GOA - Day 1

...continued from  my previous post 

Day 1 : March 2^nd, 2011

I woke up at around 7 am. The sight of coconut trees, red mud and ghat roads was a visual treat to start the day with. Boys started waking up and forcibly made others wake up too. Shankar, in his usual excuse, with sleep filled eyes said, “I didn't sleep for the entire night.” Ajay, pravin, kiru and bhanu were seated at back seats. Ajay said he slept on the floor, pravin on two seats and others said they didn't sleep much. Now, we had no idea where to get down from bus : Vasco, Panjim or Mapusa. While we lazily gave a thought about this, the bus stopped at Goa toll. We got down from bus, stretched our bodies and found a not-so-attractive puppy dog getting out from luggage store into the bus. For some reason, I loathed it from the start. It entered the bus and created a mess. I hated it more. Dogs will be dogs.

The boys regrouped at the last seats at 8 am and started wondering about our destination. I called Kevin, our resort manager who asked us to get down at Panjim. Infact, Panjim was the only place the bus was destined to!!. We kept cracking jokes and when Ajay started to wonder, Shankar cracked him down saying ,“this is how it happens in trips. Since this is your first time, you will get used to it.” Poor Ajay already envisioned his nightmare of not having attended any of  the batch trips in past. Meanwhile, the bus attendant asked 'tip' from each one of us. We fooled around with him to kill some time. The clock ticked 9:15 am and we arrived Panjim.

 

As expected, taxi drivers rounded us as soon as we got down at Panjim. I called Kevin again, who was in Mumbai and he directed me to Dilip, the resort incharge and also asked us to catch a local bus to reach Candolim. We walked around Panjim and didn't really find any apartments/sky scrapers on our way. We also wanted to taste the local life and thought bus would be best option anyway. After a little direction hunt, asking people for routes, we reached the bus-stop and got into a age-old jam packed bus going to Mapusa via Candolim. The transport is not organized and appeared to be private owned buses. The unofficial conductor charged 12rs per person for 'Candolim Panchayat' and neither gave us tickets or 4 rs change for 100 rs. 3 people were managing the bus: Driver, unofficial conductor and a shouter, whose job is to guard at the bus door and shout to attract people to bus. It was only a 15km drive in narrow lanes and a country side scenery which reminded me of the Goa scenes in 'Bourne Supremacy'. We asked the 'shouter' to let us know when we reach our place. At the same time, we were cautious to watch any sign boards to keep track of our place. The shouter forgot our place but we reminded him of our place when we reached a stop. Luckily, that is exactly where we supposed to get down. As per kevin's instructions, we took the opposite lane of Candolim panchayat and walked around in a lane filled with pubs, restraws, shops, motels. As we checked those lanes foreign to us, we strolled by and finally reached a serene place filled with trees : “Tropicana Beach Resorts”.

The Resort!!

Tropicana Beach Resort

On the first look, we liked the resort. I met Dilip, the incharge who gave us 1 room and asked to wait for 30 mins to get 3 other rooms. We got one in the Ground floor. Every room had a separate balcony, a oil lamp, fridge, a double cot and attached bathroom. The cost of two persons per room was 600rs per day. The 8 of us crashed on one bed and still didn't believe that we were in Goa. Boys started getting ready and we drank one of the worst tasting but large quantity of coffees. After a hour of wait, Dilip showed us 3 more rooms on first floor. We split in group of two and moved to our rooms. Pravin, Purush in room to left, Ajay, Shankar and Kiru, Bhanu in rooms to right. We agreed that we will fresh up and meet in an hour. So we did. We met at 12.30 pm and all boys were getting started for a Goan mood. The day's plan was to cover the nearest walkable beach Candolim and Calangutte, 5 km away from Candolim. Before that, we all were extremely hungry and I was still not comfortable with my cold. Our only local source was Dilip, the resort incharge, who gave us all the details and info we asked for. He suggested “Viva-Goa” at main road as one of the nearest places for lunch. We set on foot, amidst coconut trees, narrow lanes with many turns and kept asking local people for the route. I somehow, like such uncertainties and the process of exploring new routes. After quite a walk, we reached Viva Goa. Bhan jaan was slightly irritated for having made him walk for that long in the hot sun. As usual, we cooled him and ordered our lunch in the restraw. The lunch was decent enough to satisfy our hunger. Mid-day 3pm, hot sun and we were set to walk directly to Candolim beach. Enter the Goan mood.

Candolim Beach

@ Candolim Beach

As we walked amidst wild plants and bushes, we entered a sand filled path and from a narrow view to a broadened beach look seemed spectacular. This beach was full of foreigners. Infact Goa is majorly filled with Russians, Germans and French. We forgot our volleyball in room but had with us, two flying discs: a green and pink one. We cared less about the heat and jumped  in beach playing discs and guys enthusiastically dived in water as if they were trained by Jhonty Rhodes. Shankar was curious about a German but his efforts were in vain. We played for 2 hours and strangely guys lost the green disc. Carelessly, we left it for waves which carried away the disc.

Calangutte beach

 @ Calangutte Beach

We returned to our rooms and planned to visit Calangutte beach, which was nearly 5kms away. We got ready and having no handy means of transport, we decided to try the local bus. Many old foreigners were also waiting at bus-stop, which made us wonder if they were native to Goa. Dilip told me that they come on vacation in January for a period of 2 months. After a long wait, we got in a bus and reached Calangutte. We were exhausted and I was still struggling with cold. We tried tasteless tea and oily samosas from a street-smart kid. Darkness prevailed, we entered the beach and sat closeby, listening to the sound made by waves. The moonlight, frens talk and the waves sound, happily made us forget our otherwise routine office life. It was close to 9pm and we decided to have a candle-light beach dinner. We waited for lifetime to taste the food which was bad enough to forget. Pravin ordered a special rava fried fish, which was much hyped due to our waiting time but finally,even the entire group could not eat that small fish. A bad tasting dinner in one of best environment.

Around 10pm we figured out that there would be no buses to go back to our rooms. So cab was the way out but were charging high and were not open to bargains. We cared less about the cab and started watching the Ireland-England WC match with the drivers in a small TV. Boy, Ireland was winning it and many England supporters at nearby restaurants were upset. Finally we found a cab with a energetic driver. He cracked so many jokes in Hindi and was giving tips to woo gals in Goa. He was fun and rushed the cab to our place in no time. We were all tired fully, returned to our rooms but the night did not end for us.

 B-Complex Twist

I was just about to rest and pravin, slightly suffering from mouth ulcers, wanted to find B complex   pills in a medical shop. It was 11 pm and Shankar, Ajay, Ravi, Pravin and I set out by foot to find a med-shop. We enquired until we reached main road but found no shops. We found Newtons, a big supermarket and strolled around. It was quite a big store with all kinds of groceries available. Soon, even pravin forgot about the pills and started shopping!!!. We explored all varieties of bottles available which were very tempting to hold by sheer aesthetic presence. The caption in the stall read something similar to “..It is good to hold. Break it and we consider it, sold.” We randomly picked up some bottles but finally settled for cute pint KingFisher beers. We billed more than 1000rs and walked our way to beach past midnight.

12.30am, Candolim beach, bright moon, plain sky, waves rushing aggressively with a fierce sound. For some unknown reasons, I felt a little unsecured at that place. There was a gang nearby who dived in water which made a noise loud enough to scare us. We continued with our pints, feeling as free as the jail workers in “Shawshank Redemption”. On our way back, the only restaurant which was open when we stepped in was also closed. May be it was too late a time on that beach. Another 2-3 hours spent from the time we set out for a B-Complex. We joked around saying, “Didn't expect things would get so complex for a simple B-complex.” We went to room and crashed to death, craving for sleep.

...Next post on Day 2 events...