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Published: September 19th 2014
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December 23-31, 2008.This was my first trip to Goa out of my 8 trips (until 2014) to this magical part of India. Actually this was the second one, but since the first one was with my parents, this was effectively the first. I had to fight with my manager for a vacation amidst a critical project for this trip, after all it was planned long in advance. I was looking forward to catch up with my Techfest gang from IIT after a long time. The usual suspects, apart from me, were Rahul, Punty, Saluja, Sunnu, CLPa, Tyagi, Torka, Piyush (who joined later), Chaman and some of the WAGs.
The plan was for everyone to assemble at Bombay, take Torka's car and a hired car and set out for Goa. So after a whole night of work at office I caught my bus to Bombay. It was a 22 hours journey. The views on the way were great but by the end of it became a pain because of bed bugs and a stiff back. But it was a great feeling to be back in the most amazing city of India where I had spent 5 glorious years of my life.
I reached Rahul's house the next morning in Bombay. There wasn't much of plan for that day. Daddu and Mona were in Bombay too coincidentally so I and Punty decided to catch up with them at BTC restaurant in Crawford market. We met Rishu Bihari and a friend of Mona at a CCD in colaba. The meeting turned out to be a wild one with some violent cat fight.
The remaining people of the gang arrived the next morning and after a little chaos the gang set out for Goa in the two cars. Needless to mention it was one hell of a drive. We had breakfast at a highway restaurant and moments later the ghat section started. The curves did give a few people some driving sickness. A few tea stops, a dinner and a few 100 kms later, we were in Goa. It was late in the night. The guest house owner lady was worried whether we will turn up or not. We had a little trouble locating the guest house. Since I was the one who had booked it and done all the negotiations, there was an added pressure on me to locate it. Those
were the days when smartphones with data connections werent so common.
Finally we moved into our 2 bhk guest house. It was located quite close to Mandovi river in Panaji but the awesome view became visible only in the morning. Then started a five day beer festival. We had stocked plenty of it in our flat so that we didnt need any water for next 5 days. Also began the beach hopping in our two cars- Morjim, Calungute, Baga, Candolim. The awsomest of our parties in those 4 days was at Sunny Side Up at Candolim. Live music was great, ambiance fantastic and awesome food and drinks. Samrat, our IDC friend from IIT also joined us for the party that night. It has been a ritual to visit Sunny side up everytime we go to Goa since then.
On one of the mornings after an awesome breakfast at Calangute, some people decided to go for water sports and some split towards Fort Agoda. I was amongst the ones who went for water skiing. That was one of the most daring things I had done in till then and was worth it too.
On the new year evening
we decided to go to a relatively less crowded beach of Palolem which was a little far from Panjim. We ate at Delhi Durbar in Panjim and set out for Palolem. It turned out to be a beautiful place. We played foot ball with some firangs and after getting exhausted got back to beer. It was a surprise to see the aggressive footballer in CLP who almost made Luis Suarez blush. The beer quickly showed its effect on empty stomach and exhausted bodies. Some of us found an awesome shack at the very end of the beach. Rahul and I had some more beer on the bar over there. Memories of the evening after that are a bit blurry for me. :-P That was a night of unparalleled and unprecedented revelry. Chaman's driving prowess even when drunk got us back to our flat safely.
The next morning was the last one of that trip in Goa. The ones who were going towards Bombay started off right after breakfast. I and Sunnu had to wait for our bus in the evening. I was a bit sad saying good bye to them after 5 unforgettable days and a bit embarrassed for
parts of last nights revelry.
Goa remains to be the most frequented destination for my TF gang.
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