Mango Villa

I wouldn’t recommend this place. My room had been given to someone else, and on check-in day the owner told me to come back the next day. I insisted, so he put me in another room for the night. It smelled awful, even after I burned several incense sticks, and everything was dirty. The next day, I was told I could move in at noon, but the room still wasn’t ready at 2. The owner was rude and told me to go somewhere else. Before paying the reservation fee, I’d asked whether my dog could stay in the room once or twice a week, and he said yes. When I brought the dog, he got upset and tried to throw me out. One day, while I was away, the owner entered my room without permission to take the WiFi router. When I asked why he’d gone in, he simply said, “because you were not there”.

Katya, the owner, was attentive and helpful. You can ask her about a transfer, a bike, or places to eat and visit. The guest house is close to the beach, and I’d definitely recommend staying here.

If you’re in Morjim mainly for Ashtanga yoga Morjim, the one clear plus is its location right across the road, just a two-minute walk to morning practice. For the rest of your trip, I’d look elsewhere. There are plenty of nearby places with better facilities and more competitive prices. The rooms are dark, with basic shower-and-toilet bathrooms and an Indian-style kitchen. Cooking may be frustrating: the kitchen has very few things, including just one knife, a bread knife, for peeling an onion. The pans are badly worn, with non-stick coating peeling off, and most of the pots are aluminium. If you’re concerned about that, I suppose there’s Flipkart or Amazon India. Mango villa is mostly rented by Russian travellers staying for the season, from Oct-Apr. Most can’t speak or understand English. Noise was a real problem. People played electronic music loudly late into the night, and in the studio rooms it was hard to sleep before 10:30pm. Russian families sometimes rented the place, and their children came outside to play, scream, and cry in the open area right by the rooms from 9pm on. I don’t know if that’s their normal playtime back home. Sometimes the adults joined in, standing in front of your porch and talking VERY loudly to each other and to people on the second floor. Asking them to quiet down didn’t help because they wouldn’t understand English. The Russian woman who looks after the place during the season, and as I understand it helps manage it, stays in the unit above. She’s also the previous reviewer who posted photos and gave the place 5 stars. It’s useful to have her there if you run out of gas, since the kitchen has a standard gas stove. But when I told her the other guests and their children were noisy and asked her to help communicate with them, she said, “well, have you told them yourself?” even though none of the guests understood English. Mosquitoes during my February stay were atrocious. They’ll eat you alive as soon as you step outside, so bring plenty of repellent. Power cuts happen frequently throughout Morjim, almost like a norm, but this place has no generator. An outage can last all day, leaving you without WiFi, and the water pump won’t work, so you can run out of water. The washing machine is shared by seven other rooms, and each room might have one person or a family of four, so you can do the maths. Don’t expect the laundry to come out very clean; sometimes there’s sand in freshly washed pants. I’d advise staying elsewhere unless you’re a heavy sleeper and really don’t mind the nighttime noise.

There’s a spacious garden with coconut trees at this beachside property, and it’s very green, just 300 metres from the beach. The atmosphere is cool and relaxing, with birdsong to listen to. It’s suitable for couples, bachelors, working superiors, and older people.