Across the Mandovi, a portal opens to Goa’s vanished past

There is a time travel portal in north Goa’s Betim village. Happily, accessing it does not require bending the laws of physics, merely following the rules of traffic. Tucked into a residential cluster off Betim’s main road, the portal takes the form of an unassuming white house. Inside, antique furniture gleams in the light streaming in from the double doors to a wraparound terrace overlooking River Mandovi. The walls in all the rooms are appointed with rows of uniformly framed visuals, a few cartographic but most photographic – black-and-white, sepia and matte saturated colour. These are the evocative, old-world interiors of Ferry Cross Museotel, a museum-cum-hotel opened in 2025. The 300 images lining the walls span scenes from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, capturing life in Bet