Goa (15°03'N   73°55'E)  

Trip #2: GOA... The DIL CHAHTA HAI Experience

Whoever said.. " 'Tis the Journey be the pleasure.. and nae 't arrive.." was not enroute to the other side of time. -Richard Bach in Out of My Mind.

« Write-up by Pamz..»

Way to Go(a)

The first stretch of our journey, Bangalore to Hassan (180 kms) is a pure joy to ride (after city limits). The roads are smooth and straight for most part and we touched 120 kmph on the Santro while the Ikon touched 140. A bit of alertness to watch for trucks, tankers and buses; but otherwise teriffic driving. We stop midway at a Punjabi dhaba to have some food (we spend a whole 1 hour there - food being so important!). After reaching Hassan at 11:00 PM, we check in to the hotel where we had been booked. Hassan is a typical Karnataka small town, a pretty sleepy one. Everyone freshens up and dozes off, the next day's full day drive being the conversation topic pre-sleep.

We start the Hassan-Goa (570 kms) leg at 7:30 AM on November 1, after breakfast.The road from Hassan is mainly through the ghats, meaning you have to be very alert and keep left on the road always. It was pretty ok considering the number of potholes on the road and the amount of traffic there. Finally, we reach Mangalore by noon and we stop at Udupi for lunch at 1:30 PM. Udupi is a temple town with lot of good veg restaurants (that did not prevent some junta from having non-veg and booze, though!). We start again from Udupi at 3:00 PM and decide to drive non-stop till Karwar (120 kms before Goa). This stretch of the drive is the best, with about 10-15 kms of drive by the sea side literally. It's sheer joy to zoom across the sea side at 120 kmph with sweet music from your car stereo providing the right background.

After a brief stop at Karwar for tea, we reach Goa by 7:30 PM. After some total confusion regarding which location to stay, we finally get ourselves booked in GTDC's Miramar Beach Resort, Panaji, Goa. Miramar is a clean, beautiful beach...

We spend time from 11:00 PM till 12:00 AM on the beach sands, looking at the bright full moon, a few scattered stars and over nostalgic REC talk. The next day morning, 2 more of our gang, 1 from Bangalore (Giri) and 1 from Pune (Amby, who else?) join us at the beach resort.

At Goa

DAY 1
 

Miramar Beach Resort, Panaji Breakfast at 7:30 AM. The hard core boozers gang has Fosters and Smirnoff as starters while the rest of us take refuge in more mundane stuff...after that, we drive down to Baga beach

 Baga beach

Baga is a popular destination because of the long stretch of relatively clean sand, apart from the prsence of foreign madames in bikinis:-) We start off with enjoying the natural and other beauties and strolling along the beach. Later, we engage ourselves in 2 fun filled sessions of beach football (we bought one from Goa), followed by frisbee games. The climate was hot and we all were exhausted by the time we reached noon time. We dash off to a Continental restaurant nearby. The non veggies have prawn, mussel and other varieties of sea food apart from crab cocktails (yuk!) while us veggies (4/8) have traditional N.Indian cuisine with pure fruit juice.

Calangute beach

Calangute is crowded, and the crowd  is totally different from the one at Baga. No foreigners and more of localites. It's a commercialised beach literally with shops of all hues before entering the beach side. We start with football sessions which go on from 4:00 till 6:00 PM. Then, we watch the beauty of beach sunset and frolick in beach waters... There were Starfish allover on the wet sands.. picked up some to see if they are alive, and threw back into the waves.. "Do they have brains ?" someone wondered..

The Boat cruise
The day is coming to and end, and we decide to top a wonderful day with a boat cruise on Mandovi river. We drive down to Panjim again and book ourselves in one of the boat  cruises, Royal Cruise. It is a 1 hour cruise with music, food and dance thrown in. The boat can accomodate up to 230 people and rather huge for a boat. The cruise was very relaxing with some Goan, Portugese and Hindi song and dance sessions for couples on board and others. You feel a high looking at the silent waters, the line of lights on the horizon and with light Goan music cum dance in the background.

DAY 2
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We start the day early, at about 7:00 AM. We decide to cover Vagatur Beach, Chapora fort in the morning.

 Vagatur beach
 

	Vagatur is literally a scenic beauty. As soon as you reach the site, you at at an elevation compared to the beach side and the view from there is exhilerating. Pure natural beauty with the distant sound of waves hitting the land.
	We walk down to the beach side where we relax for some time and then, play a session of beach cricket. The beach side is pretty small, but clean. And, the crowd is less. Thus, it is good if you like the calms, which I guess most of us like... After that, we see the fort uphill Vagatur beach, where the 'das saal mein ek bar...' scene of Dil Chahtha Hai (DCH) was shot. We decide to trek up the hill to the fort side.

 
 

Chapora fort
 

The beatiful scenery and the nostalgic words from DCH lingering in our minds make it a great session. Most of us sit by the fort walls, looking silently at the beachside below and boats at the horizon , while Luke gets around indulging in some professional (supposedly) bird photography. The silence is interrupted by a couple doing their photography sessions (rather professionally, with a tripod stand and all that)...we laze around for some more time before we head down and back to the resort to check out. After lunch, we decide to go to Old Goa to see some churches.

 
 

Old Goa
Old Goa is pretty sleepy with that old Potugese hang over. We are escorted by a guide to  Basilica Bom Jesus church . The church is pretty grand with everthing inside in teak wood and with gold plating. The body of St. Francis was kept there, which is 450 years old. It seems it is a mystery how the body is so intact even after so much time.

Way to Bangalore
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In the evening, we bid goodbye to our Pune friend and start on the journey back at 6:45 PM. We cover 230 kms and a dinner and reach Murudeshwar by 11:45 PM. Murudeshwar is a small temple town on the beach side enroute to Mangalore. It is a beautiful place, with a huge Lord Siva statue by the becah side and our guest house was right on the beach. We had a nice sleep with the sound of crashing waves as the background. Morning, we have breakfast at a beachside hotel and then, start on the way back.

We speed up and to Mangalore and then to Bangalore. One bad session in between the trip back is Sajish's Ikon being hit by a KSRTC bus as he was trying to overtake the bus at a ghat section...we share in the angst at a brand new Ikon being dented at the front side, but later Sajish and all of us cheer up and then, catch speed to reach Bangalore by 8:30, covering the last 150 kms in 2 hrs 15 minutes.

We sit together for dinner....with all those beautiful Goa experiences in our minds. We discuss of going back to work and routine life and wonder aloud (idea by Vadax) whether we all should start a company ourselves and do something more thrilling...:-) After all that, we split ways with talks and promises of meeting again for the next trip...and with lingering memories of 4 beautiful days... --