New Year Bash at Goa

After a long break, I have finally decided to update this blog for a change

There was this urge from a long time (since the day we saw DCH) to go on a trip to Goa. We being in a profession where we are not sure where we will be in a month from now, it’s very difficult to plan trips together with friends. I, SKV, RK, NBK and S had drawn a plan from October 2006 to go to Goa to usher in the New Year this time. But finally only 4 of us made it since S could not join us.

The trip was planned for 5 days, 29th Dec to 2nd Jan. We left early morning on 29th, planning to reach Panjim by 4 pm. But unfortunately, the so called shortest route that we had taken Bangalore-Hubli-Dharwad-Londa-Panjim that goes through NH4 and NH4A was one of worst routes I have ever driven through. The NH4 was under construction at many places and NH4A was just missing. I mean you had to search for a road between the poth holes. The road was so bad that the cars bottom would often hit the road. Somehow we reached Panjim at around 9 pm., booked ourselves into hotel Miramar Residency and went straight for the beach. Just the start of our 3 day long beach programme.

One of the main things on our “To Do” list was to visit the casino, something which I believe you can’t get in any other part of India. Hence the first thing we did on 30th was try to book for the Casino Cruise. All our hopes of enjoying the casino were dashed when we heard that the entry fee during the New Year is 3k!! We had to be satisfied with an evening cruise. In the morning we visited Fort Aguada. It was a nice little fort facing a beach. Somehow wherever we went we were facing the beach Our next stop was the Candolim Beach where for the first time I tried para-sailing and jet skiing. One thing I think we missed was the banana boat ride (It is still in my “To Do” List). Para-sailing was a very good experience. I simply enjoyed every bit of it. I don’t think I have had such an exhilarating experience before. Now, I am waiting for another opportunity. Not to mention my camera was too busy capturing some of the “moments” we lived. After the fun at Candolim, we then went towards Baga Beach to book Mambo’s and Tito’s for the 31st night. On the way our car got stuck in a bad traffic jam near the Beach. It was decided that NBK would walk to Mambo’s and enquire about the booking and the rest would soon join when the traffic eased up. But unfortunately, the traffic became worse and I had to take a walk to Mambo’s too in search of NBK. Unluckily, they were closed at that time and we couldn’t get much of information. Since we were right in front of the beach, I and NBK then took a short walk on the Baga beach just to check out the crowd After that we were back to Miramar residency and spent some time playing on the Miramar Beach and the late evening was spent on a cruise. After the cruise, we thought of visiting the Ingo’s Saturday night bazaar and there too we were caught up in traffic. This time we decided to park the car at the side of a street and walk up to the bazaar. Somehow asking for directions from too many people we landed at Mackies saturday night bazaar rather than Ingo’s. It was just one of those flea markets that you seem to find everywhere in Goa. We were back at our hotel at around 2 am. The first day was rather long and had enjoyed every bit of it. The only problem was we had not yet planned which club/pub/disco/beach to go to for the New Year celebration.

On the 31st, our first stop in the morning was the Chapora Fort, now more famous as the DCH Fort. This too is a fort overlooking couple of beaches, one of which is Vagator Beach, the other I don’t know off. Next stop was of-course the Beach itself. After some serious photography at the beach and one of most delicious lunches at a restaurant nearby watching “Friends” on TV, we set off to Anjuna Beach. More than the beach we spent time at the flea market that leads upto the beach. This is where I shot a good photo of RK gobbling the Sun. By then SKV had arranged for the New Year’s eve party through a contact of his. The New Year’s Eve party “Scintilla 2007″ was held close to our hotel itself. The usual buffet dinner, dance party, lots of music and the eventual welcome to the New Year, all followed. There was one beautiful girl dressed in red who was dancing incredibly well and one of us sprained his neck while trying to dance as well as look at her dance! Again back to the room past 2 am.

On the first day of the New Year, we were back to our routine of visiting beaches. First stop was the Baga beach, where we decided to lay down on one of the beach chairs but unlike the sunbathers we were under a beach parasol. Our second stop was at Calangute Beach close by, which was too crowded for our interests hence we left back to our room. Overall was a very lazy start for the new year (So lazy that this blog entry comes two months after the New Year).

On the 2nd we started our journey back, and on the way even had a race with a train a la DCH. This time we took a totally different route Goa-Karwar-Shimoga-Tumkur-Bangalore which was a very good road though a bit difficult to drive because of the curves. We were back in Bangalore at around 9 pm. in the night.

To describe the beaches, I would say,

1. Candolim Beach — This was the best of all the beaches. Very less crowd, mostly foreign nationals all busy sunbathing.

2. Vagator Beach — This seems to have two sides to it. One is where the “family with kids” prefers to go and the other is where “singles and couples” go.

3. Baga Beach — A bit overcrowded when we were there but mostly a sunbathing crowd

4. Anjuna Beach — Not too much of a crowd but more famous for the flea market

5. Miramar Beach — Very clean beach and only Indian crowd. No sunbathing whatsoever.

6. Calangute Beach — This looked like a railway platform. Just didn’t feel like walking up to the water

The pics of this trip have been uploaded onto my flickr page.

RK too has put down a more detailed post on this trip here.