Dharohar Customs Museum

Customs museum of items seized over the decades, in the old Customs House

The Dharohar — "Heritage" — Museum occupies the old Customs House on the Mandovi waterfront, a Portuguese-era building that served the same function for two centuries. The displays are the unclaimed seized property of the Indian Customs Department, spanning everything from antiquities and ivory to confiscated artworks, contraband currency, and counterfeit liquor.

It is an oddly compelling museum: each object came with a story of attempted concealment, and the captions explain how the smuggler tried to disguise it. The Customs House itself is worth a look: 18th-century arcaded ground floor, restored woodwork, a panel of azulejo tiles around the entrance. Free entry; closed weekends and public holidays.

things to do museum
A story
The collection consists of items that were impounded at India's borders but never claimed — and so, by the workings of Indian customs law, became the property of the state. The result is a small ethnographic cross-section of what travellers and traders tried to smuggle into India over a century: tiger skins, ivory, fake antiques, gold bars, rare manuscripts, and various objects of unclear purpose.

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