Goa Odyssey About

I havent immortalised the Goa trip, I realise, here on my blog. And so even though its all ancient history and all, Im writing about it now, and classifying it under reminisces.

I want to be sure to remember:

How jubilant we were when Snum's uncle gave us the thumbs up.

How we planned the whole thing, in Osh's hostel on the comp downstairs... laughing ourselves silly and getting confused over the scale in the faulty map we got off the net.

How we almost missed the bus getting there.

How very motion sick Osho got.

How cute Shahid Kapoor was on the bus, even though I didnt understand what the hell he was saying.

How limited my choice was at The National Restaurant where we stopped for dinner at 11.30pm, just as we were getting off to sleep.

Goan Mum and Son in Black Leather Jacket, and the Throwup Kids.

How the AC bus felt like an aircraft when they gave us the blankets and water bottles. And how the curves felt like turbulance.

"Yella ok, Cool drink yake?" Rajnikanth ad for beer. Gag me.

Heavy rains in Karwar that put us four hours behind schedule.

Empty quarters and the egrets Snum's dad put there to spy on us. Silly birds, they dont move at ALL. We thought they were statues until we saw them moving on the third day. "Oh look, how nice! They've made a little park with little life-like statuettes of birds in them!" said Snum foolishly when we arrived. Well, no actually, she didnt. I just like teasing Snum.

How our little cottage thing was called Colva.

How we caught the rickety bus from Verrem and got to Panjim in 5 rupees and 15 excrutiating minutes.

The TORTURE of finding that the bloody camera was not working, and having to buy that disposable one at Panjim.
The JOY of having it repaired on the third day, even though it made us almost miss the cruise.

Taking 114 pictures of ourselves in 2 and a half days.

Dominoes pizza.

How good it felt to be roomies, ordering in. The closeness. Having long talks in front of the TV at night.

How all of us were dead to the world until 9am on the second morning, even though the previous night we had vowed and sweared we would be up and about early.

Aguada fort and the death of Snum's broze chappals. Yes, it was here that they finally snapped. For the last time. Muttering as she held the remains in her hands, tottering about on the hot sand, Snum agreed it was all for the best.

The burial in the cupboard.

How concerned we were that Abhishek Bachchan was brushing off Aishwarya in a very obvious manner as she looked on with puppy dog eyes.

Anwar, the sweetheart (Snum's to be precise). Our blessed means of transport.

The Ferry Boat, Osh's unfortunate seating arrangement, the cool couple with the grandparents and kids.

How amazing those dolphins looked, if only for that split second.

Lime soda- heaven in a cup. Between the three of us, I think we consumed 70 of those cups during our entire trip.

How Snum kept dropping straws.

How frickin hot it was, and how grateful I was that I lived in Bangalore.

The Daily Cycle Thing. Hilarious. I'm glad we found it hilarious, so soon.

The sun umbrella not being big enough at lunchtime on Calangute beach.

Snum and Osh on the water scooter and me parasailing. Woo hoo! (See right: me.)

How we wanted to go again.

The IT couple who took pictures.

Bargaining at Anjuna beach and getting things for less than half the original price. Which Im sure the items were still not worth.

Getting caught in that throng of people carrying candles and singing prayers. Eerie.

Lovely looking restaurant. Ghastly tasting wine which burnt hole in pockets.

Dona Paula beach, cowboy hats.

Miramar beach- the absolute most best one of them all!! :) :) :) (see left)

Old Goa, the hot and horribly boring museum that Snum enjoyed.

Numerous ATM visits that I would actually wait for, because we got to stand in the AC for a bit.

Candolim beach in the afternoon on the recliners, with the cute dog. Now I dont go around stroking strange dogs, having had no experience with canines before, but Snum does. The second she placed her hand behind his ears, he shut his eyes, lay right down and fell straight asleep. Like clockwork. :D

Night cruise, weird drunk Hindi MC.

Suffocating the next morning.

The Bodgeshwara temple. Somehow temples dont mean much to me. Anything to me.

Deciding we'd been spending too much on food, and hence stopping at Mapusa town, buying 3 vada pavs for 6 rupees each and ketchup packets (1 rupee each) for that day's lunch.

Patting ourselves on the back, and talking about how clever and sensible we were, the entire journey to Vagathur beach.

THEN having it get ATTACKED and HACKED open by those VICIOUS crows that were there, when we left it unattended for a bleeding SPLIT second.
(See above: One of the culprit crows. Do not let its mild demenour fool you. Vicious, utterly vicious.)

Huge amounts of shopping at Vagathur and Anjuna. Being stunned speechless by the shop people's accents. We just looked at each other's expressions and snorted from restrained laughter I think, the first time. They werent too nice to us after that.

Coming back home and video-ing our many splendiferous purchases.

The Midnight Beach Sting Ray Incident. *grin* Titos.

The last day, hitching a ride, shopping at Panjim for the necessary and the unnecessary, ATM crawling, Osh career advising. Eating at a special place Snum recommended which we'd been saving for the last day. Laughing ourselves silly there.

Being very frustrated that that particular day was a dry day.

Settling bills, frenzied packing, frenzied video taking and being horrifically late for the bus again, which gave me several more mini heart attacks.

Reaching there, finding it still hadnt arrived and hence trying to amuse ourselves at random shops nearby.

All of us being at the bus stop in the hysterical mad moods I do so love, laughing ourselves silly, and scandalising several of the people there who were waiting for their buses.
I shocked the wits out of a couple of three year olds and Snum somehow managed to cause an old couple to get up and move two benches away from us, much to Osh's approval.

Me being livid with the stupid jerky bus and the fat man snoring loudly next to me the whole goshdarned night.

Wanting to cry about it all being over the next morning, as we bid each other a tearful, dramatic and very filmi goodbye at Majestic.

Catching the Bus- Goa

Suffering Succotash! As Lalitha said.

I am such a lazy bum. Lazy I tell you. Goa was a blast. So much fun. And I'm too comatose to write about it all. Or even upload pics on Facebook so that long suffering friends can see them.
Even now my fingers are dragging themselves across the keyboard in mild protest at the labour they're being put through.

Anyway since this post is supposed to be about Goa, I'll get on with it.

We almost missed the bus to Goa in the first place. Yeah.
Bus leaves at 7.30pm. We're stuck in traffic and its effing seven forty.
I'm convinced we've missed it and am hyperventilating.
Snum's trying to calm me down on the way to the bus station ("Ay those buses no... they're always half an hour late... minimum.")
Osho's already mildy motion sick (minus the throwing up).

We're coming up with Plan B's ("Okay okay... What we'll do is, we'll camp out at Osh's hostel for the next five days. Okay? We'll like, get fake tans, take some rigged photos, buy a coupla Goa T shirts and just say we went. That way our parents wont kill us, and we'll go on to lead the lives we were otherwise meant to. Okay? Fine? Cool.")

We get to Majestic. Late. I bound into the station with my luggage, almost breaking my arm in the process. Osh and Snum follow. I frantically sidestep sewage, asking people in Kannada where platform number 1A is. (I love being the competent one among us who knows the local language. Ha ha. Didnt like it a bit when it all that reversed in Goa where we'd to communicate in Hindi.)

They point somewhere, we look.
It's the platform farthest away from us. (Well, obviously.)
And there's a big AC bus just leaving from it.

"Thats the one Osh! Thats the bus!" I scream.
I feel a whoosh of air against me as Osho ROCKETS past, all motion sickness vanished, her strolley thundering after her. Snum gives me an amused look and sprints off after her. I totter forward at a slower pace. I figure they'll make the bus wait anyway.
I lose track of them. Couple minutes later, I spot them standing near the platform. Their expressions are unfathomable.
Was that a smile? Or a grimace?
Will the next five days be Galavanting in Goa or Hiding in Hostel?

Turns out they were just catching their breath. Too busy panting to look happy or relieved.
We hadnt missed it (Surprise! There's something you didnt expect) In fact, the bus hadnt even arrived at Majestic yet. Snum's bull turned out to be true. This time at least.
All that running around like headless chickens for nothing.

(NB: Yes, I do understand that technically, we didnt "almost miss the bus", but as mentioned earlier, I am currently too lazy a state to think of any other way to refer to it)

We're all Going On A...

We're going to Goa! We're going to Goa! We're going to Goa! *Runs around in circles screaming and waving hands like a mad person*


*Stops*

The three of us for five days.
It is going to be like, so awesome.
*screams excitedly*
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In other news, the English-killing gormless lady's paper is over! Torturous it was, really. Especially because I wasnt well the last night, planned to get up at five and study, ended up waking at 8.45 and having to rush there without having studied a thing, and entered the exam hall 20 minutes late, with a headache. The paper was a mess. Urgh. Came back home and flung my unread notes aside. My mum picked them up in amusement. Couple of minutes later she was in hysterics. She has newfound pity for me when talk to her of my language class woes.
The English notes were incomprehensible. Made absolutely no sense.
But anyway, its over! I wish I could say it was my last, but at least I can say its my last but one. How I will celebrate at the end of fourth semester when I can give the whole darn thing up.
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Also, I just thought I'd mention how unnerving it is when your parents talk about you as if you arent around. Mine do that a lot. In the car especially when we're driving to the occasional function or family get-together. This morning as we're driving to one, they're sitting there and talking.
I mean, just because I'm in the back seat, doesnt mean I've gone completely stone deaf.

"Youngsters these days. Mrs so and so at the lab was telling me how she cant afford to depend on any of the younger crowd for anything. They're married to their phones. The phone is always a priority for them. Always."
"And they're never on time. What's the difficulty in getting there at the time specified?"
"My friend was telling me how her daughter leaves her clothes all about the place. Its the same thing with MM. She just leaves her things where ever she wants to and I have to pick up after her."
"If they'd only look at their watches from time to time, thats all I'm asking."
"If you tell them, they get angry with you. Hypersensitive."

And I just sat there listening in amusement. Maybe they're trying to tell me something.

Nah, that couldnt be it.