Goa way

GOA. Few places have names so short. Fewer mean so many different things to so many different people. To most tourists it's a beachy idyll. To some tourists it's a place to take drugs and dance all night to thumping non-music.

To Goans it's home. Those who consider themselves Hindu live largely in the villages of the hinterland. Catholics tend to cluster near the ocean. That covers people born in Goa. But they are far from the only Goans.

Other Indians move here from across the country. They come for the calm and the clean air, for the lack of anything approaching a city, for the novelty of not often needing to wear shoes or lock doors, and because, in the online age, they can bring their jobs - often in creative industries - with them.

Many Russians have made a home here, and almost as many Israelis seem to be passing through. Here's hoping not all of them are bad people. You can spot the difference between the white residents and tourists by the fact that those who live here load themselves and their children onto the same motorbike - just like the locals.

Goa is the smallest of India's 28 states at 3,700 square kilometres. The largest state, Rajasthan, could swallow Goa more than 92 times. Goa's population of 1.46-million is almost one-and-a-half times smaller than Bombay's. Goa is, remember, an entire state. Bombay is a city within the state of Maharashtra.

I'm not sure I could live anywhere in India. Except in Goa. Especially with sunsets like this: