Goa......

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Goa is like an oasis in India.
It was a get together of all the friends and destination we chose could not have been better than Goa. When the maddening crowds finally begin to drive you insane and you want to go and party with travelers from the rest of the world, you hop on a train to Goa.
Goa is a state on the West coast of India and used to be a Portuguese colony and the Catholic heritage lives on. The Hindus now outnumber the Christians but there are churches everywhere, Old Portuguese houses with their unique architechture attract your attention.
All along the way you can see the Portuguese houses and each one is only one of its kinds.

Goa became world famous for its trance parties and until recently was a Mecca for partygoers worldwide. The greed of police and local mafia has ensured the downfall of trance partiers in nature though and nowadays the parties resemble more discos. But there are still plenty of people dancing away on LSD.
Many just choose to chill out in the ambience of the place.

The beaches aren’t as gorgeous as Thailand perhaps, but they’re still beautiful and have largely avoided the ravages of development. So many weird and wonderful people spend their winters there that certain areas have an international village feeling. There are many Western families who spend the season here with their kids and so the demographic is as varied as you could want it to be.

After all the chaos we finally managed to get bus tickets from Pune to Goa. Sam joined us in Pune and together we left for Goa on 25th Jan at 8:00 pm. As usual Pallavi and I running around the house doing the last minute packing and all along asking ourselves will we make it to the bus?. We did make it just in time.
We reached Mapusa at about 6:00 am; it was way too chilly in the morning. The minute you step out of the bus you are crowded by dozens of taxi drivers fighting among themselves. In midst of all the chaos we managed to find an autorikshaw, driver seemed kinda sweet. Baga beach is around 7-8kms from here. Goa is not the kind of place where you make all the necessary stay arrangements. Most of the localities rent out rooms which is way too cheap and convenient than all the resorts. Now we had to find a place and a good bargain. We decided to split up Sam went in one direction Pallavi and I in the other. Sam managed to find a place. I wasn’t very convinced so Pallavi and I decided to do one last round of looking around. And Bingo! We did find a place way better than the previous one and cheap too.

We took two rooms, rest of them were suppose to join us in a few hours, as we were tired due to the long journey we decided to take a nap. But alas! That was not meant to happen; we had spoken to a watchman near by to rent out bikes. He showed up with five bikes. One thing you must always make sure of is that the legal formalities of the bikes are up to date. We learnt this the hard way thru, but that is a different story all together. Three of us then decided to hit the beach. Didn’t really feel like swimming. Jus laze around and lay on the beech. In no time we were surrounded by small girls selling anklets and bracelets. Pallavi and I bought a few, you jus need to show an ounce of interest towards buying, next thing you know you are crowded by loads of women trying to sell things to you. We had to be a lil stern with them; they got the message and left us alone.

It was around 1:00 in the afternoon, we had brunch. Finally everyone else joined us. It was a lovely reunion. We decided to have lunch went to a near by shack and hogged. Poor Nithin as usual lost his way in Baga and walked close to 5kms away from the place where we were staying. He always seems to goof up. Some of the guys wanted to go do water sports while we just wanted to relax so we split up. They went ahead and swam and lot of other stuff, while we lied on recliners all evening and watched the sun sink far away beyond the horizon.

The last time I had been to Goa, it was way too crammed for a short period of time. This time we decided to take time off and jus relax and only relax. Flea Market happens on every Wednesday and Saturday, we definitely din wanna miss it this time. We shopped and shopped and shopped.
We then decided to go partying, but later changed our mind instead we decided to jus stay at the beach all night. I tried fenny, lord! It’s beyond me. We crashed at Sams shack; it was relatively less crowded as compared to the other shacks. We talked all night, drank and watched the sky and different constellations. We finally went back to room at 4:30 in the morning and immediately all of us slept off.

The next morning the guys came banging on door and forced us out of the bed, we all got dressed and had brunch at the café down stairs. The food was pretty good. We then head towards Vagator beach on our bikes. Ridding on the bikes was a nice experience, going thru the country side and watching the natives. Instead of taking the road to the Vagator fort, we decided to climb up from the other side of the hill.

This was sometime in the afternoon, it took us a while to reach the top. Once we made it to the top we walked around took pictures and sat there on a rock for a long time. The view was spectacular. On one side was the sea and the other side was another hill. The waves painted an all together different picture. It looked as if an army in white was marching towards the land. One’s imagination knew no bounds. We then trekked towards the other hill. It was very peaceful up there, away from all the pandemonium of life. We were frozen in time.

It was time to descend down. We were climbing down from the other side of the second hill. Least did we know that the other side was way too steep and rocky. Slightest of a mistake you fall right in the water amidst the rocks, was a lil freaky but fun too! We climbed down slowly watching every single step, once or twice I slipped. After 2hours of climbing down we finally hit the ground. Immense sense of happiness engulfed us, we then hit the water. Stayed on the beach for a while. Danish and Leila had to leave early since they had to go back to Delhi.

It was time we went back. We took our bikes and off we went. We then quickly had a shower and decided to explore the town a bit. We split up. Initially Pallavi, Sangeeta and I went around shopping. All the small shops on the road side had really cheap stuff; we had to bargain a lot thou. I decided to grab a bite at subway as for vegetarian, Goan cuisine dint have much to offer. We walked around for a lil longer and did some more shopping. We found this really sweet lady at one of those tiny stores. She recognized me from the flea market, we chatted with her for a very long time. We then went to the beach again and were back at Sams shack. We had dinner and spent all night drinking and walking along the shore. We went back to the room only at 5:00 in the morning and just like the previous day everyone slept off.

It wasn’t long before the guys again banged on the door and woke us up. This time we went to a place called “Nisha’s”. It’s a small café in baga; we had our fond memories with place from our last visit. We sat there for a long time and chatted away to glory.
It was time we hit the beach again. This time we went Para-sailing, and went for a ride on the Jet Ski. The Jet Ski was awesome. The guy took us one by one. I went for a second round. And this time boy! It was superb. He took me to the middle of the sea and dropped me in water at such a speed that for a second I din know where on earth I was. I could feel the adreline rush in me. We then dried ourselves till late in the evening. We had to get back to room as Pallavi and I had to catch a bus back to Pune. Everyone else gave me a huge surprise at the bus stop when they showed up there with a cake. It was my birthday on 29th Jan and I was leaving. I was overwhelmed with this gesture. We the cut the cake and took the last few pics before I said my goodbyes to everyone.

All in all it was a wonderful trip with loads of small small things to ponder over and say
Wish…….

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