René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

Dirk and I have had a great week in India, made our planned trip to Ooty by Toy Train, then to Mudumalai National Park and via Mysore back to Bangalore. Pictures of the trip are here. We were very much looking forward to our next travel to Goa over Christmas, something that I always considered a "once in a lifetime experience". Everything had been organized since 2 months, flights, hotel – ready to go.

After terror struck on that November 26th in Mumbai, Dirk was at no point hesitant to go ahead with his travel to India; we even intended to include after Goa two days/one night in Mumbai, preferably in the Taj Mahal Hotel which had bravely re-opened yesterday. We are still convinced that after what happened there, security would convert the hotel into a fortress against a new terrorist attack. 

Unfortunately, today we learnt there were "specific terrorist threats" against Goa with the effect that all beach parties got banned. Moreover, that the central goverment is therefore deploying 375 paramilitary troups. Israel had already issued a "very concrete" warning to its citizens to avoid travels to Goa over Christmas and New Year. What does it mean for us?

We had very prudent and ambiguous discussions throughout the whole day where in the nutshell we were torn between two poles: not letting ourselves get blackmailed by those sick elements vs. taking an informed decision based on a sober risk assessment. Yet, in addition, we realized that there would be another aspect: A profound change in the very atmosphere why we had selected Goa as our destination. A paradise for the king of chilling. Imagining the closure of many venues and the (fully justified and required) presence of heavily armed security all over the place is exactly the antithesis for such an image. 

We discussed very frankly if we were cowards because we were giving in to terrorism. I wouldn't dare to reject that notion entirely. Yet, we also thought a lot about that little bug that would be sitting in our head and forcing us to watch every person coming into a restaurant or club. Why does he move that fast? Where is he going? What is this dent in his jacket and so on and so on. 

We were even working in the first place on a Plan B to move away from the very populated hotel in Baga (where the action is, that's why we booked it) to a less frequented place in South Goa. Yet, in vain. On a short notice, there was nothing reasonable available.

From a tactical standpoint, we also felt that protecting a hotel with an overseable circumference like the Taj Mahal Hotel is a manageable exercise, yet doing the same for a strip of land like the 100 km long beachline a totally different story.

As we saw the margin for a solution dwindle where we would feel both resilient and safe, we opted to cancel Goa and booked Christmas in Dubai instead. It simply doesn't feel good to know that you are a target.

Our prayers will be with those in Goa who did not back off that everything proceeds fine with a quiet and peaceful Christmas and Happy New Year.