We went to Goa this weekend. All Five of us - f3ew, spo0nman, lunatech, segphault and t3rmin4t0r (that's me) - had booked a bus to Goa on friday night. We were all supposed to meet up near Forum at 7:30 PM, I was slightly late and arrived there ten minutes late. We promptly proceeded to get ourselves filled up with coffee and wait around for the bus.
We're having coffee in koramangala
F3ew was officially designated as the organizer, lunatech was intentionally left blank for documentation, me, vinayak and spo0nman was assigned to do the music critique. The bus to Goa was a sleeper, but I wouldn't call it a full sleeper. It was about 4 feet and few inches long. But I did sleep, mainly because the previous night I had stayed awake till 5 in the morning.
Teh organizer boogie
We woke up sometime around 6 in the morning when the bus stopped for coffee. Vinayak was fast asleep, the rest of us got out and had a mixture of milk, sugar and instant coffee in very hot water. We all again feel asleep quickly - proving our low opinion of that liquid. We got to goa by sometime around 10 and Arvind was there to pick us up in his white maruti. It took quite some adjusting to get the centre of gravity of the car back into it's centre - we had to put Rajshekhar in the front and Pankaj diagonally opposite to achieve optimal weight load on the tires.
The hotel was called Village Royale and had the mandatory amount of white skin showing near the pool. We all found some shade and grabbed some drinks. Karunakar was in Goa at the time and showed up with Arvind at 1:45. We sat there just chillin', slowly moving inwards to escape from the burning sunlight.
Waste not, want not
After breakfast, all of us headed towards Calangute beach. The car was too small, so the fat guys and the long guy (read Raj, Pankaj and me respectively) had to walk. It was around a couple of kilometres to walk to calangute beach. The first thing we did was try to walk barefoot, which was when we realized the sand was HOT. We ran for shelter.
Life guards are cool because they stay in the shade
We found a comfortable shack near Baga beach and decided to dig into the food. Even though it was a shack, it had very uncomfortable chairs - the sort that leaves welts on your skin. The food there was sort of tourist taste rather than authentic goan according to Arvind - I wouldn't know, because there is no authentic goan veg food.
Lunch takes it's sweet time.
These guys show the fish before they cook it and we saw a fresh fish with all it's guts thrown out. Half an hour later, the fish arrives sliced up and cooked. If I remember, it was called a Rava Fry.
Kingfish - before and after
Me and Karunakar were the only vegeteraians in the group. I didn't have any problems with others eating fish at the table, though Karunakar was constantly trying to get some of the sea air - though which turned out to be mainly comprised of smoke from Pankaj.
Karunakar looks z0nked
We headed to the beach and we started walking barefoot across the beach. After a quick dip in the sea, which was pleasantly cool, we decided to split up. Us three Yahoo!s headed towards Calangute from Baga on foot, Devdas and Vinayak headed with Arvind towards Panjim to book return tickets. We walked the length of the beach looking the sun-bathers and nearing sunset we walked into a shack for beers.
Party on the Beach, Footwear optional
Routine is hard to break. I didn't break my routine of pool in the evening, nor the pastry eating segment (slice of bananna tart, cheese cake and a chocolate mousse). The pool table was too good for a beachside place. It was floor mounted on adjusters, but unfortunately too high for pankaj or raj to play and barely high enough for me to play long shots. But we played anyway, with a sunset in the background and beer near the table. Beats office anyday.
8-Ball in centre pocket
Keep your eye on the ball ...
I don't drink at all, but I was feeling a bit too high from all the beach. Maybe all my blood was flowing a lot further away from my brain. People watching really takes a lot out of me - I really need to get a camera and let it remember what I saw. But I can't even shoot with a camera. This photo was taken with the camera by yours truly (4X zoom). Enjoy.
A moon, upside down and moving fast
Dinner was mostly about tales and tribulations. About our own BOFH operations, IIT stories, laptop craziness and discussiosn about email social engineering for unmoderated lists. And Pankaj had a lot of trouble finding cigarettes, and then lighting them - ergo, we got a candle. I had dinner despite the fact that I had just filled up on pastries. We split up from the dinner table past midnight and went on to watch stuff on the laptop. I read through half of the Carpet People by Terry Pratchett that night.
Geek tales
Sunday was mostly spent sleeping off. All of us slept in till late morning or at least I think so.
They don't make beds like they used to
Somehow or the other, we all managed to end up at Fred's place. We drove there in arvind's car with all our baggage. This time too, we had to take precautions for balancing the car properly. Fred was talking, especially because we had opted-in by showing up at his door. We all lazed out there for an hour and some more talking about communities, mitotic reproduction of LUGs and mail clients.
Lazing around at Fred's
After all the fun, we ended up at Panjim. At the cafe coffee day, we had some coffee - there was a pretty girl sitting there (with her parents, sadly). Too bad we couldn't manipulate our seating around enough to get a decent pic of her. We even watched the match and my prescience was acting up as well. Vinayak was shocked at my prediction about Raina's batting - I told that "That kind of shot tells a bowler that he (the bowler) can get him out the next ball " and it happened just like that. After all, I'm a medium pace bowler who used to get wickets just because I could read batsmen.
Settled accounts, settled down
The trip back was horrible. It was a mini-bus and it had a clueless driver, one of those extra buses that are run on the weekends in season. It was late to start and we spend the extra time discussing our respective managements - I must have been psychic that day. I remember discussing about corporate arrogance with Vinayak, without knowing friday's Yahoo! stunt.
Where the **** is our BUS ?
It is said that if someone climbed Mount Everest, they'd find a mallu sitting there with a tea shop. It is almost true - I have found a mallu anywhere I've gone so far. This time the two guys sitting in the next seat were mallus. But the bus was really uncomfortable, as you can see. We plugged in my headphone into Vinayak's iRiver and listened to music (Paul Van Dyke, Chicane, Paul Oakenfold, Bond). Me and Pankaj had to share an earbud each (as you can see in the photo).
Inside the bus
The journey was very tiring. We tried to sleep, but had a lot of trouble doing it. We talked till about 3 in the morning and slept only after the iRiver ran out of batteries.
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It was a fun trip. We'll probably take a similar trip to Kerala. Maybe go to thekaddy, visit allepy and hit the beaches of Kovalam. In case I forgot to mention, we didn't really hack anything while we were in Goa.