctly Goa. These include Goan sausages, dry fish, cashew nuts, feni, Goan masalas, xacuti and cafreal spices, flat and dry mangoes and Goan sweets. Panjim’s market is centered near the Immaculate Conception Church and is known for its bookstores that sell books and articles on Goan history and present era. Also, easily distinguished here is Kajuwala, which sells, of course, cashew nuts. Buy them in bulk from the Mapusa Friday Market. And don’t forget to pick up a bottle or two of the Goan Feni, which are available at any of the liquor stores here. Remember, however, that you need a permit to carry feni out of Goa, which is available at the shops itself. Among other food articles are the utterly sweet bebinca, home-made flavoured chocolates and lines of Goan sausages available in innumerable varieties.