GO Ahhhhh

Phew! Goa. It's a lucky second time that I saw Goa. The first time, I was a kid. The only thing I could remember was the railing of Dona Paula, the NIO Building, and MiraMar of Panaji.
This time, it's been a whole new experience for me. Here's a briefing of what all we did at Goa.

In the first place, I was in Goa for a reason. The paper presentation at BITS, Goa. The same one I was talking about in the previous posts. The date for the presentation was on 10th, and we were in Goa by 8th. So we spent some time at Vasco-da-Gama City, checking out good hotels and beaches. We had a bike for rent, that eased out travel worries. We found out that Vasco is only as big as Habsiguda (smaller actually!!). There are 2 parallel main roads that are connected by a few lanes. That's Vasco. The BITS campus was magnificent. The coming days were to tell me that what I have been seeing around me in Malla Reddy is nothing compared to what BITS has to offer. The facilities are way above Malla Reddy standards. The campus is huge and you might need a vehicle to travel from your hostel to Food King. But all these can be done if there is money. There was something i saw, that money can never do. The broad-mindedness. The students there are different. They are not like what I see regularly around me. They had something in them. Cannot say what that was. They managed to create a world of their own, a world that might look small from outside but that's huge from inside.
We were attending the Quark 08 organised by the students, and the organisation that they had looked too good to be true. That college is only as old as the college i am studying in, but they beat the BITS, Pilani campus itself. They created departments for various things like, Security, Sponsorship, Event Management, Hospitality, etc. Each department did the work to perfection and the result was Quark 08. I consider myself lucky to have been there. So among all this, where are the faculty? They gave up complete responsibility to the students and the students handled things intelligently. I never saw a lecturer till i stepped into the presentation hall. They just came as judges, and left. No other work. If there were nearly 40 events in 3 days which had nearly 4600 registered students, no other data needs to be presented to show how big the event was. All this was only inside the campus, which was already a cool place to hang out. But I was forgetting the fact that I was in Goa.

Step out of the campus, and you can see a highway. Whether it is a highway or a normal road, one thing is for sure. At the end of it, you'll land on a beach. That's the cool part about Goa. Dotted with beaches all around, and infested by tourists from India and abroad, the one place where nothing seems to be enough. You visit 10 beaches today, and you want to visit 10 more tomorrow. 8th was spent in finding hotels and beaches and learning the roads at Vasco. This gave us a good idea about the place. We were forced to spend 9th and 10th in the BITS Campus because of so much work left on the presentation. On 10th, we gave the presentation and it turned out to be much much better that what we thought we could do. We were really happy about that. And immediately, there was an Air Show using small Remote Controlled aircraft. What I saw there, I never saw in my life before. There were propeller driven airplanes that could hover in the air with the nose pointing towards the sky. There was a helicopter that could do loops and fly inverted. There was a dog-fight style of flying with 2 aircraft battling it out. Was really great to watch all that. Then, there was a magic show late in the evening, along with a mind-blowing performance of "Feeding the Fish". aah.. I just can't talk... my blood gushes when I think of it. I feel so so sorry that I didn't take a video of it. I just hope i'll never forget it in my life.
As 10th got over, we felt so elated. We gave our best performance in the presentation and saw awesome performances by Magicians, jugglers, etc. Was the best day of my tour. On 11th, we joined our friends who already saw many places like Calangute, Anjuna, Chapora Fort and stuff. We missed them but went there later. We travelled to Old Goa near Panaji (Capital City) and saw some stuff like the "Immortal Remains of Francis Xavier". We saw Mira Mar and Dona Paula and wrapped up the day. We got really late after an awesome dinner with cocktails at "Salt and Peppers". We rushed back to the BITS Campus just in time to attend one of my memorable Rock Concerts of my life. Memorable because they were only students and had enough talent to beat pros. I look back at myself and wonder where i am when it comes to being able to play guitar like how those 19-20 year old guys did. One more thing that will remain etched in my memory and my camera chip. I didn't sleep that night. Just a half hour of good sleep and the rest was restlessness. We moved silently out of the campus on 12th morning at 6:00am, and it was so silent that I almost felt guilty. I didn't like to leave it. Maybe i'll never see that again. Makes the back of my neck cold, leaving the hair standing upright....

We covered North Goa, and went to Calangute, Baga, some private beach, etc, most of it was fun, especially the boat rides, water scooter rides, etc. Kalyan and me moved to the same hotel that our friends were staying at, and this gave us some freedom to stay out till late night. Goa is such a small place that the maximum distance between any 2 major places is not more than 30KM. Which meant that, 2 litres of petrol and a 1000 rupee note would take us through the day. We saw Goa the way one would like to see. Not all the crappy tours and travels packages, which don't cover anything and also costing money for limited freedom. Isn't it a great feeling to set off on a bike and let your head take you where you want? Freedom at it's fullest at such a low cost. The light traffic, great roads, and superb views made our bike journeys more enjoyable than ever.

After finishing North Goa on 12th, we moved South on 13th (unfortunately Srikar wasn't with us because he had to leave to Bangalore). We went through Margoa to Colva Beach, reputed for it's length and saw another beautiful beach called Majorda. We wrapped up our tour with that and headed back to Vasco. The next day would be the sad part of the entire tour, going back home.

After spending such a wonderful time in Goa and getting tanned to near black, I just couldn't think of leaving the place. But I had to force myself to get ready for the journey that would take me home. I thought I was at home all these days, but my real home is fortunately or unfortunately my Real Home.

The journey back was boring and saddening. The 5 hour long halt at Dhone added to the misery and hunger. Before sleeping on the train, i went through my photo collection to see how I spent my great days. The videos that i took, and the photos, brought back a smile to my face and i slept like a log ....... till today.


You never get tired of beaches


A more formal look for the presentation


The land that I'll never forget


Seeing Goa on bikes is cool! Trust me


As the sun sinks into the sea, it makes way for more dreams to come during sleep...