Giving it a go in Goa

GO INDIA:Situated on Goa's exotic coast and now a favoured haunt of celebs and even royalty, a boutique hotel opened by Irish couple Paul McGlade and Caoilinn Taylor feels like the hottest place in town, writes ADAM ALEXANDER

IT’S A FRIDAY night on a beautiful moonlit beach in Goa, India, and as I pause to take in my surroundings, I’m reminded of the film Casablanca and its original title – Everyone comes to Rick’s.

It’s the exotic, tropical setting of course, but it’s also the characters around me – a Bollywood star, a Bahraini princess, and most incongruously of all perhaps, a member of the legendary band Madness – all somehow drawn together here, under the same roof at the same time.

Moving seamlessly through this eclectic mix are a glamorous young Irish couple – too young even to know who Madness are. Trying to make everyone feel at home, trying to remember everyone’s names. Trying most of all, perhaps, after a lot of hard work, to remember when the last time was that they managed to have a nice boring night off since being deluged on New Year’s Eve alone with what felt like almost 3,000 people.

It is only their first year of opening an exclusive 14-room luxury boutique hotel called Marbela Beach on a beautiful and surprisingly empty swathe of beach in India. But already Paul McGlade Jnr and Caoilinn Taylor, both 28, look as if they may have one of the hottest places in town.

“Which one’s the princess?” I ask Paul – as he looks in on the exclusive Bahraini princess’s birthday party they’re hosting to check if everything is going alright. “I haven’t a clue,” he says in his Dublin lilt, and can’t help but laugh at the sheer absurdity of it almost.

It’s a typical answer from a wholly unpretentious, immensely likeable couple, who nevertheless find themselves sitting on a place now almost effortlessly attracting names like actress Sadie Frost, socialite Jade Jagger (who regularly drops in from her own place just up the beach), and Bollywood stars like Hrithik Roshan – about as big as they come in India.

But how on earth did such a young Irish couple get themselves into all this, and how have they been so successful?

In a word, India is booming. While the rest of us can feel our economies draining, the exact opposite is happening here, as if the world were an egg-timer flipped on its head suddenly.

“I think over the next 10 years this place is going to explode,” says Paul, already widening his business interests to include building luxury homes along the Goan coast as he gamely tries to keep up.

But as is soon apparent to anyone who spends any time here, this is because Paul and Caoilinn’s dream – of bringing a little, personal comfort here – is now India’s big dream as well.

Interestingly, the pair who’ve been together since they were 18, still credit their decision to go travelling around the world together – to places like the United States, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Vietnam – for giving them many of the ideas for Marbela Beach and broadening their minds enough to do something as adventurous as move to India. “Everyone should take a year to go travelling,” says Paul. “It’s better than any university.”

Four years ago, Paul then started making business trips to India with his father, and – despite getting his fingers badly burnt initially – decided not to let go of a place he found to be “buzzing”.

“That’s when I realised that if you want to do business here you’ve got to be here. That’s when we decided to move,” he says.

The one thing that keeps coming up in their account of their India experience so far though is just how friendly and welcoming the overwhelming majority of the people have been. Their invitation to dinner with Gregory David Roberts, author of Shantaram – who they met one night at a party in Mumbai – the most enviable example of all, perhaps.

“I was so excited, because I’d just read Shantaram. I was like: wow!” says Caoilinn, who also met Roberts’s wife – the enigmatically-titled Princess Francoise.

Afterwards, Roberts, whose best-selling book is all about his exploits with the Bombay mafia, wrote down a number and gave it to Paul. “If you’re ever in trouble and need a guardian angel,” he told him. “Call this guy.”

And has he? “Not yet,” Paul laughs. “But it’s amazing the people you meet here.”

The way things are going though, it would be no great surprise if the author whose book is arguably bringing more people travelling to India than the Lonely Planet now, popped up again at Paul and Caoilinn’s wedding due to take place at Marbela Beach at the end of February.

Some 50 people are expected to fly from Dublin for the big day – joining 100 more guests from India, many of them family from Ireland, who have never even seen India before, never mind Marbela Beach.

“I can’t wait for them to get here to see what we’ve created,” says Caoilinn, who puts the formula for Marbela Beach’s early success down to their deliberate attempt to create an intimate ‘living room’ atmosphere. “We want them to see our home. We want them to have a really good time.”

What’s clear also is how excited they are to show off Goa – a surprisingly affluent, utterly laid-back part of India, they are equally as passionate about.

“You can hop on a bike here and in 20 minutes be in the middle of jungle. We’ve seen monkeys, crocodiles, snakes even. There’s nowhere like this,” says Paul.

But while they joke together about perhaps becoming the first ever Irish couple to get married here, what is far more apparent sadly – for Irish business interests anyway – is that they are the only Irish they know doing business here.

“India is not on the Irish map at all,” says Paul, who would dearly love to see – and help – more Irish people venturing into the new Indian market. “People have the wrong impression, that’s why. They think it’s all ‘slum-dog millionaire’ – poor and dirty and slums. But it’s so much more than that! There are more millionaires and billionaires here than anywhere else,” he says.

He rattles of some more startling statistics. “Fifty per cent of the population is under 25. Sixty-five per cent is under 35. There’s 300 million middle class growing 10 per cent every year. For a young entrepreneur, this is the land of opportunity. Because of the numbers.”

As a result, Goa – where India is taking the party – seems to be changing already. No longer the tired backpacking cliché, but a destination with style cheaper and better than the Caribbean perhaps, as it slowly transforms itself to accommodate India’s insatiable new appetite for luxury.

Not that Paul and Caoilinn, at the very engine of this now, want the tranquil hippy vibe that Goa still retains from the 1960s to ever disappear as a result.

“You don’t want to lose the hippy scene,” says Paul. “You don’t want to lose the cows on the beach. You don’t want to become the next St Tropez – too perfect!”

It’s a reminder that at Marbela Beach, the right people are in the right place at the right time. Irish entrepreneurs, take heart.

* marbelabeach.com or tel 00-91-9158881180. Fly with Ethiad Airways (etihadairways.com) from Dublin, Qatar or direct charters from Manchester or London.