Go Go Goa..... Day 1

We have been planning a tour to Goa since our college days. As a gang (Gangs of Ettimadai), this was a dream come true for us. We booked the onward journey tickets in Vasco Express well ahead of the journey (more than a month before) and the return tickets in KSRTC 6 or 7 days before the kick off.

Srikanth had come from Selam to join us. Totally we were 6 from Bangalore (Kudi, Gold, AK, Edwin, Srikanth and myself) and 5 more guys from Chennai (Kuhu, Chinnu, Baaju, Dicky and Bumpy).

Quick note on our nick names:

Kudi - Arun Kumar
Gold - Madhivanan
AK - AK Karthik
Chinnu - Chinnuraj
Baaju - Balaji
Dicky - Arun Prasad
Bumpy - Ashok Kumar
Kuhu - Kuhankumar
Scienty - Myself

on 27th evening, I pushed early from the office @ 16:30, as we had the train scheduled at 19:50 at KR Puram railway junction. When we reached home at 17:30, there were no guys at home. We had decided gather at home exactly at 17:30. But the guys were so cool that they came only at 18:30. Srikanth and I had a nice sleep before we were woke by Gold. We had to rush to the junction by an auto-rickshaw.

The train arrived by the ISD (Indian Standard Delay) at exactly 20:30. We popped in the train with some juice bottles and snacks, hoping that we can have dinner in the train's pantry section. As we moved on a couple at late 30s who were in the same compartment as we were, told that there is no pantry section in that train, and also that if we miss the Yeshvantpur junction, there will not be any food stalls available on the way. Edwin and I were feeling damn hungry. So that akka gave us few idlys. That was over in a flash. :)) We popped out at the yeshavantpur junction and bagged 7/8 cup noodles. I ate 2 cups. That was enough for my appetitie. Later, we were mocking each other.

Guys decided to play the vobulary game, where a person will start with a English letter. The turn will be in the round robin fashion. The next person must form another word out of it, but should not be the last letter of that word. (Ex, h : ha : hat : hate <- will get a letter coined from DONKEY title) It was a nice fun, as we tried to get others rewarded with the prestigious DONKEY title :D. When the guys felt bored, we started to play Dumb-charads. That was a nice fun too. The longest film name in that was Aayiram thalai vaangiya aboorva sindhaamani. I was the dumb to enact this. I conveyed all the words in less than 20 seconds. But it took me more than 3 minutes to make them get aboorva in their mind. Somehow did it. Then we went to sleep. I took the small pillow and bedsheet that my mom had given for the travel and went inside. Never knew what happened until it became morning.

The train was in Hubli when I woke up at 7:30. Then the train had to pass through lots of hills and terrains. We passed through 37 tunnels with the longest tunnel distancing upto a kilometer. I tried to take the picture of the mountain from the train just once it comes out of the tunnel. I tried hard, but could not succeed much, as there were signal posts at the end of every tunnel. :( People were hyping that there will be a beautiful waterfall on the way. But it was not all that great. We reached Madgaon junction at 13:00. We were hungry and tired after the journey. The weather was so humid that we all were sweating badly. We took a mini bus (but there were more than 50 people in that bus) to a bus stand where buses to Panjim (Local people dont call it Panaji. They call it Panjim) were available. I was sweating a badly that my sweat fell on the lady who was seated near me like water poured out of a bottle's cap. I apologized to her for that. She was staring at me. :- From there, we took a bus to Panji. It was a 40 mins travel. From Panji, we took another bus to get on to Povarium, Chandrageet lodge. We booked 3 AC rooms. Had a good nap and then a cold shower to eliviate the heat. Then we enquired for the places and beaches available in Goa. We had some tiffin in Sanskruthi (a veg restaurant near by), which later became the default for our breakfasts till we left Goa.

We first went to Dona Paula. It was a nice location. We went there at 18:15. We should have gone at 17:00, cus it started to dawn after we went there. Anyways, it was a nice view from the top. Next we went to the Miramar beach. The first thing I noted in that beech was the bamboo racks to prevent the soil erosion. It was dark when we reached there, so could not take a picture of all that. Just had a snap. Srikanth and I dipped in the sea and got wet. Guys were waiting on the shore for us (afraid of getting in after dark :)). I kept mentoring Srikanth for most of the time on the beach. Then we left the beach at around 20:30.

We were expecting the Chennai guys to arrive at 21:00. I have heard Hemant saying that Fenni is good at Goa. So Kudi and I thought that we can taste it. I had the impression in my mind that its like beer. But after we bought a small bottle, my impression was all gone and i no more wanted to taste it. But still, for the sake of exposure (not fun), we had half of it with sprite. mm, it was okay. It did not have the pungent smell. It had jackfruit and cashew fruit odour (esteric... wow). Then the Chennai guys popped in the room. We had orderred for the dinner at the lodge itself. The last order was at 10:30, so orderred all that we wanted and went down with deadly hunger :). Had nice fun, with Baaju targetting his comments on almost everyone. We finally targetted Baaju and he went silent. ;)

The next day was 29th.....