A trip to remember

(Part 1 of a series)

So anyway, we took a trip to Goa recently. By "we" I mean me and these 5 friends of mine - Siddharth, Rituraj, Vardhman, Rama (aka Suraj nowadays, apparently) and Anant (aka Pandit for ever) - and by "recently" I mean I just got back from Goa today. We left for Goa directly from Pune, as a present to ourselves for actually surviving another set of semester examinations. And these were the toughest ones yet, being the DREADED 7th semester.

We caught a train to Goa on the evening of the 3th. The train, by the way, was Vardhman's idea. Our original plan of going in a bus was voted down, and so we landed up a the train station and, armed with packs of cards (both the normal ones as well as the perennial favourite UNO) bought from the station, boarded the train. Not much of note happened during the journey itself, except for Siddharth jabbering away from the very beginning till the middle of the night. He did try to teach us some infuriatingly complex game of cards called Judgement which none of us understood, but is apparently very simple. Not that we really tried to get it anyway. We were happy just playing Bluff and Poker with monopoly bits for chips. Oh, and Vardhman took over after Siddharth fell asleep and kept us awake the rest of the night with horrible songs and other stuff I forget.

Anyway, fast forward to the grand arrival at Goa train station in Vasco. We caught a couple of horrendously expensive autos and went to the bus station, from where we left for Calangute, changing buses at Panaji. Landing up in Calangute, we happily proceeded to walk till the inspection quarter that we were destined to use as headquarters, party central and sleeping place for the next 3 days. On the way, athletic sportsmen that we are, we decided it was too long to walk. Accordingly, Siddharth and Vardhman were dispatched to go rent bikes while the rest of us settled down to wait by the roadside.

Oh, that wait. It must have been at least an hour and about 50 local idiots jabbering away at us asking whether we wanted a place to stay, a taxi for hire, bikes to rent and massages to get (this last made Anant quite excited, as is to be expected with him) that those two got back. By then we'd got fed up and Anant and Rama had decided to walk the rest of the way. Me and Rituraj were left by the curb trying to fend off insidious bike-lenders and hotel-agents. Anyway, the bikes finally arrived, and with Siddharth driving a scooty, Vardhman driving his Avenger and me driving the other scooty, we ferried the luggage to the inspection quarter and crashed onto the beds.

Of course, that was around 9 in the morning, so we got up and, after performing our morning....ablutions, we left to get breakfast and discover the oyster that was Goa.

We went to Anjuna beach, cause we'd heard it was cool and stuff. Me and Vardhman, riding on the Avenger, went on ahead and reached first. There we saw a herd of firangis going off the road and onto a dirt track leading off to one side. We decided to follow them and see where they were all going, on the off chance that we might discover some hidden party centre where foreigners gathered and did their thing. After following them all over the place and on rabbit paths through graves of coconut and papaya trees, we landed up at the coolest beach ever. Huge place, practically no garbage strewn around, full of foreign people, and lounge chairs! This was brilliant!

We headed back for breakfast - or rather, brunch - with the rest of the posse and took them all back to the magic beach. After gawking away at the array of female flesh on display, we proceeded to get on with the strenuous work of lounging around on the chairs on the beach. Played around some in the water, drank a couple of beers and stuff, and decided we might as well head back home.

The only other thing worth noting was the time we stood around waiting - again - while setting out for dinner at this place called Britto's near Baga beach. Vardhman was passed out, so Siddharth took it into his head to drive the Avenger. And, just our luck, one scooty decided to start dripping petrol and refuse to work. So we waited for Siddharth to work the bike, which he failed to do. Not that he didn't know how to drive a bike at all, but apparently Avengers are tricky devils with idiotic gear systems. So, after about an hour, he finally gave up the Avenger attempt and decided to just leave on the scooty. And, since he was pretty much the only one who knew the way, he decided to ferry us all on the one scooty still working. 5 of us......on one scooty. It took two trips and, about another 45 minutes later, short of temper and high on rats skittering around in stomachs, we sat down to eat at Britto's. The food wasn't bad, but the lack of geniality and general bon homie was glaringly noticeable at our table. Anyway, we headed back home - again in two packs on that one scooty - and so ended the first day at Goa.

(to be contd.....)