2 weeks before the trip –
Well as
usual we were having lunch when Vatsa broke the news that he has to leave for Germany on Jan
1st week. Well there was nothing new about it, but we had plans to
go for scuba dive in February and his travel meant we might not be able to go
there. Further Rahul didn’t want to spend the new year in this boring Bangalore. So they decided to go for scuba dive on Dec
31st and 1st Jan. Well I was still in dilemma if should
go or not as mom was planning to go her mother’s place as it was her birthday
and dad would be alone, so told them that I won’t be able to come. Vatsa
already contacted the diving instructor and started to plan for the trip, I
decided to go home and decide. Even while driving on the way back from home I
was still pondering over the options of skipping this time and going for scuba
dive in February finally decided to tell parents that I will be going to Goa on
Dec 31st and will be back on Jan 1st. I decided not to
tell anything about scuba dive since I was pretty sure mom would never allow me
to do that, moreover she told not to go anywhere near the water :P, I know you
will be thinking that I shouldn’t have hidden it from parents but sometimes you
have to do that :P. So finally I said yes to join Vatsa and Rahul for the trip.
On the day of the trip –
Well I
thought I wouldn’t have that much work as it was year end and the onsite team
had the entire week off. I was wrong L
had to do some peer level testing and it was getting late and finally told my
manager that I had to leave by 3 for which he agreed (had it been the previous
project I am pretty sure my trip would have got cancelled, rather they would
deliberately create scene where in I would be forced to cancel my trip.). All
of us except the Trip CTO Vatsa, M and the cab were near my house by 4. Finally
we started the journey by 4 45 PM, 45 minutes behind schedule :P. Since it was
still 5 we decided to play DC Team 1 – V, R, B, S and team 2 – A, M, M, N, S.
Both the teams were equally good but team 1 had an edge :P the game was fun and
it went on for 3 hours until we stopped for dinner. The fun part was when R
gave a movie name which had 16 words in it, M had to literally sweat it out by
the time his team guessed the entire word. After having dinner most of them
went to sleep I decided to stay awake and with great overconfidence told
Sanjeev to go to sleep :P only to realize that I went to sleep and he was
awake, really was so boring to see the road which was straight with no
overtaking L
:P.
Finally we
reached Bogmallo Beach by 7 30 AM where Gary and team had
already got their vehicles along with the diving gears on the beach. All of us
went to rooms to freshen up quickly and within no time we were near the boat
all excited about the first dive. We ha to shift all the oxygen cylinders on to
the boat, to be frank the oxygen cylinders were really heavy and I was
wondering how we can have it on the back while diving :P then our google alias
Vatsa gave us an excellent scientific reason stating that buoyancy will make
sure that you don’t feel the weight! We set of for the ship wreck area where we
had to dive which was hardly 15 minutes boat ride from the sea shore in the
mean time Gary explained us the basics of diving, it was like customer
explaining the requirement where in we think its easy going by his words only
to realize it’s a lot more complicated during implementation :P. There were
three instructors and we were 9 of us. So we divided ourselves into batch of 3,
first batch was R, M, S; second was N, M, A and third batch was me vatsa and S.
It was fun looking at R, S and M with all the gears and off they went to the
bottom of the sea. From the top we could see bubbles indicating their position.
After 30 minutes in heaven of they came to the surface smiling like a baby
after it had cerlac :P. Finally it was my turn to go, after wearing all the
gear and having that oxygen cylinder on my back which felt as though an
elephant had put its leg on my back I jumped into the water. Breathing through
the mouth was harder than I thought, I had to spend nearly 5 minutes on the
surface to get myself adjusted to this. Then slowly I descended under water
using the anchor rope. I was hardly 2-3 meter under water that my ears started
paining due to the pressure of the water which was nullified by the equalizing
technique J.
Slowly descended deeper into the ocean boy was I surprised. I had seen fishes
only in aquarium or in tv first time was watching them so closely J
also the ship wreck was a big one, then Gary made me sit in the ocean floor
which I had never dreamt of. The best scene is when you are sitting on the
bottom of the sea floor and you look above : ) you cannot believe that you are
so deep. Finally after 35 minute experience I slowly ascended to the surface.
Finally removed the weights and handed over the oxygen cylinder to them and
then I decided to swim across to the island near by, at the back of my mind I
remembered that previously when I had tried to do I almost drown. So asked Gary
if it was safe to swim across when he said yes I set off for the rocks near the
island, just then Sanjeev told that he would join me, but told him that I wont
pull him back if he gets tired :P so he decided not to come, kinda felt bad but
I wasn’t sure if I would be able to swim that far and didn’t want to take any
chances. It was so nice to be floating in the surface of sea and looking at the
greenery of that island : ). Finally it was time to leave and we set off back
to the sea shore from where we started. Well it was surely the best time in my
life. Every one of us was still recalling the awesome experience. We then
decided to go for lunch which almost took 2 and half hours, I guess the wait
also played an important role in the decision we took regarding the New Year
plan. While 3 of them wanted to stay in the same place 6 of us decided to North Goa where the party was, little did we know that we
will regret our decision. After lunch all of us went for sleep, we slept so
much that we didn’t even realize that Rahul and Vatsa were standing in front of
us and laughing. Then we had a walk in the beach and watched the beautiful
sunset.
The flop New Year Party :
We set of
for Calangutte beach in north Goa, initial
journey was good and there was no traffic until we were 3 km from the beach. It
took us nearly 3 hours to travel 2 km finally we got frustrated also feared
that we might end up spending the new year in the cab itself which would have
been a disaster. With cab parked in the nearest parking lot, we set off for the
beach assuming there will be lot of fun and also dance floors. There were lot
of crowd and 99% of them drunk, on the way we came across Titos where Ashik
found interesting people (according to him) he was so much interested that he
was listening to whatever conversation they were having and also following them
:P. Finally he came to his senses and started to follow us. Once we reached the
beach we found that there were so many people that there was hardly any space
for any one to stand. The worse part was that there was no hotel which was free
and many were closing down. So we decided to go back and look for some hotel to
have dinner. Finally we found one and had to wait nearly 25 minutes for the
seat. We had a kind of peaceful new year celebrations in the hotel and finally
left for home and promised to never repeat this kind of mistake ever :P. I
decided that I will never ever visit Goa again
;). We were so happy to be back in our rooms and went of to sleep hoping that 1st
turns out to be better than how it began.
Off to Colva
Beach for Winch
Parasailing –
In the
morning we set off for colva beach which was on the way back, this beach was in
a good condition and there were all sorts of water games. We were all
interested in doing the activities in which we wont get wet :P and hence we
decided to do parasailing. While we were going through the board where the
prices had been put up, there was an activity called winch parasailing which
was parasailing from the motor boat which all of us unanimously agreed upon.
The price on the board was 800 which was too much for it and then came a guy
who was eagerly waiting for customer. Since we were 9 of us he said we can talk
about the rates, with relatively less talk he agreed for 500 L
we thought we should have bargained for even less. We boarded a power boat on
which the winch parasailing was to be done, we were told that 2 people had to
go together, it was fun and mine was funnier, me and vatsa went together for
parasailing. When it started instead of going up it went down, all thanks to
vatsa’s weight : ( :P although it lasted
just for 1 min it was fun J. Then we set of to Karwar beach where we
decided to play beach football :D.
Karwar
Beach –
We set of
for Karwar beach and on the way there were 2 check posts where the police check
if people are carrying liquor bottles above permissible levels, the police on
both sides were surprised that the vehicle didn’t have even one bottle and they
were asking how was this possible, it proved that good people like are very
rare these days :P. It was nearly 4 when we reached Karwar beach, this beach
was even better than the ones we saw previously. We walked for a few distance
and decided to play football, beach football was the one which I always wanted
to play because its more exhausting than normal football due to the sand. So we
formed teams, on one side it was me, Rahul and Ashik while the opposite team
was Manju, Vatsa and Sanjeev. The game had an exciting start with both sides
adopting attacking tactics. Finally the deadlock was broken by Rahul who scored
a beautiful goal from an equally brilliant pass from Ashik who caught the
opposite team on the break. As usual Manju acted like a typical chealsea fan by
screaming it was offside, we didn’t even bother to argue since we thought it
was waste of our energy :P. The opposite team were not in a mood to give up so
easily they kept on attacking, they were successful in breaking our defence but
were not able to score :D. Soon it became 2-0 thanks to a well taken from
Rahul. After this Vatsa admitted he was completely exhausted and so we decided
to change the team. Ashik went to the other team and Vatsa came to ours, if the
opposition thought their luck would change after the change in the team they
were completely wrong :P very soon we scored the 3rd goal and
finally we decided to end the game and Rahul was the man of the match with 2
goals and 1 assist :D. Then we took rest and enjoyed the beauty of the sea
which was so calm and the weather was so pleasant. Then we left Karwar by 7 on a long journey
back to Bangalore
and already I was speculating as to go to office or not :P since I had a rule
of going to office on the first working day of the year :P
On the way back –
On the way back we were kind of bored
and I had already dozed of sitting in the front until Rahul came and screamed
in my ears and we planning for something which will keep everyone awake but
nothing was coming to the mind. Most of us decided that N had to sing now but
Vatsa suddenly told M sings well. Well then all of us decided that M should
sing and since we all were fan of Vatsa’s dance in December 2010 we wanted to
Vatsa to dance for the same, as usual he resisted saying he didn’t know how to
dance and was asking us to show few moves. Ashik then showed few moves and then
Vatsa came to centre and was a bit nervous and he waited for few minutes to
think of the moves which he will do :P. The M started to sing ‘My name is
sheela’, ‘Munni badnaam hui’ and vatsa started to dance, to be frank Vatsa’s
dance was too good :D. I am sure if he is reading this he will say that I am
bluffing but seriously dude it was good you can watch it in the video as well.
Then it was turn of N and R to dance, as usual N said no no, but due to Rahul
she also agreed. The husband and wife danced very nicely but unfortunately we
didn’t record. Then it was turn of Manju and Sanjeev, they did a salsa kind of
dance which came out very well phew it was as though they had practiced it a
100 times :D. Then it was turn of S, she was more reluctant than her brother
Vatsa, her enthu was more only while making vatsa dance but when it was her
turn she hesitant. Finally Vatsa and Ashik made her dance but only for few
seconds.
Then when
we were searching for other means of entertainment Sanjeev came up with a nice
game called Mafia. We had played it during our training days but had totally
forgotten this game. We ended playing this game for 3 hours until we had to
stop for dinner. We stopped in some hotel where we were the last customers. It
was kind of funny, what ever we asked the waiter told its not there, finally we
ate by 2 meals and boarded the cab. Thanks to the wonderful road we reached Bangalore by 4 30 in the
morning, only problem was the toll fee which was very expensive.
Finally the
trip came to an end. It was an action packed 60 odd hours where in we had gone
to the bottom of the ocean and flew in the air, the only bad part in the entire
trip was the new year eve part. But in all we had an awesome time with awesome
people :D. Finally thanks to Rahul and Vatsa for planning such a wonderful trip
:D.
