Finally Goaaaaa

Disclaimer: There are lots of things that have to be censored in this post. So you must pick the subtle hints that I give and make your own interpretation using your wildest imaginations ;-)

This was my fourth visit to Goa. Every time I have visited it, it has looked different. Maybe because my perspectives have changed. But till this visit happened, I always thought of Goa to be a place where one would go and relax on the beach, drinking 'fruit juices' and reading a nice novel. Well was I in for a rude shock or what!!

We left Gokarna expecting to reach Goa by 12 Noon at the max. The way I had calculated it, Panaji was 150kms from Gokarna, and a additional 40kms to Baga beach (this was the place where we had decided to FIND accommodation). So I felt it would be a 3 - 3 1/2 hour drive. That was the mistake. I calculated this time based on travel on NH's. This NH 17 is unlike any other 'normal' NH's. Its narrow and bumpy. And of course this passes through the heart of Old Goa slowing you down to a great extent. Having said that, the scenery is beautiful, especially before and after Karwar. Driving through the small roads of Goa is by itself a pleasure, although it would have been more enjoyable on bikes. The heavy brunch also delayed us a lot. But the good news for the morning was that Ravi's train was "as usual" late and this meant that he would not be waiting for us for long.

When we finally arrived in Goa, we were damn tired. Ravi was already searching for our accommodations, and that pricked us even more. But just entering the Titos street in midday sun, I was certain we were in trouble. It was like seeing people in Majestic, only difference being there were more foreigners in beach wear and bikinis (how I wish that was true for Majestic too ;-)). The similarity was the number of tourists. It was so crowded, I was getting a feeling of being lost out there. This meant that we had to struggle to find our accommodations. And it was a big struggle. Finally we found a decent shelter and our plans had gone awry. That's when I decided to ditch all the planning and stuff and be instinctive. So the fun started :-))

First up was Anjuna Beach. Sunset was beautiful. I was still feasting my eyes on the gorgeous sights ;-) Next up was the Saturday flea market in Anjuna. Apparently very famous. Did some shopping (instantly felt that I could have bargained more. Srinath was useful there). The party started there itself. Missed the closing of flea market probably by a whisker. Not disappointed, as it meant more time for party. Party shifts to Baga beach. Dinner there. But the highlight of the night was NIGHT FRISBEE. What fun it was. Everyone seemed to have hyper energy. Ended when Bala crashed into Ravi. No points for guessing who got bruised like a peach :-D Party continues till the room. Party ends pretty early( Goan time) and we go to sleep.

Morning, yet again, no residues from the previous night. Good sign as we have lots to do for the day. First up - Chapora fort. Awesome view of the Chapora beach and Vagator beach. Lots of photos taken. Get a bit adventures and try to do stunts. Hurt my hand in the process. Next up Anjuna again. Prepared to do the Anjuna to Baga trek. Apparently there is a... ahem... secluded beach in that path. But the midday sun scares the shit out of us. Instead we decide to go to Agauda fort/jail. Jail closed. I realize it is a functional jail and thank god that it was closed (Never would I want to visit a Jail - I have what u can call a 'Jail-ophobia'). Head to Sequlim beach. Nice beach, but very crowded. Negotiations for water sports start. Super fun seeing Srinath bargain. Finally settle for a price which makes us feel proud of our bargaining skills. Thinking of using this skill for later in the night ;-) Fist we do parasailing. Its not a adrenaline rush, rather it has a calming effect on that person. Nice feeling of flying in the air. Next up was the 'Banana Ride'. This was too good. Awesome experience. Then we do some BEACH RUGBY. Super rules. Don't remember if my team won or not. Then we play diving catches. Srinath displays his athletic skills to the beach amblers ;-) We get into water, and play in the low tides. All in all, nice fun and worth the money. Even after all this activity feeling very energized. Probably because of the realization that a 'long' night awaits us.

After a quick shower, we head out on the 'happening' tito's street. We end up in a beach side shack. Did EVERYTHING that I could possibly think of. Only thing left to do was to lose my... ahem... you know what ;-) You name it, and we did it. Atul gets too adventures. Earns my respect for his courage. Srinath recounts the entire story. At some level I feel disappointed that things did not work out :-D The party in now probably in its 7th hour. Awesome feeling. But lots to do as the night is still young. Party goes on till late in the night. Final walk at 3:00 AM. End up sleeping after that, and also the last one to sleep.

Morning. Surprisingly everyone has forgot to keep the alarm. We all wake up late. This again negates our plans. Unfortunately I have the 'residues' of the night before. Not a great feeling. Ravi has to catch his train. We take a call on whether to leave Goa or stay for one more day. Decide there is not much to do in Goa and leave for Bangalore. The return journey was tiring. Played some games till we had dinner. We took turns to co-pilot our driver. Sadly I took the last turn. I swear I was sleeping with my eyes open. So was our driver. Still scares the shit out of me, thinking about it. Very scary experience. End up safely in Bangalore early in the morning. Slept for rest of the day.

In all it was the best trip of my life. The company was simply superb. The places were magical. The experience will last a life time. What more can you ask for?

Gokarna - A true paradise

Paradise might be an understatement for this awesome place. It was love at first sight for me. It was almost sunset by the time we reached Gokarna. The effects of traveling had started to show on our fragile bodies. But once we hit the winding roads of the hills of Gokarna, every body ache we had was forgotten in a hurry. I immediately felt relaxed. Gokarna amazes me because of this very inherent quality of its. It can bring peace to the most disturbed soul on the planet. It has a calming effect that I have yet to come across in any other tourist place. Even the Sun seemed to be sedated. The bright yellow star was muffled crimson red. It is very unlike any place I have visited till now.

Quick layout of the beaches of Gokarna. There are four major beaches. OM, Kudle, Half-moon and Paradise. Om beach is the biggest, most famous and thus the most populated among them. Half-moon and Paradise cannot be reached through cars due to lack of roads. You have two options. Either trek through the hills or take a boat.

After parking our car in front of OM beach, we took the winding steps that lead us to the beach. It was tranquility personified. I am sure I could have spent an entire week watching the waves crash on the rocks. OM beach lived up to its reputation. Its soft white sand is any beach goers delight. It was softer than my pillow. Sad part is we could not find any accommodation there. We decided to find accommodation in Paradise beach. And boy oh boy, was it a blessing in disguise or what! I am simply out of words on how beautiful the Paradise beach is. It is what we call in Kannada "Anvartha nama". It was almost dark by the time we reached it by boat. Actually I wanted to trek the distance. But sadly Bala was in no condition to do the trek. So we hired a boat. With minimal clothes stuffed in our carry on bags, along with cameras and torches, we headed to Paradise beach.

Once we reached Paradise beach, we found a beach side shack, that was willing to accommodate 6 people for just Rs. 200. It has to be said, without electricity, pillows, sheets and just a basic floor mat, it was not luxury by and stretch of imagination. But it was the kind of stay that I had hoped for. The foreigners there are more liberal in their dressing, and this we found out as soon as we entered ;-). We were the only 'desi' people in the entire shack, which had approx 10 rooms. We got settled in, changed to our shorts and headed to the beach (i mean we stepped out of the shack). And to our total shock, it was deserted. Not a single soul on the beach. It was like having a private beach all to ourselves. For obvious reasons the movie 'The Beach' kept on playing in my mind for some time. The sky was crystal clear, with thousands of stars dotting the sky. We could hear the guitar and the flute being played in adjacent shacks. I was really tempted to play flute there (and maybe impress some chicks ;-P ). It was time for us to start our long dinner. The starters were ordered. They were hot and delicious. Till then, I had not realized that the owner (Anil) of the shack was the waiter, the cook and the cleaner. He was all-in-one to the truest sense. Then it was time for the bonfire. This was something that I'll cherish for a long time. Bonfire on a 'private' beach. We sang, we joked, we laughed (more so because of the 'fruit' drinks). The food was ordered. We ordered mexican, italian, chinese, continental, thai etc. And all of it VEG. Anil was so good, he prepared everything from scratch, just for us. Hot delicious food in that remote place was the highlight of the night. Of course there were lots of 'wisdom' from Viji. The night ended pretty well. We finally managed to get inside our own rooms :-D All of us made pacts that we would be celebrating the bachelor's party in this place. Satisfied with the pact, I forced myself to sleep.

The morning was even more serene compared to the night. The beach was even more beautiful. So were the people who had started dotting it. I felt sad to leave that place. Although it was planned to be a 1 night stay, I wanted to stay longer in that place. But I left Paradise beach, knowing fully well that I'll be there in the near future. With that thought in mind we reached our car on Om beach. Our talk had changed to Goa, more beaches, more babes and of course of Ravi joining our trip. We left Gokarna fully rejuvinated. More on Goa in the next post.

Cheers

Jog - An experience to treasure

After reading about the famous Jog Falls for many years in school, listening about its beauty in numerous folk songs and "bhaava geethe's ", I was literally ashamed that I had not for once in my life seen this place. Its splendor showcased in the movie "Mungaaru Male" was the tipping point. Being a true "Kannadiga" at heart, I could no longer take this embarrassment.

As soon as the planning for Goa trip started, I was keen on visiting this place. I got to know from various sources that the water was merely trickling in the falls. Yet, my mind was convinced that I had to visit it. And what a wonderful decision it turned out to be!

I knew I could not see Jog in its full glory, when you stand at the viewing platform and just admire the mother nature at its best. But, at some level, I always want to feel the waterfall by getting under it, and not by just being a spectator. Another thing I like about waterfalls is how secluded it is and how less crowded it is. Although Jog is not secluded by any stretch of imagination, thankfully it was tourist free. When we climbed down, we were met with a 800 ft water fall, which ended in a big pool of ice cold clear green water (it was quite deep). I thought god had made this place for us to enjoy the bath. This time, I was not the first to get in :-( . But swimming in ice cold morning in that natural pool was the most thrilling experience till then. After a pretty tiring swim me, bala, srinath and viji finally came up to the falls. I was constantly thinking "shit no one is here to take a photo of this". Only later I came to realize that no photo was required, since that image is permanently etched in my mind. Going under the falls was really an out-of-body experience for me. It felt like a thousand soft hands were massaging every muscle in my body. I could not stay under the falls for long as I was shivering like hell. The swim back was nice and relaxing.

While we were almost near the falls, Bala complained of nausea. But I felt he had gotten over it. Boy oh boy! Was I wrong. Once out of the water, I saw his skin turn yellow. I knew he was dehydrated. Only then did I realize that we had not carried any drinking water. Bala was so tired, he was almost sleep walking his way up the steps. Every 10 steps he had to take rest. Every drop of water/soda/juice was puked out. He slept for 20 minutes in shade when we were half way up. We did some orkut profiling photos. Seeing the rainbow in front of the falls was the icing on the cake. By this time, the tourists had started to pour in. I was really concerned about Bala's health. We had an entire trip to look forward to and the excitement had just begun. We carried him on our shoulders for the rest of the journey to the top. It was definitely the low point of the entire trip.

Now I believe, every person should visit Jog falls on two separate occasions. One during the peak monsoon or just after the monsoons in the month of September. And one more time in winter in the months of December and January. So come this September, anyone is planning to visit Jog can expect me there :-D

We left Jog with the knowledge that we will be back here in 7 months time. One of the best waterfalls I have ever been to. Gokarna was the next destination. More on it in the next post.

PS : This is my 50th post on the blog. So cheers to it :-)

And then there were Seven

Ufff!
It has been a planning marathon. For the last two weeks, we have made plans after plans, some new, some updating, some scraping, and finally some changing so much, it looked like new ones.

Ever since I got to know that I had a extended weekend holiday (credit to Republic Day), my mind was reeling with holiday possibilities. With 6 months of constant exams, I was so desperate to go out, I started asking everyone I knew, for a trip.

Ravi (IIM-A 1st year student), one of my closest friends was here for the New Year, and that was when the plan to do a Goa trip started. It was a long cherished dream of me, Bala, Srinath and Ravi. Initially we wanted to do this trip, with just the four of us. Since Ravi would be joining us in Goa directly from Ahmedabad, the rest of us decided to do this the 'Dil Chata Hai' way. Driving to Goa would be in itself an experience to remember. Till then it was FOUR.

Driving in my SX4 would mean there would be 2 vacant seats for the journey. This would imply extra cost per head. So we decided to call up common friends to join us. First it was Atul who gave the thumbs up. Then we were FIVE.

Viji and Naga decided to hold back their response and kept us guessing. Pnadey initially gave a thumbs up. So there were SIX.

Naga finally succumbed to the temptations and caved in. So there were SEVEN :-) . By this time we had ditched our plans to travel by my SX4. 6 grown men and a giant, even my SX4 cant handle that :-(. We had started to pursue other modes of transport. Self driven SUV's, Taxi's, Train and even Bus. Bus was unanimously ruled out. The waiting list in train was shocking. And to our surprise the Tatkal was also not available. So that was ruled out. Since it was our dream to drive to Goa, we pursued the Self driven vehicle concept till the end. But it turned out to be a costly affair. The rent itself was Rs 3000/- per day. This excluding the petrol bill. Although I was a bit disappointed, our only option was a taxi.

By now, even Viji was tempted to come. So there were EIGHT. But unfortunately Pandey had other commitments, so he had to drop out :-(. Finally there were SEVEN of us, six of us approaching Goa from Bangalore and one coming from Ahmedabad.

In between there were plans to go to Dandeli. That was scraped. The Gokarna part was planned, re-planned, scraped and again planned. The much hyped Goa part has had lots of planning. Hope it lives up to its expectations.

The planning itself has been so eventful. My eyes are gleaming, dreaming of the sunshine and sand.