Goa Ahoy!!

GOA BABY!!! That was the mantra for the whole of last week, leading up to the big weekend down in Calangute. Thurday started way too early for me, as I walked into office at 5.45 am, a record which I challenge anyone in Batch 3 to break!! In 3 hours, I was done with work, and picked up my bags to leave just as my manager walked in! Quite a sight that, I must say….anyway, I drove back home, and then went on to exercise my franchise and vote for the first time in a Lok Sabha Election. It really does feel good to know that you have made a contribution to the progress of the nation, however insignificant it may be. I totally second Mr. L.K Advani’s opinion that voting should be made compulsory in the country. Anyway, chuck that, this is about Goa!! So here I was, all packed and ready, waiting at Vashi for our Volvo sleeper with the rest of our gang in it. Bus arrives….Suyash and Manan step out….Suyash straight away says (jokingly), “Dude, tu mara….none of the guys are gonna pay you for the bus ticket!!”. I wondered, whoa, was the bus so bad?? My question was answered as I stepped inside. Each berth had two people lying on them, all cramped up and struggling to even move a muscle! Poor Mark, the 6”2’ tall guy couldn’t even straighten his legs properly. You shouldn’t have drank so much Complan in your childhood, bro! ;)

We somehow survived the 12-hour ordeal in the bus, and reached Mapusa at 10 am Friday morning. After another 20-minute ride, we entered our resort in Calangute. A quick shower and breakfast, and we were all refreshed, ready to hit the magnificent beaches of North Goa. We hired an open-top Gypsy – seemingly the best way to travel around Goa, and first headed to Calangute beach, the nearest to our resort. Karey and I were nominated as drivers for the whole trip…..hard luck Su, but if u drank, u weren’t gonna drive! As we enter Calangute beach, we were suddenly surrounded by a bunch of overly enthusiastic men going, “Sir, watersports..”, “Sir, parasailing..best rate”, “Sir, water-scooter…aapko chalane milega”, etc etc…..they had already begun to get on our nerves, and we ultimately succeeded in evading them. The beach was beautiful, the sand fine and bathed in a silvery tinge. Hordes of families, couples and friends were milling around, sunbathing, enjoying the (not-so-cold actually) water, heading out for watersports. We decided to relax and grab a few drinks at a beachside shack after getting our feet wet. For lunch, we drove to Baga beach and dined at Britto’s, which was heaven for two things in particular – “sightseeing” and cheesecakes!! Also, Furhad began his Prawn-fest here…..man that guy becomes hungry too quickly!! Baga is pretty similar to Calangute, so we decided not to spend too much time there, and returned to our resort to rest for a while. In the evening, we set off to catch the sunset (or as Su puts it, “sun ka go-down”!) at Anjuna beach, but all we found there was a bunch of rocks!! So we went to Vagator instead, where Nipun desperately attempted to record the sounds of the sea waves, warding off our efforts to interrupt the recording time and again. In the end, he succeeded, but only by first running as far away from us as physically possible, and then recording!

We shot some pool for an hour, before having dinner in a food court in central Calangute. Furhad had some more prawns, and vowed never to have them again during the trip!! Yeah right!!!! We spent the rest of the night enjoying a few games of poker and Bluff in our resort room. As the clock went past midnight, none of us were sleepy at all, so we went out on a midnight drive around Calangute, passing through some of the hot and happening areas (read: clubbing zones) in town. Life really begins here only after midnight, as the parties stretch well into the wee hours of the next morning. We actually got stuck in a jam on a narrow road near one of the clubs for 45 minutes!! After that, we decided we’d had enough, and quietly returned to our resort!

It was a “fine” Saturday morning as we set off towards Colva beach in South Goa (WHY??!!). I’ll get to why it was such a “fine” day a little later on, but first, about Colva beach. It took us about an hour and a half to get there, with a few stoppages in between. The beach, known for its white sands, was surprisingly less crowded, considering it is one of the more well-known beaches in Goa and probably the only place worth visiting in South Goa. Watersports were shockingly expensive, with a difference of almost Rs. 1000 between Calangute and here. No wonder there were hardly any people around! Anyway, we once again trudged along to a shack for lunch and drinks. Furhad, needless to say, had some kind of Prawns. As he had requested us to do the previous day if he ate prawns again, we each gave him a whack on the head everytime he had a piece of prawn!! Another memorable aspect of that afternoon was a little black puppy nestling under our table, and Nipun playing around with it. The mutt ultimately got so annoyed, it snatched Suyash’s slipper and ran away! Hilarious stuff!! Su managed to recover his slipper eventually, but the entire episode had us in splits..!!

We returned back to our resort after a round of shopping, getting ready for what we thought would be quite an enjoyable 1-hour sundown cruise from Panaji. Very high expectations, as it turned out. Boy, that was one lame cruise and a sheer waste of 150 bucks!!! Make that 200; 50 extra for entering the disco, which, to our dismay, turned out to be completely empty!! Apart from a DJ having ambitious hopes of proving himself in front of a considerable crowd, I guess!!! And to add insult to injury, we passed by the Casino Royale and the Caravela in all their glory, two awesome cruises that were a tad out of our budget, but we desperately wanted to get onto earlier. Anyway, I’d like to consider that a forgotten chapter in this trip. Never will mention it again.

We returned in a dazed state to our resort, and sought to bury our woes by catching a bit of IPL action before dinner. We revisited Britto’s for a late dinner at almost midnight (ours was the last order they took). We played some more cards later that night, this time a game of DONKEY. This was the game where a little quirk by Manan had us roaring with laughter for almost 15 minutes continuously!! In a nutshell, the objective of this game is to make one complete set of 3 cards (all hearts, or all spades etc.), and then secretively put down your cards. When one person puts down his cards, others immediately need to follow suit, and the last person to do so loses and is labelled ‘D’. After D comes O, and so on, until someone reaches ‘D-O-N-K-E-Y’. Anyway, MS was continuously holding his cards low in an attempt to sell a dummy and get someone to put down their cards, for which we were constantly berating him. Finally, at one point, he held his cards so low, he dropped one of them, which he immediately picked up. Meanwhile, Mark had actually completed a set and put down his cards, and everyone followed suit. Manan, thinking he had sold a dummy, kept the cards in his hands and shouted “Maine nahi rakha! Maine nahi rakha!!”…..Loolllllzzzzzz…..ROTFLMAO!!!!

About the “fine” day bit, well, we were stopped by the cops 4 times that day!!! Once ‘cos Karey wasn’t wearing his seatbelt (it was impossible to wear it actually ‘cos it was stuck like glue to the side of the car!), and three other times ‘cos we had hired a private vehicle, which, though unofficially permitted in Goa, isn’t exactly legal. We had to talk our way out of trouble on all 4 occasions! Anyway, chuck that….not something I wanna comment on or something I’m particularly proud of. Sunday was watersports day. We went to Calangute for some parasailing and a ride on a water-scooter (I decided only to go parasailing….Nips, Furhad, Karey n Manan rode the scooter as well). Parasailing was an awesome experience, though kind of short. It really was like a joyride – completely relaxing and at peace high in the air! Lunch at another restaurant by the beach (Furhad’s last prawns meal for the trip!), and we returned to pack up and check out of our resort. We had a quick photo session, and set off for Mapusa to begin our bus journey back to Mumbai. The bus for the return leg was fabulous, a multi-axle Volvo B9R – the lap of luxury! It was sooooo comfortable, in stark contrast to the bus we came to Goa in! We reached Mumbai, early the next morning, thus concluding a really memorable and cherished trip!