Rewinding back a decade - In my sweet 16's & 'd just finished my 10th board exams. Summer holidays & WE got invitation from Sandeep aka CheChe to visit his home town - Ganeshgudi. The said WE included me & Rajni. Rajnish aka Chotu - The little wonder! Those who knew him ll definitely agree with the tag line attached -- 'The Little Wonder'.
Ganeshgudi - a small beautiful town amidst scenic sparse green forests, close to Dandeli; more familiar for Supa Dam power plant built across Kali river. For us - visiting cheche's home was just a reason to get our visa's stamped from our parents for travel. The itinerary 'd our long awaited, concealed wicked intention. GOA!
The Visa stamping authority aka our parents weren't that dumb. Although our proposed travel plan to G-gudi got approved, finance granted was just little more than travel expenses required for to-fro journey to G-gudi !! Me & choto, each had got around 300 bucks extra.
Just 300 bucks extra. Thats it.
The backpack never used to be heavy in those days.
Start packing.
Take bag, put few clothes & couple of add-ons (tooth brush et al).
End packing.
With our ultra light luggage - we three musketeers started our journey from Davangere to Ganeshgudi. Already pretty excited thinking about Goa!
This was my first venture towards this part of the world. Although now its been more than a decade - I still clearly remember the amazing silence and exciting beauty of this small town spread over couple of hills. Most part of it is part of KPC quarters, & hence all houses looked similar. Roads in simple words - full down & then full up, with plush green on either side.
Cheche's family was simply great. We were simply overwhelmed by their hospitality. Adding on to that - mouth watering different cuisines everyday.
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Few days down the line -
Cheche told his parents about our Goa plan (and Lie No 1. that me & rajni had got permission from our respective parents). Since he had specified appropriate travel itinerary, finance was also appropriately granted. He got grant for 700 bucks, followed by almost same number of instructions for what to do & what not to do in Goa. The major cause of concern being Sea - we promised (here comes Lie No 23) that we wont go deep into sea. I dont know what were Lie No 2 to Lie No 22 - but 'm sure we would 've lied a lot and made several fake promises to get our plan approved.
All set. We moved out of Ganeshgudi. No reservation. Nothing. This was one of those 'next-destination-when-next-bus-arrives' kind of trip.
@ Ramnagar, few kms away from Ganeshgudi
We reached Ramnagar, & this is when cheche suggested, lets accumulate all our available moola in one place & then spend together. Bank balance now a mere 1300/-.
What is travel expense to reach Goa from here?
What are the places to roam around in Goa?
Where to stay? What would be accomodation expenses?
How far is Goa from here?
Our knowledge base about Goa was almost nil (although cheche parent's told some stuffs which we didnt bother to listen). None of us knew answers to any of the above questions. Till this point - never did those questions popped up in our mind.
Thanks to Social science in our curriculum, we knew Panaji was capital of Goa. & after listning to some stories here & there about Goa - we 'd heard of one coveted beach name -- THE OM BEACH !!
We queried about ticket cost to reach Panaji with couple of Lal-dabba's. I dont remember how much exactly was the cost, but that sounded little expensive for us. Now, we were getting enlightned about travel expenses & we started making some calculations.
This is when we heard some one screaming -
"Panjim - Panjim - Panjimmmmmmmm - Londa - Madagaon - Panjimmmm"
Few kilometers down the line - all three of us were back on our feet, holding tightly the rope hung to the side of the cart. Bumpy ride! Real Bumpy Ride & it had just begun.
Next few hours we had very hard time. Adding to our woes - couple of people vomitted in the cart itself.
@ Panjim
We arrived in Panjim, somewhere in late afternoon. Woooooooooooaaaaa! We are in GOA !! Pretty much excited with smile back on all three faces.
New places would always excite our minds. Here the new place wasnt just any other place. It was tourist paradise - Goa. & the best part was 'freedom'. To do whatever you want. To go where ever you feel like. One can easily imagine our excitement.
Ok. Now we are in Goa aka Panaji. What next?
" Lets take a tourist map. Find the closest beach to Panaji and go there" - chotu suggested.
The bus-station was few meter's away from the place where our truck had dropped us. We crawled that distace, staring each and every mini skirts around! There were lots of those. And were pretty too.
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We enquired the price of tourist map. I dont remember exactly if we bought one or not, but as far as my thinking goes - we didnt. Why waste moola?
We wanted to go to the so called 'OM Beach', about which we 'd heard a lot. The query for the same at bus-station returned void. No one 'd heard of any such place. Across few meters, we heard one of the bus conductor yelling out - "Calangute - Calangute - Calangute BEACH" with his pitch increasing word by word.
The keyword "Beach" got stuck in our head. The bus was almost full, which made us draw conclusion that it might be a good beach. Which beach, who cares. Lets first go to this beach & then decide where to go next.
Next minute - we were sitting happily smiling in the bus.
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@ Calangute
We arrived @ calangute in the evening. Headed straight to the beach.
The view of the sea had always fascinated me. It does to everyone I guess. End of land & water takes over. Am I standing at end of Earth? Amazing view of horizon - blue meeting the blue! The roaring sound of huge huge waves - inviting for the play.
Resisting our temptation to hit waters - instead decided that, first - we need to fill something into our stomach & then find some place to stay overnight. Samosa from road-side vendor was well within our budget. Moreover, we were more hungry for fun @ beach than for food. Couple of samosa's went in & then we searched for about an hour - and finally managed to find a quite affordable place to rest, not much far from the beach. Small single room, with a cot in one of its corner & just enough free space for three of us to rest. Now since our problem was solved - we dumped our luggage & headed towards beach again.
This time - to play.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaa --- Combating the waves was fun. Chotu was an swim experto. Me & cheche were relatively naive to this domain. Couple of encouraging words from chotu was all what we needed - we went quite some distance into the sea, throwing all the caution words to the wind. Swimming - Jumping along with the waves- Splashing - Diving - Game On! Give me more!
Parallelly - peeking at babes was still on. The skirts at panaji were reduced to bikini's here. Need more?
I had entered beach with my formal sandal's on, ignoring cheche's suggestions of not to. My first encounter with the BIG wave - I jumped along with it, & when I landed back on Sand, one sandal was missing! Other one was firmly attached to my foot. :-)
" Sea wont consume anything - It would split back everything " -- I guess it was chotu's words. They didnt turn true though. Searched for quite some time - but in the end, I had to buy a new cheap pair of plastic sandals & take extra care of those. Given our budget, cant afford such additional xpenses. What did I do with the remaining sandal? No, didnt throw it. But Hid it close by. Hoping the sea would split back what it consumed.
We spent our time till late evening at the beach. The extra freedom that we had got added more to our carelessness.
Went back to our lodge, took a fresh water bath & we were out again. Now on the streets - simply roaming around. Had some roti's for dinner (street vendor - next to the samosa guy) & headed towards sea again. this time, to see how it looks during night. Spent more than an hour sitting on the beach. This part was great. No crowd anymore & you get to sit and enjoy the beauty amidst all the peace in the world one require's to do that. Just systematic rhythmic music of waves along with cool breeze. Three buddies discussing about different things - in our own DCH style! Cheche made good fun about my missing sandal episode, reminding me quite often about that sad episode. :-)
Back in lodge - dead tired - we just closed our eyes & slept like dead bodies till next day morning 9AM.
What to do next? Which place to go from here? We thought about all these for couple of minutes. But without thinking much, we all agreed. The Calangute itself was great & worth spending another day over here. I was thinking may be - sea would split back my sandal today!!!
Anyway - Its beach time again.
Sun bath bench's provided @ beaches took our attention. There were several phoreners using those. When enquired - the sovereign told "One bench - 50 bucks for entire day".
This is when a wicked smart idea came to our mind. We felt, paying around 200 bucks for lodge was waste of money. Why dont we sleep on the bench during night?! Lodge was required only for fresh water bath's & toilets. We can utilize pay&use toilets/bathrooms for that. We stuck a deal with the shop keeper. We would hire one bench during day time for 50 bucks. & He would allow us to sleep on 3 benches during night (when they ll be lying idle anyway).
That was more efficient! By staying back in Calangute itself, we 'd already saved couple of bucks in travel. & By moving out of lodge - we saved even more! Wooooahaa!
Even though we saved some moola - Samosa remained our staple food for entire day. Samosa vendor began kinda good friend for us. Why not, we consumed close to 20 Samosa's that day!
We spent entire day on beach. Occupying sun bath bench in round robin 'fair share' scheduling - although chotu cheated quite often and occupied more time. Calangute beach is pretty looooooong. Apart from playing in water - we also took a long beach walk. From end to end. On one of its end, we found a bunch of Hare-Rama Hare-Krishna Hippies & On the other end -- there was a small rocky mountain. Lots of phoren baba's and babies in between. But all along the walk - I wasnt interested in those baba's and babies anymore - I was still hoping I would get back my Sandals. Eyes still hopping around for the same. Oh! They were nice pair of Qawadi's. What reason should I tell to my Dad about this?!
For dinner - we thought of having something different than usual Samosa's. Saw menu's of quite few restaurants & looking at the right hand column's, took back our thought. Common Guys - The Samosa's are more tasty!
The other thing that comes to one's mind about Goa is Beer. Although, we all three had never consumed beer before - we decided to give it a try & explore what's all the fuzz sorrounding alcohol. We purchased one 330 ml tin. I guess it was KingFisher's which costed around 20 or 25 bucks. The taste was horrible. The smell - Yakkkk. Small sip by sip, again in round robin fashion - three of us struggled to finish off that tin. In the end - we threw it off, with still some liquid remaining in it. This remained topic of discussion for next few hours. How can people enjoy consuming this obscene? We didnt know the answer at that time. But discovered the answer ourself few years down the line. :-)
Oh! I forgot to mention. We 'd stole one bed-spread from the lodge before vacating. I dont remember exactly, if it was bed-spread or curtain. But we stole something; to aid in covering ourself during the night when sleeping on the beach side bench. Not many would have experienced the ultimate fun in sleeping beach side on the bench during night for sure. For all those people who have experienced - I neednot say anything. For all those not-experienced naive adventureless boring fellow's, here is a good suggestion --- Do not TRY.
Initial few hours on the bench went smoothly. Tired body & mild cool breeze - it was more than what we could have asked for. But as the night progressed - the temperature went down drastically & mild cool breeze became strong ICY wind, carrying sand along with it. Tried sleeping beneath the beach bench to avoid sand rain. In-vain. We took out all our clothings one by one - stuffed our body to the max, covered our head with towel tightly & then slept. We were able to regain some sleep after quite a bit of struggle.
Next morning - wind had stopped. And our stuffings were covered with a thick layer of sand all over.
The thirst for beach fun wasn't quenched yet & we were already in love with this place. We decided to continue our stay in Calangute. For third consecutive day. (and this kept my 'search-sandal-mission' still alive!)
Some management time. Based on available data about fare charges required to get back to Ganeshgudi, we took that amount out & kept it separate. After keeping it separate - we discovered that we weren't left with much of rokda. After usual Samosa's for breakfast - we hit the beach again. Enjoyed with her - one last time! To the max!
It was adieu time.
We didn't get a direct bus to Ramnagar. We got down at some intermediate place & had to wait for quite some time before we could manage to get a......... Truck. This time, it wasn't a normal luggage truck -- It was Pertoleum tanker truck. And if you are thinking that we sat comfortably in the cabin - No. We didnt. We stood in the narrow space, in between driver cabin & trailer carrying tank! For close to an hour !!!
Because of the truck adventure - we were still left with some cash when we reached Ramnagar. It has been 3 days since we 'd touched rice. Being SouthIndians, this was quite an achivement! Ate platefull of rice with fish curry!! HoHooooooooo.. Yummmmmmy.
With dreams of hitting Calangute with friends again - we got back home. Never knew that my dream would come true in span of just two years. Our second trip to Goa after my 12th again included couple of days stay in Ganeshgudi, lots and loads of fun at Calangute and yet again "only Calangute beach" with no sandal scandal this time. The second trip had even bigger financial blunders & wonders! The beer consumption had increased from 3 guys atin to 3 guys a bottle !!
A scribble on that here by iPrabz:
http://coloredcanvas.blogspot.com/2008/11/summer-of-98.html
It has been more than 8 years after that ---- we are still planning for yet another venture to Goa. Only planning. God knows when we would make it !!!
All the images in this post aren't mine. Just googled out & downloaded relevant one's to the context! All copyrights for those images are reserved by respective owners :-)
I 'd missed lot of information regarding this venture. Chotu, after reading this blog - reminded me few. Couldn't resist highligting up those comments here.
[CHOTU]
Wanted to remind you about another sandal scam.. we went to buy one sandal in Calangute and we flicked one black sandal ;) and then i also remember another we flicked one sunglasses which we lost while returning back in the tanker .. Those days i remember you were master of "M" and i was inspired by you and my first successfull project in em ing was that sandal ;)..
You missed the sunset part ;) while everyone were watching the sunset and you were sitting in the other direction to see one phoren babe ...
[\CHOTU]
- USiRa
