The Goa trip that changed my life ™ - Part 1

23rd Jan 2009, Pune, 9PM

I left from office filled with excitement for the fun filled long weekend ahead. It was one of the very rare trips planned in a long time that was getting executed. This took me back into time when we used to impromptu plan out trips.

Anyways when I reached home Aditya and Siddhartha were waiting for me (Very Rare though).

Here I should mention about Siddhartha's excitement, this dude who has a hard time getting up in the morning to leave for office at 930AM, left home at 7AM in the morning to Wasim Bhai's shop (our 'family' barber :)). Imagine he called up Wasim Bhai to open up his shop for him so early in the morning, for what??....yes u guys guessed it right..the "2009 Goa look". He got his hair coloured (streaks). Wannabe :P

It was almost 930by the time we left Aundh. We had to pick up Ranu and Shilp and then meet Ashish and Gang (Shweta, Aurelie and Anushree) at the highway. By the time we met these guys on the highway it was almost 1130PM, they were waiting for us for more than an hour (tell me something new). So finally we were all set to cruise for Goa for the "Crazy Weekend". Sid shifted in another car because of a very special reason which is higly classified and confidential and can be revealed only on special authentication (For more details contact me on agarwal.sandeep.s@gmail.com).



24th Jan 2009, Some Random Retaurant on Pune - Bang highway - 1AM

We had realised that we are hungry and need some food and little energy drink ;-)

So we stopped at this "Random Restaurant". We had our dinner there, Aditya and Siddhartha needed that energy drink badly (atleast they showed it that way) so they even settled for a cheap energy drink with the name "McDowells".

In the due course we (Adit, Sid and me) realised that things are changing in our group :D, the girls:boys ratio in our group has improved drastically in recent months and this one was like 50:50 which was like "Awesome".



24th Jan 2009, Some Random Chai Tapri on Pune - Bang highway - 330AM

After a little nap when I woke up I saw both the Innovas stationary somewhere, all I could see was a toll booth just 100 mts behind us and lots of cars and chai tapris in front. I realised that both the drivers needed a tea break. The 3 of us also got down. Sid and Adit needed a sutta break, so we went to that tapri where our drivers were having tea. They said its a place where every one stops en-route Goa/Bangalore. I came to know later that this was the moment when the great Aditya Makharia instructed the drivers to not take the regular route of Gaganbawda and instead take the "Shortcut" route. Here I must tell you Adit's version of short cuts are quite scary and horrifying and I just went back into the past.....It was me, Adit and Ajit heading for GAIA in the same car where we had planned a small get together with our friend Rana. He was waiting at Kalyani Nagar for us, so we had to go to Kalyani Nagar first. We had taken the Bombar Sappers route and around 2 kms before the Holkar bridge Adit changed the route and we took a "Shortcut" to Kalyani Nagar via MG Road. So basically from the point where we turned, our destination was around 7-8 Kms and through the "shortcut" we travelled 17-18 kms for the same destination Do I need to add anything else here?



24th Jan 2009, Another Random Chai Tapri on Pune - Bang highway - 5AM

So now we were on this "Shortcut" route to Goa. I am not sure if its a shortcut or not but its certainly not the best route to travel. This route definitely took me into my childhood, the place where I grew up. Whenever I used to go to Dhanbad (a famous place with coal mines in Jharkhand now) I used to feel that I am doing horse riding. Basically this "Shortcut" route was of the same quality as that I had faced in my early years, you literally had to figure out a block of glued tar on the road.

I was kind of furious on the drivers for stopping again for a tea break and my anger had multiplied 2 folds because of the awesome "shortcut". When I spoke to the driver he enlightened me with fact of the "Shortcut" route. The matter got worst when women with us wanted to use the restroom and there was no sign of a decent hotel for miles to come.

By this time Sid who was sitting in front was so sleepy that he shifted back and it was before counting to 3 that he was fast asleep.



24th Jan 2009, Random Dhaba on Pune - Goa highway - 7AM

I woke up when we stopped here at this beautiful place. I choose to call it beautiful beacuse of many reasons, first and the foremost the pain of that "shortcut" route was over, secondly it was a beautiful morning and thirdly - though it didnt matter to me but could be topmost reason for ladies to like the place - it had toilets. :)

We had tea at this place which was sad though. Everyone was elated to know that Goa is not very far from this place.

To be continued..........