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Published: January 5th 2010
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Youth Hostel India (
website) organizes several affordable and very nicely organised national adventure expeditions. With good experiences on their Himalayan expeditions, I signed up for the 7 day Goa Biking Expedition for Rs.3000 that covers the stay, meals, renting of geared bikes and travel accessories like helmet, gloves and knee caps. Quite a deal ! No wonder the expeditions get booked 2-3 months early. There were 6 batches of bikers starting their expeditions every alternate day starting from 12th December. I was in GB-3 (Goa Biking group 3). The base camp at Panaji is located behind the Sports Authority Ground on the banks of the Mandovi river. There is a swimming tank at stone's throw to relieve you from your biggest enemy at the camp, the heat. Some 15-20 large 10 person tents were pitched for the numerous participants of biking, sailing, trekking expeditions as well as family campers. There are fixed timings for tea, lunch, breakfast and dinner. All participants are required to be back at the camp by 7.00 pm for a dinner at 8.00 pm and campfire at 9.00 pm.
I checked in for the expedition yesterday and found out only 6 guys and 2 girls from my group have turned up. Aniket, Rajath and Vishal are software guys, Shekhar, a hydraulic unit manufacturer from Pune, Narpinder Rana, a lawyer from Chandigarh, Gayatri, an economics student from Pune and Shanmora, a teacher working with Spastics society of India. A quintessential chic-urban group, in our nikes and reeboks, with English as our de-facto language and four D-SLRs amongst us. Although our backgrounds could not have been more diverse, our frequencies matched quite instantly. 6 participants never showed up, quite sad as there is a long waiting list for these expeditions. Sendil from Coimbatore, later shifted from the trekking group to ours making the grand total to 9. A small group was good for us, we did not have to cram up in the tent and can have a nice comfortable sleep. Or so we thought. The first night wiped out all the misconceptions. It was hot, humid with no signs of breeze anywhere and everyone in the tents pitching and rolling over the hard ground. Vishal made an unsuccessful attempt to sleep outside the tent. The dogs and mosquitoes drove him in within no time. Rana was the only guy peacefully snoring. We did get a cake though for not sleeping. It was Rajath's Birthday the next day and so at 12 we had a small party with cake and all in out tent. Somewhere late night, I was able to catch a wink only to be waken up by the bed tea whistle at 6 am. After a small jog and a warm-up, there was an artificial rock climbing session, my old bete noire from HMI. Someday, I will get over it but today was not the day. After the breakfast, we were shown the brand new 21 gear Meridan bikes. They had reached the camp just yesterday and we were lucky to be their first users. We took a small joy ride to Donapaula which wasnt exactly a joy ride. The bikes were super and I had not driven anything like that. But the heat and traffic were the killers. Back from the ride, after lunch, there was a small orientation session after which we scooted off to swimming pool. Rajath achieved the feet of jumping from 10 m in the pool on his birthday. I was content with 5 m. The campfire is a necessary ritual at Youth Hostel expeditions which is a kind of ordeal for someone like me, who cant sing, dance, mimicry or comeup with instant jokes. Shanmora was our saviour. She came up with a Gujarathi song where we had to chorus something like 'Jaamkhedi re Jaamkhedi' every now and then. Simple ! At 9.30 pm it was lights out for the biggest ordeal of the day, Sleep !
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SHEKAR
non-member comment
U MISSED OUT OUR MECHANIC - NARENDER! SOME WERE FIRST TIMERS ON GEARED CYCLE - I THINK GAYATRI HAD NOT USED ONE. BY THE WAY, MY NAME IS SHEKAR - SHORT FOR CHANDRASHEKAR - WHERE DID U DREAM UP VENKATESH!!