Shopping in Goa
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Mapusa Market
The Mapusa market goes about its business daily, except Sundays, but really gets going on Friday mornings. It’s a raucous affair that attracts vendors and shoppers from all over Goa (and interstate) with an entirely different vibe to the Anjuna market. Here you’ll find locals haggling for clothing and produce, and you can also find antiques, souvenirs and textiles. So significant is the market locally that the town’s name is derived from the Konkani words map meaning ‘measure’ and sa meaning ‘fill up’, in reference to the trade in spices, vegetables and fruit that’s plied here daily.
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Oxford Arcade
The massive Oxford Arcade, just next to the Starco crossroads, is a fully fledged supermarket, complete with shopping trolleys, ice-cold air-conditioning and checkout scanners. Hallowed ground for foreigners who pay dearly for little luxuries, it also sports a bakery, toiletries department, pet food, wine department and children’s toys. Come Christmas, this is the place to buy your tinsel and baubles, fake tree and kids’ gifts to stack beneath it.
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Glastonbury Street
Everything beaded, mirrored, embroidered and embellished is to be found on the stretch of sandy lane winding down to the beach that British festival-going visitors refer to as ‘Glastonbury Street’. Here, stalls jostle shoulder-to-shoulder to sell you everything Indian, so haggle hard to fill your bag with bright and beautiful bed spreads, bindis, bidis (local, hand-rolled cigarettes) or bongos to take back home.
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Friday Market
The market town of Mapusa (pronounced ‘Mapsa’) is the largest town in northern Goa, and is most often visited for its busy Friday Market which attracts scores of buyers and sellers from neighbouring towns and villages, and a healthy intake of tourists from the northern beaches. It’s a good place to pick up the usual slew of embroidered bedsheets and the like, at prices far lower than in the beach resorts.
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Star Magic Shop
While strolling Calangute, Baga and Anjuna market, you’re sure to spot Star’s shop or one of its stalls, promising to teach you magic tricks in a startlingly brief two minutes. Stop off to purchase tricks and illusions to thrill your great aunties and uncles next Christmas, or simply to satisfy that inner thirst to be Thurston.
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D
Golden Heart Emporium
One of Goa’s very best bookshops, crammed with fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and illustrated volumes on the state’s food, architecture and history. It’s situated down a little lane off Abade Faria Rd, on the right-hand side as you’re heading north.
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Municipal Market
This atmospheric place, where narrow streets have been converted into covered markets, makes for a nice wander, offering fresh produce, clothing stalls and some tiny, enticing eateries. The fish market is a particularly interesting strip of activity.
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covered market
Long-term visitors will want to visit Margao for its markets - the covered market in the centre is one of the largest and most raucous in Goa, and there's a fish and produce market in a vast complex near the Kadamba bus stand.
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Rainbow Bookshop
In Vagator you’ll find the lovely little Rainbow Bookshop, which is run by a charming elderly gentleman and stocks a good range of secondhand and new books, including Lonely Planet guides.
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Bombay Stores
Selling high-quality gifts, crafts, textiles, beauty products, tea and jewellery, Bombay Stores makes for good gift shopping, with the slightly befuddling slogan ‘Treasures to Gift, Gifts to Treasure’.
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Fusion Access
A cool 1st-floor treasure trove, filled with beautiful reproduction antiques – from beds to bedside lamps – textiles, richly illustrated books on Goa, and lots of other exciting goodies.
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Other India Bookstore
A little hard to find: go up the steps on the right as you walk down Mapusa Clinic Rd, and follow signs. This friendly and rewarding little bookshop is at the end of a dingy corridor.
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Visionworld Book Depot
Offers a good selection of self-help and spiritual titles, novels and children’s books, as well as selling an assortment of locally made snacks to provide sustenance for browsing.
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Butterfly Book Shop
The best of several good bookshops in town, this cute and cosy place with resident cat stocks bestsellers, classics and a good range of books on yoga, meditation and spirituality.
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Sosa’s
A chic boutique carrying local labels such as Horn Ok Please, Hidden Harmony and Free Falling, Sosa’s is the best place in Panaji to source upscale Indian fashion.
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Singbal’s Book House
A good selection of international magazines and newspapers, and lots of books on Goa, are offered at this slightly grumpy establishment.
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Book Fair
A small, well-stocked bookshop in the Hotel Mandovi lobby, with plenty of well-illustrated books on Goa.
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Pauline Book & Media Centre
Specialising in self-help, spiritual and religious titles. Down a laneway off 18th June Rd.
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New Municipal Market
Near the Muncipal Market, you’ll find everything from fruit and vegetables to tailors.
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