Goa Trip - Capturing those incredible moments !!!

One of my best trips! Awesome place, awesome occasion, awesome peer group, and above all, the unique combination of 4 B’s – Goa's USP - that made the trip deeply embedded in our memories forever. Perhaps this post will assist in some way to remember the nitty gritties of the tour!!!

Day 1 – The Lost Castle

We arrived at Goa 8:00 P:M and targeted 9:30 P:M to hit the beach. Most of us were envisioning shacks, beer, and beach everywhere during our flight from Delhi. The guest house guy was surprised at the pace with which we arrived, changed, and left. Soon we were at Calangunte Beach – most of us struggling n fighting over the correct pronunciation – and the shack closest to sea was chosen for the grand opening of an innings to meet our target of 100 Beers during the Goa Trip!!

Ankit and I did a “Bottoms Up” with the first beer, and decided that this will be our eeeeeestyle to start every booze party. Ankit later backed out though. 5 of us were preparing our Beer Castle, where each person will arrange his empty bottles in his castle and as the end we will all compare the count. Ashu, couldn’t help repeat 100 times – This is a great idea!! By early morning, all the tourists except 5 of us had disappeared and our beer castle had grown significantly high. Two B’s were already working here – Beach and Beer. However the castles we prepared were lost forever. The digital camera we clicked ourselves with got lost at either of three places – Dropped in sea or lost in beach sand or stolen by the waiter. We could not locate / remember where and who saw it last – The Castles were big you know. The camera loss also meant that we lost our pics of our castles forever. Also, sacrificed were two cell phones – something made two guys dive n jump in water with cell phones in pocket – the castles were huge you know. Moving on, we hired an Auto this time, a unique one. Guess what – The auto had a gate, yes I mean a physical gate that would open just as a car’s do. I repeatedly asked the auto guy the secret behind the gate 8-10 times before my friends helped me realize we could be dropped, rather throw, in middle of the road- The castles were huge you know. I still think that the auto was pretty cool. So impressed was I that I have brought a Memento, a magnet, of the Goa Auto. That brought us to end of very short yet very expensive day at Goa.

Day 2 – The Banana Ride and the other 2 B’s

The next day started with an incessant search for our ride – A bike or car. Good fortune prevailed and we ended up picking Bajaj Avenger over a car or jeep. From there on, the bike rides contributed most significantly to our overall experience.

Water Sports at Calangunte was primary agenda of the day. We didn’t click ourselves much there – the consciousness from loss of digital camera was enough to teach me not to risk my Nikon D40. The two firsts that I personally experimented were Para-gliding and Banana ride. During Paragliding we learnt how cool Goa actually is. The instructor was absolutely fine if we were to bring beer and take it with us in the air. What a missed opportunity!! We contemplated to go to shore n bring our bottles but then, sensibility suggested that we park this thought – let it be our driver to return back to Goa. Next, was the acme of the Goa trip, the Banana Ride. The excitement of being throw open in the sea, Nitin’s frantic search for land and repeated requests to the vendor “Bhaiya, mughe mat girnana”, “Bhaiya, aab please dobara mat girnana”, “Bhaiya, please boat mein hi le jayo” , Ankit’s confidence that I and Varun caught as fake when he said “Main theek huin yaar but mughe lagta hai ki tum aur boat mugh se doorrr ja rahe ho”, “Aur koi khass baat nahin, lekin bohat pani chala gaya hai anndar” - All of us thought at one point or the other that we will never be able to get back to the shore. We fell 5 times while trying to get on the Banana, scaring off the “boat” guy also. At last, we all survived – we grew bit heavier n saline due to amount of water and salt we consumed but we survived – One of my most exciting experience ever.

During all this, we were also steadily progressing towards our objective – 100 Beers. Of course by this time, the 4th B – Babes also contributed in our enriching experience. Nikon D40 SLR with excellent zoom (Am I marketing for Nikon – So be it) helped us capture and appreciate beauty God so carefully created. There were numerous foreigners from across the word but I think nothing beats the Indian beauties. After a quick lunch, we next hit the road again towards Fort Aguada – the DCH way. During our journey, one guy sat backwards on Bike in turns, clicking close n careful photographs of other two driving. We caught attention of locals as well as several foreigners – some thought we were nerds and cracks, others thought we were cool, and some thought we were professional photographers. The trip to Fort was good n helped us take some very good shots and we drove back to Vacautor Beach – the rock beach – to view the Sunset.

Fresh from my experience of Sunset in San Diego, I must say that Goa’s sunset was a disappointment; I was expecting wonderful display of colors n hoping to take some great shots – both went incomplete since the Sunset was nothing spectacular. Nevertheless, it was pretty refreshing and we moved to “The Saturday Nite” market in Arpora. We explored n rode through numerous roads in the interiors of Goa and loved it. The market was pretty good, most of stalls n shops were owned by foreigners. We tasted good wine and food there and moved on to our favorite place, the Beach Shacks at Baga Beach that was lot more happening than Calangunte as far as nightlife is concerned. We tasted Cashew Feni and danced quite a lot at the open disc. Nitin wanted to sleep at the Beach itself but was informed and scared by the waiter about potential raids by police or stray dogs wandering around. He rejected the idea. While returning back, Ankit turned down plan to go to Café Coffee day and earned several curses from us. It worked. Police tried to stop Ankit’s bike, he ran instead, police followed, and finally caught him. Ankit still maintains that he just paid 300 Rs but we continue to be skeptical – must have been something more, either money or …………

That brought end to Day 2@ Goa!! Thrilling, exciting, awesome, fantastic, fabulous, fantabulos– What not!

Day 3 – Beer Game and Pressure censors!!

Day 3 was always about Beer Game. Nothing else was planned. We took a call to skip driving 80 Km to South Goa and focus on North Goa. We picked up the happening Calangunte again. Before I get into specifics, first I will briefly explain what exactly Beer Game is.


I last played and learnt the same while at Backwaters at Allepy, Kerala. In beer game, you have people sitting in a circle with all the cards turned downwards. In turn, each person will pick up a card and each card carries a rule. If it’s anything 2-9 of Black, the person drinks Beer for those many seconds. Anything 2-9 Red, the person can nominate other person (Think who cracked the last nasty joke on you and target). 10 is Waterfall and that means Bottoms Up for everyone. “A” makes you the ruler. You can define any rule and people have to follow. For instance, I made an Alien rule. Every time you drink, you have to take an Alien out, drink, and put the Alien back. Simple as it sounds, Nitin repeated his drink three times (9 second Red nomination) because he forgot to either take out or put back the alien. Similarly, you can define other rules for Jack, Queen, and King. We went on to play the Beer game for 3-4 hours and ended up with a huge collection of empty bottles close to our shack. The people passing by were amazed at the same and wanted to click our pic with our empty bottles. The whole day went like this, chilling out in our Shack, clicking numerous pictures of each other, running, jumping in water.

As the evening approached, we were looking for a nice decent place to eat and searched “The Stone” restaurant close to Calangunte. Done with the food, Casino was the next. We learnt about “The Mint” casino in Arpora and ventured to explore the same. Nitin was at his skeptical best. According to him, everything at the Casino - the Roulette tables, people, free drinks, free food – were a conspiracy against us. He was on mission to uncover the dark secrets. While Ankit, I, and Ashu played Roulette, Nitin quietly observed everyone closely. Meanwhile, Ankit made the Roulette a perfect strategic decision making game and he would carefully articulate the exact number to bet upon – based on a paper on which he noted the previous results. However, as everyone else does, he too lost and finally concurred to appreciate that the game is all about gamblingJ. No pun intended. Later, I tried my luck and secured several big wins. Meanwhile, Nitin would touch the whole table multiple times while the game was on. The Casino guy finally asked him to stop at which he bended over and asked me “Are you sure these guys don’t have Pressure Censors to know what we bet upon and fabricate the result of the roulette? “. Sherlock Holmes was at work!! We returned from the Casino, proud of spending more than 2 hours and losing just 1500 bucks. Overall Casino experience was pretty good and I shall recommend the same to everyone visiting Goa. Finally we returned for another peaceful trip to Beach before hitting back to our place- some 4:30 in the morning.


Day 4 – Sign Off Beer and Memento Negotiation

We didn’t have much to do on the final day. Since there was some time, we went to Baga beach to click some more shots. We counted where we stand for our Beer Count and learnt we are just 1 short of 100. That was just perfect and we 5 took our final beer that we called – Sign off Beer. Done with this, we departed from three B’s – Beaches, Beer, and Babes. The 4th n last – Bike was next.

In our way, we stopped for Momento shopping. I would always remember that lady in the shop. At Goa, I learnt that everything gets negotiated. You like it or not but you have to. The Coconut Water guy would start from 25 and end at 10. Don’t even ask about the clothes. 350 to 100 is common. I was so accustomed to this by end of our tour unless I met this lady. She didn’t even negotiate for 1 rupee from initial quote. She shouted at an uncle and aunty from “Nagpur” who asked her to take out merchandise worth 1000 but bought nothing. She concluded that this is a general problem with Indians. We were shocked initially but glad later. Some shopkeeper makes sense in Goa. But in general, be prepared for some serious price negotiation to an extent that you negotiate beer prices at standard restaurants and shacks – We did this at Calangunte. Finally each of us departed from our beloved 4th B – The Bajaj Avenger Bike - and took our long drive to Airport to Delhi.

That’s all about GOA. I am in serious GOA Hangover since I am back. I can’t get over the 4 B’s. I wish we were to think of breaking Brian Lara’s record of 400 rather than focusing on just a 100. I find my healthy Unicorn nothing more than a bi-cycle now. I think Nitin should continue to probe into Casino’s pressure sensor enabled tables. May be, we should have persisted a bit to ask to lady to drop Momento prices by 1 Rs, at least live the spirit of Goa. Perhaps, we should have gone for Para-Gliding taking beer along again. One more Banana Ride. May be, this time Nitin will be find some land in middle of sea this time to position his feet. I will always remember this trip for the place, for the “bachelors type” activities, for the timing – I am closing my current version to commence a new life at ISB, and lastly, perhaps most importantly, the people I went with – I am sure never again I will have a chance to go anywhere with the same peer group. Life is fine blend of holding on and letting go. I am just collecting the maximum I can hold on and the memories of this trip will always be right up there.

Bill Gates' 11 Rules of Life...

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one