Kumarakom
Trip to Kumarakom in Kerala can be a costly affair unless you explore the place a little bit and find cheaper alternatives. This boat ride cost us Rs. 150 while the ride organised by the local tourism board costs Rs. 650!!!
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
River Crossing
The trip to Wayanad during October 2003 was an really amazing. This shot was taken just before we crossed this over flowing river on a rainy day!
Camera: Minolta Dynax
Camera: Minolta Dynax
Magalore Bangalore Highway
First week of November 2004, while on a trip from Bangalore to Mnagalore, we stopped over at a point called the 'Panorama View'. This snap (3 snaps actually!) was taken from this point.
M.G. by night
MG Raod, Bangalore by Night!
This was taken from outside my office canteen using Olympus C750.
This was taken from outside my office canteen using Olympus C750.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Goa Travelog-u
Sea Fever
I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way
where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick's over.
-- John Masefield
Table of Contents
The beginning 3
Friday 3’rd September 2004 3
Saturday 4’Th September 2004 5
Sunday 5’Th September 2004 11
Monday 6’Th September 2004 17
Poor KK 19
Table of Figures
Figure 1 Somewhere near karwar 5
Figure 2 Calungute beach 6
Figure 3 Baga beach 7
Figure 4 Dance on the cruise 8
Figure 5 an artist’s impression of our beach candle light dinner!!! 9
Figure 6 cocktails! (The green yellow combo is electric jam!) 10
Figure 7Church behind the Goa museum 11
Figure 8 Old Goa church 12
Figure 9 The broken structure mentioned in the document 13
Figure 10 colva beach from KK's cam 14
Figure 11 sunset in Palolem, KK’s cam, Isn’t it amazing? 15
Figure 12 Chapora fort from a point near sterling resorts 17
Figure 13 View from top of the chapora fort (the beach u see is vagator beach) 18
Figure 14 The plain region explained above 19
Figure 15 Boat ride in Dona Paula 20
Figure 16 rain as seen from our qualis on our journey to Vasco 21
Figure 17 Vasco port [all that glitters ain’t gold! ...this place is very dirty ] 21
Figure 18 Train!!!!! 22
The beginning
Travel plans started off somewhere in April, we were not sure of where to go. People traveled to Munich and returned. Some visionaries saw a long weekend coming up in September, started planning for the trip. They chose a dynamic marketing/promotional officer for marketing the Goa trip. After being intimidated by the Goa trip promoter a lot of people agreed to join trip. Started off with booking the Volvo bus tickets and the train tickets. SB and PA took care of arranging for the tickets. Signals were not so good; we saw an anti-travel weather forecast.
Friday 3’rd September 2004
Started on the travel straight from the office, had been longing to buy a memory card for my digital camera. Went to brigade road to buy memory card, one shop it was 2800 and the other it was 1900!, bought the economical one. Had dinner at earthen oven and started hunting for the auto. Asked ASP to stop the auto because they never stop when I ask them. Some idiot asked 80 rupees to go till race course road where we will be boarding the Paulo travels bus.
Some how managed to get an auto who agreed on meter+10 cost.
Reached Paulo travel’s office @ 9:00. Waited for others to join us.
Every one arrived right on the nick of time 9:30 PM. Bus started sharply @ 9:30 PM. We had four seats and four sleeper tickets.
The sleeper compartment reminded me of the Nazi concentration camp. Team Goa was not in a mood to sleep (except me!). The team joined together and started chatting. Felt very happy when the bus operator gave water bottle and the vomiting bags :). I occupied my place and started counting the sheep’s to fall asleep. ……………Came to know people were chatting for a very long time next to me….and I was not aware of that
Saturday 4’Th September 2004
Slept for around 13 hours with some interrupts in between,
I guess the bus stopped in karwar @ around 6:00 am. The bus was going very slowly.
Figure 1 Somewhere near karwar
Finally reached Goa at around 11:00 or 11:30 AM. Hunted for a taxi for a fair amount of 150Rs per taxi to calungute. Searched for Calungute annex for 5 minutes. Finally found it. The place looked pretty ordinary from outside. But it was manageable. Got into the room to get fresh. Every one was ready by around 2 PM. The Girls went out for shopping before we were ready. All were very hungry, went to sher-e-punjab to have brunch’s (breakfast-lunch-snacks).Had some slice, coke and roti's
Time to hit the calaungute beach! Everyone was eager to get into the sea water….except KK….
Figure 2 Calungute beach
KK was more than eager to look after our luggage ;) …….There we go….every one jumped into the sea water of calaungute beach…spent around 1 hour 30 minutes in the water………was good fun….......................Time to pack up and move to Baga beach…it was adjacent to calungute beach…so packed our stuff and started moving towards Baga beach……Even though it looked so near it was a long walk…..
Figure 3 Baga beach
On the way found some dead snakes and live snakes on the shore……hmmm feels scary to get into water now…. Finally reached Baga beach…..had a small photo session there….Feeling hungry again…..got into Laxmi Restaurant (I hope the name is right!....cause there was no name plate over there)…Guys eagerly had some Malibu……..was tasty……had a tinge of coconut in the taste.
Detailed List
MMS: Fosters
JK, PA, ASP, Me: Malibu
JK, PA: Gimlet
and food was fish finger/veg cutlet etc.
Panjim cruise was in our agenda for the day…enquired if dinner was served till 11 PM near the beach and fortunately the answer was yes……
Hunt begins to catch a bus to Panjim…Taxi drivers try to trap us…but we are intelligent. Started walking towards calaungute bus stand….caught a bus towards calaungute midway…reached calaungute and caught a bus to Panjim…..The bus was moving very slowly…was not sure if we will reach Panjim on time….some how managed to reach Panjim @ 7:10 PM…PA and SB ran towards the cruise booking office (I could hardly manage running!) Sad to hear that the cruise called Paradise was booked, and Santa Monica had left…So booked our tickets for the next slot (from 8:30-9:30)…in Santa Monica. And simultaneously arranged for a travel arrangement to go back for a reasonable price of 300…
Walked on the Panjim bridge to reach a veg restaurant to have tea/kapi……cause some were having headache
Tea was similar to what we get in apisu (good!)…..Walked back to the Cruise pickup point…..waited for around 20 minutes……finally the cruise ship(?) (or can I call it a steamer?).....arrived…we jumped in….The cruise host was behaving like a school teacher!!!!!....Listened to few songs……..and saw few dances……danced to pose for photos
Figure 4 Dance on the cruise
When the cruise ship turned back…we went to the top of the ship to get snaps in titanic style……Back to ground……
Thankfully the vehicle we had booked was there…..we got into the maruti versa……reached Baga @ somewhere 10-11 PM………we managed to arrange the vehicle for next days travel…thankfully the restaurant on the beach was still open………the ambience was too good….the tables were set on the sand……and candles were set………how romantic!!!!
Figure 5 an artist’s impression of our beach candle light dinner!!!
Started our orders with Malibu (now u can imagine how good Malibu is) since some people were electrical and electronics engineers they decided to have electric Jam …electric jam was the bitterest thing I have ever had…somehow managed to finish it…had fish finger and French fries……then in main course had fish vindaloo(yummy)…prawn chilly fry………
Figure 6 cocktails! (The green yellow combo is electric jam!)
Detailed list of cocktails:
MMS: Gimlet
JK: Cuban
Me, ASP: Electric Jam
PA: Malibu
It was around 12:30 in the night when we started walking towards our resort…………………the walk on the sea shore @ night was amazing…out of the world!...decided to repeat it next day. Reached the room and had cold water bath @ 1:00 AM in the morning………………eager to fall asleep and get energized for tomorrows travel……….
Sunday 5’Th September 2004
Felt the world was shaking….opened my eyes……someone woke me up….
It was my turn to take bath first for that day. So I was ready by 8:15 AM. Was feeling very hungry,
so went into the lodge’s restaurant and had bread/omelette and Tea alone. The quails we had booked the previous night arrived on time.
The driver looked like sanjay dutt’s friend in vaastav to me. (He also told us later that he was sanjay dutt’s driver in goa for one day). Went to “Plantain leaf” to have breakfast. The restaurant was more than happy to serve us stale idli/vada. He might have put a board like “fresh idli vada available” after we had left.(we ate the stale ones)
Reached Old goa church @ around 11:00 AM. Had a look at the museum and the church along with it…also saw the old goa main church....Team Goa spotted a old broken building nearby. Thought of going there. It was a beautiful place... where the ruins of an old church were there... If the church had existed, it would have been a major attraction, now not many people visit this place....
Figure 7Church behind the Goa museum
Figure 8 Old Goa church
Heard lots of movies were shot at this place. MMS never came out of the quails till she heard this! :) Met a cattle looking like salman khan (in tere naam) took photos of the same. When people came back, PA stepped on a thorn and was in pain. So some surgeons from Team Goa started helping him out, our driver was finally successful.
Figure 9 The broken structure mentioned in the document
Time to hit the beach again! Traveled to colva, had a nice swim for a very long time. JK, I and Prashanta were trying to learn swimming in the sea. It was very good. KK went on a lone walk on the beach and said he will join us @ 2:30. (He spent some time reading some book and had a beer!) Swim,swim,swim was the agenda for the next 1 hour 30 minutes…Some sharks( :) ) attacked our models…but the poor creatures had to face some retaliation...started feeling hungry,
Figure 10 colva beach from KK's cam
so all of us dried ourselves and hit on to a restaurant nearby. Place looked Ok, but the service was pathetic. To add salt to the wound, we ordered Fish curry/Rice which was pathetic. Finally out of the bad restaurant (I think the name was steak…)
Detailed list of cocktails:
JK, PA: Blue Monday
Me, ASP: Pinacolada
Now next on the agenda was a visit to the palolem beach. Based on my last trips experience, I knew this was going to be the best beach we will be visiting. We reached there at around 5:00. The view was too good. As usual we jumped into the water. Our models (read SB/MMS/DCM), super model (read JK) and photographers (read SB/JK/KK/PA) went in search of some good photographic sites. ASP and I had no other option but to look after slippers? :( and have some beer ;) …..Any way, we were enjoying the beautiful sunset of the palolem beach n having KF….
Figure 11 sunset in Palolem, KK’s cam, Isn’t it amazing?
It was very very beautiful. When our models/photographers arrived,
Decided to take a walk on the sea shore. Was amazing. Out of the world
As usual all good things come to an end, we started our journey back to Baga (to have dinner at the same place where we had yesterday).
I thought of organizing an anthyakshari. (JK/PA/ASP/Me) in one team and (KK/DCM/SB/MMS) in the other team. KK and I showcased our singing talents (?). . The songs ranged from KK to Bryan Adams…yesu das to pink Floyd…Reached Baga @ 10:00 PM in the night. It was JK’s unofficial birthday the next day (after 2 hours).MMS and DCM arranged for the cake in complete mystery. We had decided to stay back till 1:30…or as long as we could……
Started ordering our favorite cocktails…
People were getting a bit sentimental now…and started discussing their problems! I was hungry…people started having starters and cocktails on the beach.
Detailed List:
MMS: Malibu, Gimlet, Malibu on the moon
JK: Screwdriver, Coffee liqueur, Malibu on the moon, Cuban
PA: Malibu,JK was sloshed, so he cannot remember
Me, ASP, KK: Wine, Signature
Somehow I was feeling sleepy, so took the main course and slept on the beach...Some one woke me up @ 12:00 to cut cake for JK…
Wished JK a happy birthday and fell back on the sand….again someone woke me up @ 1:30 AM. The beach looked so empty...and we were the only ones on the beach @ 1:30.and asked me to walk back to the resort. So we started walking back to our lodge. Titto’s comes on way between Baga and Calungute. Some people were interested in having a look at that. So we went outside Titto’s and saw people dancing like crazy to “It’s the time to disco” I felt it wasnot the time to disco (1:30 AM?)…
Spent 15 minutes there and started walking back to calaungute… we were escorted by some beach dogs till our lodge…
Reached Calungute at 2:00 (I think so)…JK got the b’day bum’s in the lodge. People who were cribbing against JK took the opportunity and kicked him to their satisfaction….I got fresh and went to sleep.
I came to know in the morning that KK was taking classes to poor JK on playing cricket in life!!! How to overcome the difficult bowling from parents at their poor sons........hitting it over to six etc.....blah blah…but poor KK did not know that fate had some other decisions Poor KK …….One more highlight of the day was the fundas given by JK. They were flowing throughout the day…can’t quote any here as they are too precious to share
Monday 6’Th September 2004
The dry day
Samir, Sid and Akash were on the agenda for this day , we were heading for the chapora fort. We had made arrangements for the taxi the previos night. It arrived right on time. We asked him to wait till we finish our breakfast. There was’nt much on offer in “infanteria”, MMS and DCM dared to try porridge, but were not so pleased after they had it. I had a plain omlette, JK/KK had some sandwich. ASP had boiled egg. Once we finished our breakfast, we came back to the lodge, settled our bill and loaded our luggage on top of the quails. We were now heading to the chapora fort near vagator beach where Dil chahta hai was shot.
The trip took us around an hour, we reached the fort @ 11:00 AM, the view from the chapora fort was amazing. It was out of the world!.
Figure 12 Chapora fort from a point near sterling resorts
Figure 13 View from top of the chapora fort (the beach u see is vagator beach)
We spend a lot of time at this place, we sat at the place where amir,akshaye,saif sat and gazed at the sea. And repeated the film dialogues . We walked down into the plain region by the side of the walk.
Figure 14 The plain region explained above
Our models/super models and photographers were on a big portfolio shoot. I was enjoying the nature. It was a very good experience. We did want to go to the vagator beach, but realized it would take a lot of time and did not venture into it. The visit to the chapora fort was truly amazing. It was around 1:30 when we decided to go for lunch. We decided to go to Panjim to have our lunch. We bid farewell to chapora and started off to Panjim. The driver took us to a road called “18’th June road”. We decided to go out for some shopping and buy some kaju etc.
We landed in a good kaju shop, bought a lot of stuff for ourselves and people back at office. We decided to split the group and go out for shopping and decided to meet outside delhi darbar @ 2:45 PM.
We split the group ASP/KK and I entered some handicraft shop. We bought some key chains, handicrafts made of mud/bamboo etc. I billed to around 500. KK bought something for his nephew. We rushed back to Delhi Darbar and reached there 10 minutes behind schedule. The place was good. And for the first time we were having only food . Taste was good. I n KK had egg biryani and Rabdi/fruit salad.
After the lunch we set out to our final destination, dona Paula. We had plans to take a power boat ride here.
Poor KK
MMS started pestering KK on his engagement to a girl and started discussing the cube matching funda.
The questions ranged from
Whats her name?
How often do you meet?
Where do you meet?
What time do you meet?
Who pays the bill?
How do you pay the bill?
When did it start?
Why didyou buy the bag in the handicraft show room?
What do u eat in the coffee day? (no guess that KK goes to coffee day)
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.
.
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Poor KK was blushing ;)
Some philanthropic people like JK,PA/I joined together to form a group and protect KK. But KK always believed in the proverb “The best way to defeat your enemy is to be his friend” MMS and KK negotiated and came to some understanding…..
When we reached dona Paula, we bought the tickets and the boat ride was real fun. I recorded my boat ride from beginning to the end.
Figure 15 Boat ride in Dona Paula
It was too good. We traveled to some watch points near by and took some good snaps…….
Tip tip barsa paani…..hmmm it started raining now, we were so lucky that the rain started just when we were about to leave goa……
We started or journey back to Vasco, where we needed to catch train back to Bangaloru.
Figure 16 rain as seen from our qualis on our journey to Vasco
We reached vasco @ around 7:00. Decided to take stroll of the market and have a walk near the port.
It was a dirty place.
Figure 17 Vasco port [all that glitters ain’t gold! ...this place is very dirty ]
Decided to pack some food for ourselves to have it in the train. We had parked or quails near rly station. I was surprised to c a lot of buses near the station. I assumed rly and bus station are next to each other…. We packed the food and reached back the railway station to get into the train……
Bad news, there was a notice put up in the rly station stating, “The train route from vasco to londa is disrupted, please use the busses outside for free and reach Londa, the bus train will leave londa @ 1:00AM in the morning” Aha …..travelling in KSRTC bus, but there was no other option, there were around 10-15 buses outside. All the people with reservation could use it. We reluctantly got on to the bus. The driver of the bus was a kannadiga. He started narrating his stories……
Got to know some scary stuff from him later on….
He had not slept for the last 36 hours….and our lives were in his hand
Some how managed to reach goa at 1:00 AM in the morning, got into the S2 compartment and tried eating the food we had got packed. It was arghhhhh pathetic.
It was time to sleep. Slept till 9:00 AM In the morning.
Figure 18 Train!!!!!
Struggled to get fresh. The train sink was tooooo dirty. I n KK got down in tumkur to get some biscuits… the train started when we were still buying some stuff…. Somehow managed to get into the train….
Reached Bangalore @ 1:00 PM. Caught an auto and traveled to home.
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Overall an amazing experience.