The Goa trip that changed my life ™ - Part 2

24th Jan 2009, Goa Border Toll booth- 830AM
After leaving that dhaba we reached the Goa state border at around 830AM (For a change Sid was now in our car).


Should we take the vehicle entry pass at the state border?, was the next question. But then since we were in 2 cars with so many girls ;-) and were scheduled to stay there for around 3 days so we decided to take the pass.


But who knew that it will take around 1.5 hours for that damn thing. There were many reasons for the delay, firstly whole lukkhhaas from Pune and many from Mumbai were in Goa for the long weekend, secondly one of the drivers had screwed up his car papers and thirdly the same driver didnt have a license. Since we had with us our saviour friend Adit, everything was managed in a magical way.


There is this unique quality with this guy which makes him different from all of us....I remember...Once upon a time in Pyramid lounge Pune around 20 of us had entered the party with exchanging stamps, but only 2-3 of us had actually paid for the entry. It was classic example of stamp exchange leading to an uncontrolled chain reaction. It was all under his able supervision....Hats off to the man.



24th Jan 2009, Calangute - Baga Road- 11AM


Now since this was an impromptu trip, we had not done any hotel bookings. And we were under this big impression that this season the tourism is so badly affected in Goa that we will get a good deal after reaching there in terms of location and standard of the hotel.


But we were in for a big surprise, there was not even a single hotel that could offer us 5 rooms. Reason being, as I previously said that every single lukkha (like us) had followed us from Pune, everything was booked, also we were late in reaching Baga cos of the entry pass. Worst part, there was no parking, so we had to park our vehicles before Brittos, and it was quite hot at that time of the day. We searched for hotels around Brittos, but no luck, then we again got back into our cars and headed back towards the Calangute-Baga road.


We stopped just after the Tito's lane, and everyone got down. It was time for the guys to do something. Everyone headed in different directions, in search of food and shelter. There was this extra pressure on we guys as we had a Firang girl with us and after all the whole country's image was at stake.


So fighting against all odds we finally found a hotel that had 5 rooms (details of rooms coming later), the hotel was at a decent location and the name of the hotel was Pinto Palace (as far as I remember). After bargaining for some time we got the rooms, by this time everyone was damn tired.


Till this point we were 5 guys and 4 girls and we were expecting Anushree's friend Shabeena from bombay. Therefore 2 of the couples took one room each, 2 girls took one room and 3 of us took 1 room leaving 1 room totally empty.


At this time we (Adit, me, Ashish and shweta) were discussing how will we distribute among 5 rooms at night considering the "Curious case of Siddhartha Baruah". To know more about this discussion you will have to again pass through that highly confidential authorization process. For details mail me at agarwal.sandeep.s@gmail.com with subject line as "How I met your Mother".

24th Jan 2009, Baga Beach- 1230PM

After getting freshened up everybody came into their best possible colourful goa attire. Loaded with digital cameras and cool shades everyone was in for a kill. The beach was at just 5 mins walk from the hotel. We covered this distance in about 30 minutes as we clicked many pics in between (And its only because of this reason you guys can actually see my pics in Goa :)).

We settled at the nearest shack as we hit the beach. It was Bobby's I guess. If you guys remember the last meal that we had was at the "Some Random Restaurant" after leaving Pune.
Everyone was just ready to devour anything edible and few of us, anything :)
We ordered variety of food which included stuffs in sea food such as squids, prawns, crabs etc, something in vegetarian (Anushree can elaborate on this) and ofcourse energy drinks. And here I actually mean energy drink unlike the previously mentioned cheap version of energy drink named "McDowells". The name of this energy drink was "Kings".



In the mean time Shabeena had arrived from bombay, so Anushree left the place to pick her up. There is a little story behind her reaching so late, actually she was suppossed to reach by 9AM but her bus broke down in the outskirts of goa. You see everything was not going that great with us.
After having our food and couple of energy drinks many of us went inside the water with tubes.



24th Jan 2009, Baga Beach - 330PM


It was kind of getting bored playing in the water so we decided to play in the water with some water sports. So we called the whole gang (except for Shabeena who wanted to make up for her lost time at the shack). Everyone started discussing things he/she wanted to do. It was decided that first we will do Banana ride. Generally I am afraid of water as I dont know swimming so I decided to keep away from Banana ride. I thought of pursuing other sports which I thought would be "safer".
These guys had a good time in the banana ride. They took quite some time, way more than a usual banana ride. When they came back Anushree was in the boat (this reminded me of my banana ride in the 2008 trip :)).
Then it was the time for the next sports, Parasailing. Adit said "I will go first". I interuppted in between and said that I will go first.
In the next few minutes I was all ready in the parasailing gadgets to fly high in the sky. After signing the "No responsibility" document (I dont know the exact term for it but they make you sign this, that just in case of a mishap they are not responsible).
"Do you want a dip in the water?", asked the guy, I said yes. Here I must admit that I was kind of scared so I told the guy who was to operate this, that if he brings me safe I will treat him a beer. He was all determined to do that.


To be continued.....