Techie Travellers!

Wake up Goa!

10AM 27^th September 2009

After a long journey the tired bodies dozed off to sleep… It was 9:30 AM when I woke up! Vinay, Prasad and Anupam were almost ready to have breakfast (the resort offered a complimentary breakfast). Ravi and I quickly got off the bed, freshened up and were at the breakfast table… Munching the slice of bread, I realized, the resort we had hopped in last night was more beautiful than I thought… It has a centrally located swimming pool surrounded by couple of coconut trees, the rooms have balcony which overlook the pool, lots of shrubs with colorful flowers, laid out lawn with walk path and well chosen colors of the surrounding made the resort look like a perfect goan beauty. Not to forget the host, they were courteous and gentle… Anytime I would give a perfect 10 for Dona Julia!

 Shoppers Stop

11:30 PM 27^th September 2009

Without wasting time we were out of the resort on our mission… We also had to decide on how to spend the next part of the day! Vinay suggested we visit the Calangute market which offers some cool beach apparels… The sun was burning us down and weather humid with not a hint of breeze, we spent 2 hours hopping shop after shop… Finally when we were done, we still weren’t decided on the plan for the day… We headed towards the beach hoping to catch up with breeze & beer….

 Shack a laka baby!

1:30 PM 27^th September 2009                                   

Thoughtful

The idea of hanging on the beach was to brainstorm on the next activity… The walk down the market had dried the esophagus from end to end… how else can one expect to quench thirst? With in minutes we all were sipping beer ola la la la le le yo! Well this line from kingfisher sounded so true… God loving & biblical!

 We sat in the shack facing the sea and got a full view of the beach… a light breeze and the company around the shack kept us entertained! The company kept changing but we were unmoved LOL. It started with the vendors: a woman offering massage, tattoo wala, artisans etc…

Massage had no takers, tattoo wala managed to catch Prasad’s interest and after much bargaining the deal was sealed, Prasad had an Aum on the left arm! The polo shirt had folded up; his face turned macho, so proud that he let the entire world admire…

 An artisan selling Chain & bands made of beads caught the interest of Vinay, Ravi and me. Anupam joined too later and finally the old lady’s efforts didn’t go waste… We had bought quiet a few of them! Then came the dogs, hoping to share the food… Ravi and I generously fed them and they were happy to lie down besides us… By then a family joined us in adjacent table, their two kids were cute… The daughter was elder and both came with amazing amount of energy… She kept us entertained with her dance, cat walks(jataks & mataks) and heart touching smile… Prasad, Anupam and Vinay ran behind wooing her for snap… she obliged after she got over the initial shyness and had many interesting shots! With so much fun coming up to us, we finally decided to wind up!

 Sharks enter the pool!

5 PM 27^th September 2009

Beat the heat

We came back to the resort and the boys decided to deep dive into the pool to beat the heat… Prasad & Anupam being good swimmers tried all possible strokes right from breath, butterfly to free style! Ravi , Vinay & Myself floated in the water; I got out of the pool early as my head had started to ache and preferred to sleep for a while… It was 6:30 PM when I woke up around and could hear the thuds into the water… The 2 hour at the pool had refreshed one and all and were ready for another adventure…

D.I.S.C.O… D.I.S.C.O… D.I.S.C.O…

8PM 27^th September 2009

Prasad and Ravi had to leave on 28^th evening back to Bangalore and we decided that we should spend this night in discotheque. We zeroed in on Tito’s which is supposed to be renowned place in Calangute … It’s a small gully and as we neared the enterance, there were guys trying to sell other not so popular ones. The slang was weird.. “Boss Disco jana hai kya Disco…, *!@^..!@##” types…  Shrugging them off our backs and sneaking through the jammed gully, finally we reached Tito’s.  Prasad and Anupam got off to enquire while my car crawled looking for a parking space…

 As I was parking my car, we bumped into a guy who spoke decent kannada… he befriended us and convinced us that he knew a better place which had a much decent crowd. He managed to sell the idea and volunteered to the escort us to the location. We crawled back through the gully which almost took an hour and reached the location. As we entered the building, something dint look right… further inside it had the stink of dance bar, fortunately sense prevailed over and we confirmed this before entering in… We chucked the idea of discotheque and bid the guy adieu. From then on through out the journey, one of us would mimick “Ah! Disco, Disco, Disco” mocking at the spate of discotheque in Goa in typical black ticket vendor style…

 Bhagam Bhagha…

11 PM 27^th September 2009.

Hmm...

 The disco Fiasco had left each one of us drained, we decided to go to Bhagha beach for dinner. Bhagha is a nice place and has some nice shacks similar to the Lobo’s in Calangute. Britto’s is one such famous joint… Bhagha also has a creek which divides the beach… The tide was low and the shacks had tables on the beach all around…The beach was buzzing with life and energy… Young couples walked along the shore lost in their own world, couple of them entered the sea and let the tides touch their ankles, further up near the shacks, and kids built fort, manors and what not! On the other side of the land ships stay still unperturbed by the activity on the shore…

 It was almost half past 11 when we decided to dine at one of the  shacks there… Bhav, the steward was very nice, hospitable and attended to us with the same enthusiasm he would have if it were to be the start of the day. The bright moon and its reflection on the sea with a candle lit table made the moment special. We all wished we were not single there…. With glorious memories of our first day in Goa we returned our heaven at Dona Julia resorts…

To be continued…