Trip to Goa - Biggest trip which we organized

After a long time I am writing again, thinking back its not that long too. Though I started writing this sometime back, but due to various reasons could not complete it.

Month of April was one of the best which I had in many years. This month started with trip to Goa and ended with my birthday.

Trip to Goa was long over-due. Funds for the party were transferred from onsite some 3-4 months back, but due to one or the other reason it did not happen. There were other complications too, biggest being the trip was to be organized for more than 50 people and not just couple of guys. But still there was lot of help. Many people pitched in to complete the tasks of identifying mode of travel, place to stay and the whole itinerary of roaming around in Goa.

“With greater people comes greater responsibilities... and greater risks too”.. This is not from any movie ;) but from the experience of organizing this trip. We had to figure out how to transfer so many people from Mangalore to Goa and then around various places in Goa. So bad that the “Teleport” technology is not available in real life. But still we managed to get hold on an AC sleeper bus (after lots of roaming around in Mangalore – I realized Mangalore is not that small too :) ) and got train tickets for the remaining people. Good, so one thing done. Alkesh arranged for accommodation (it helped being a localite) and along with some other (Abdul, Janmin... ) finalized the itinerary for sight-seeing too. So now all the things were finalized, but one thing was remaining. Goan beaches at times have been risky and have taken lots of lives of those who have adventured into some of those unknown territories. We had a meeting with all people where we made this thing very clear, 52 people were traveling and 52 have to come back.

Finally the D-day arrived (30th March, 2007). There were 40 people traveling by bus and 12 people traveling by train. Plan was to pick these 12 people from Madgaon station in early morning and after that be together throughout the trip. [A word of caution here, since I traveled by bus this blog will not contain much about what happened during train journey, but it has to be assumed that the people in train also enjoyed a lot and did not sleep neither let others sleep]. We (bus) started around 10 PM and initially it was dull environment but as time progressed it was back-benchers who lit up the environment by starting Antakshari. We would have slept around 12 or was it 1?, just because we had to be active during rest of the trip. But poor me, I had to wake early morning (around 3 AM) when we reached Goa border as we had to pay road tax. But after that I could not sleep much, one thing here to mention is the beautiful view which was outside. In the moonlight the whole area looked beautiful (or some can say haunted also). We reached Madgaon station early morning 5/5.30 AM and now it was time to wake up people :). Train was a bit late so we had time to have some early morning tea at station. After some time the other group arrived in its entirety and it was time to start for our main stop – the hotel.

Alkesh has arranged for accommodation near Miramar beach and also planned for breakfast and lunch in the same place (this was one good idea which saved us lots of time). After some lengthy journey we reached hotel. There was initial hick-up as the rooms were not vacated by other people, but after a wait of some 30 mins we got hold of rooms for us. We got ready and had breakfast and were all ready and excited to start for the first place which was to be – St. Francis Church, where the mummified body of St. Francis had been kept. I had been to this church other times also and one thing which we made sure was to take the group photo (at the same place where we had taken HBR group photo 3 years back). After the church it was time to pay courteous visit to the place where Dona and Paula have supposed to commit suicide. Though it was hot outside, but the enthu of people was not lowered. We all spend good time there and the best part was to watch 2 young dolphins play in the waters there.

After giving tributes to Dona-Paula it was time to start for beach and have fun. What would have been better than to go to Bagah beach. Thing which I hate about it (or any other beach in Goa) is that they have been overly commercialized. But that was in no way coming in our way to enjoy the place. We grabbed a piece of beach (just temporarily) for us to start various activities, some started playing cricket, some football and other decided to go in for beach-ball and there were others who were happy playing in water. After playing, it was time for some water sports and some of the enthusiastic souls negotiated with the people there and brought down the amount which they were asking. Most of us did para-sailing, in the middle of the sea. Sea was getting rough and evening was getting converted into night, para-sailing at that point of time was another experience. When we reached shore it was already dark, some people have walked from Bagah till Calungate and we were supposed to pick them up and then go for dinner. Dinner was arranged on the beach at Dona-Paula which was another nice experience. But at the end of the day, most of us were just too tired to think about something other than sleep. After reaching hotel and taking a bath to remove all the sand, it was time to hit the bed and sleep tight which each one of us did.

Next day was again going to be as exciting as the previous day. People were all ready in the morning, done with the breakfast and ready to go by 9.00 AM (note that this was a Sunday ;), when mostly morning happens at 11 AM, ok I will correct 12 PM – atleast for me). We started our next day by reaching Wagator beach and tracking up to the fort on hilltop. Each one of us climbed till top and in meantime Himanshu and myslef became bit adventurous as we climbed the fort wall (some 20 feet high). After capturing the fort, it was time to take team photos of these brave and fearless souls (who conquered the fort in this hot weather). As it was getting hotter we decided to start back for the bus.

In that hot weather it was as difficult to climb down as it was to climb up. After this exciting trip to fort it was time to feed our stomach which was shouting loudly for food. We reached the hotel and had nice lunch. Though after the hectic track and heavy lunch most of us felt like sleeping (or I would say most of us were sleeping in the bus), but a few souls (Sangi, Geetha, Vijay, Himanshu, Dhanashri and myslef) decided to play dumb-charade (its worth mentioning here as this would be going on for a long time). In the meantime we had reached “Panolem” beach which was our last stop in this trip. There again people started playing cricket or beach ball, but Sangi, Geetha, Nithya, Vijay and me decided to have walk to a point which seemed to be the end of the land (at least there). And after some walk, crossing over small rivers we reached a point (a rock) which was really end of that land. It was different from the remaining beach in the sense it was not crowded with people (which is a normal in all beaches). It was a good decision to come to this place and watch the sunset with no crowd noise in background. As sun went down, feeling that the trip was coming to an end started to take over. But in the end, sometime it had to end and we were lucky that it was all ending with only good memories to cherish for the lifetime.

We started from Panolem for a Dhaba in an jungle where our dinner was arranged. This again was a truly amazing experience. After having dinner we dropped the people to station and remaining of us started back for Mangalore with so many sweet memories to cherish. While coming back we continued with dumb-charade till 2 AM in the morning and that was the ending point of this trip for us.

We will surely have more trips like this. And now be ready to explore India with me :)