A weekend @ Goa !!!
On the seashore of possibly the most beautiful place I have ever visited in my life, I lay with my hand on my head, looking at the magnificent view in front of me – sun setting behind the horizon – the colour of the crystal clear sea water in tune with the sexy blue sky – a bunch of foreigners at a distance basking in the evening sun – enjoying the evanescence of the brightness . . .
This probably sums up the 4 memorable days I spent at Goa – full of exhilarating experiences – fun-filled, adventurous, memorable, serene, blended with a tinch of history, and a plethora of adjectives that I would like to add to portray the kind of feel which was there in us throughout the venture.
Day – 1...
Goa – a part of India which is known for a few prominent reasons –24 x 7 parties, cheap drinks, exotic beaches, antediluvian forts and a host of many other facts, are really a place that ought to be visited at least once in our lifetime, considering the multi-faceted culture that it possesses in different areas of the same state.
Myself, with 8 of my friends reached Madgaon station at 2 AM on 13th morning after an equally tiring and eye-pleasing trip over the konkan. With rooms supposedly ready for all of us via online booking – or thats what we thought – we reached the area near Calangute beach at 3 AM to get ourselves into Princessa De Goa – the holiday inn for a quick nap and enjoy the splendour of the place from the morning. What we discovered after reaching the place was a cool power cut darkening the whole place – few lights coming out of vehicles emerging from night clubs and pubs. Never have I seen a busier place at 3 AM in the night than this city!!! Our focus though was at locating our holiday inn – whose owners now don’t pick up the phones to direct us towards their inn – and are fast asleep – as expected! Now came to our rescue a Sony Xperia mobile – which my friend had. The GPS system + Google Maps in it finally helped us to locate the exact location of our inn – after 1 ½ hours of search in the dark streets...! What a landing in Goa! Never did we expect our first few hours at Goa to be so tiresome...!
Had a nice sleep and then we st
arted on our venture... After taking a couple of cars for rent – this is the way people usually roam about Goa – buses are really scarce in this part of the world – and a car or a 2-wheeler is ideally suited for our fun-filled ventures—we went to Baga beach. A beautiful place, though crowded – reminiscent of a Saturday evening! I had my first taste of water games in my life when I went for a ride into the blue sea on a water-scooter...! Ever since I saw Dil Chahta Hai, I’ve been having this small wish of riding the water-scooter once! It was ultimate fun, riding the so-called bike – but the real fun lies in the frequent jump the scooter makes over the rising waves of water – Man! That feeling was just awwwwsmmmmeeee !!!
The next destination was Anjuna Beach, a beautiful place with lots of green/violet rocks embedded with various forms of algae (Don’t know the reason behind the rocks being violet, though...).
A wonderful dinner near the blue sea at Calangute beach till 12 midnight along with a failed attempt to enter Tito’s pub (a very popular night club in this part of the world) summed up a day of mixed fortunes for us – what a first day at Goa!!!
Day 2...
North Goa beckons – Tiracol fort, the oldest fort in Goa, in the northern most part of the state, was our first target for the day as we embarked on our journey... After travelling for about 50 kms on road, we (we + cars) were transported through another boat to the banks where the fort stood.
Man – the view from the fort was one of the best, I must admit... Felt for a moment that I was not inside India...!
At around 1 pm, we reached Hotel Blue Sea View – a wonderful hotel, I must say, not for its services, but for the vicinity it had with one of the best beaches around Goa.
Finished a naam-ke-vaasthe lunch and went to the beach nearby – what a place again ! Possibly, the most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life – totally out of this part of the world...!
There was no crowd, like the ones you would find more often in the beaches of South India, the water was clean and pure – something we rarely find here, the colour of water was in tone with the sky – and the climate – so incredible.. To sum up, it was surreal to be there!!!
We decided to play a game of volleyball and so, got a very high quality ball from a near-by shop – only to realize later that it was possibly just a layer of cloth stitched together in the shape of a ball and air pumped into it... To make matters worse, some of my friends decided to play football with it... The ball just burst in 2 minutes!!
Nevertheless, we had a splendid time playing in the water, throwing water and mud at each other – reminding all of us of the golden childhood days – times of 0% tension and 100% fun - times which would never ever return at any cost!!
Our next destination – Chapora fort – remember Dil Chahta Hai? The spot where the three friends sit and discuss during the song! Reached the fort by 6.30, when it was absolutely dark, but still we were able to witness the spectacular view from the fort. Truly a wonderful spot it was, as we sat there for sometime relishing the climate and the serene nature of the location.
Next was a round of Go-Karting which we stumbled upon on our way back to our room... Never had witnessed fun of this kind in my life before, and so, went for this too.. 10 laps – for Rs.180/- was worth a lot more – as the fun, thrill and excitement gained at riding that car in those twisting laps was unmatchable!
2 days of exhilarating experiences of a variety of categories, and I felt I was somewhere out of India... This was an ‘odd-man-out’ style of a place in this country, a place where girls dare to roam out at 3 AM in the night with guys – where the western influence on culture seems to be on its upper limit – where wine shops seem to be more than normal consumer shops – and so on... Definitely, there must be a contradiction to this kind of an attitude – ryt ? There can’t be a place in India which is so much obsessed with partying alone... There must be another part of the story which we didn’t explore...
Day 3...
Thats exactly what we did the 3rd day when we embarked on our journey to South Goa...!
More to continue.... Pls leave ur comments, if u have any ;-)
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