[deepak_misra]

I dont know why most of the photos did not get uploaded. 2nd attempt with photos


[quote=deepak_misra;2115210]Every Day seems to have been the same – a cycle of

1)Wake up
2)Eat
3)Swim
4)Eat
5)Rest
6)Eat
7)Sleep

One would assume that things would get boring with such a monotonous routine but it is not so and every day has been like day 1. Today has been different.

It is now 11:00. We have been up since 8:00 , walked to the market to buy some bread and sausages and polished them off. The debate is on whether to go to Chapora fort or Anjuna flea market. We don’t know North Goa too well and are wondering if to go there or continue to laze. It is too late for the beach with the sun up in full power. After a lot of brainstorming we decide to head out first northwards and then decide where exactly. After all as the old sages told us, the journey is as important as the destination. If the destination is not known it is just the journey that remains. For some strange reason our apartment has no cell coverage save for a 1 x1 foot square in the balcony. It is bit tedious holding the cell phone out of the balcony but I try to reach one of my friends who is is also on vacation in Calangute but don’t succeed. Mission failing we leave for North Goa with a small detour to Margao to fill up Lucia who is now almost on empty tank.



Lucia Contended



Highway Hoardings



Satiated Lucia purrs and I phone the only Goa authority I know and ask her if it would be better to visit Chapora fort where we can indulge in some Dil Chahta Hai antics or head for Anjuna flea market. After some hemming and hawing she confesses that she has not visited either of these places though she has been born and brought up in Goa. There is a suspicion that Anjuna Flea market might have not started in full swing on account of the unseasonal rains. We decide to head for Baga beach and sit at Brittos one of the happening places and decide what to do thereafter.



Baga Beach. Villagers like me from South Goa get overwhelmed


We sit in Brittos and I manage to establish contact withy my friend who tells me that he is headed for a famous eating place called Brittos and asks me if I know the place. He does land up in 5 minutes with family and we have a short discussion on the power of coincidences and start lunch. Brittos is a very popular place and service is not too great. Much has been written in some excellent travelogues that are running concurrently to mine and there is no need for me to get into too much details. The food by now tastes all the same and it is getting difficult to distinguish between good and bad. That might be on account of ordering the same type of food. However we have a nice time and head for the Anjuna flea market. We find it by asking people and have an adventure in parking the car on the narrow road. I hate these market concepts but wife and children enjoy it. All stalls seem horribly over priced and I don’t understand the concept of buying t-shirts with Goa written on them. There are a couple of small dirty cafes with one bearded guy doing some serious guitaring in one of them. If I was not so nervous I might have actually sat and enjoyed the music. However I feel claustrophobic and after a couple of customary photographs manage to persuade everyone to head back.







Photos of Anjuna Beach near the flea market.



Clicking photo of Anjuna

If we had come a bit earlier maybe I would have enjoyed Anjuna. We skip Calingute and I don’t feel I am missing much. On the last trip I had visited once and did not like it too much. It was more on account on the number of people rather than the place and hope that I would spend some more time in North Goa on the next pilgrimage
It is a long and tiring journey back and I don’t understand why it takes so long. Anyway we are back home by 6:30 and start the ritual of planning our next meal. After a lot of dithering we decide on Martins Corner. Martins Corner is one of the well known restaurants in South Goa and is supposed to be a favourite of Sachin Tendulkar and the inspiration behind his restaurant in Mumnbai. My personal opinion is So-so. I find it very elegant and the food is decent. It looks like it has some history but I do find the staff a bit snooty. Paintings on the wall seem to have been done by Mario Miranda.



Paintings on Martin's Corner

The place is very popular and if you don’t have a reservation you get one of the lousier tables. We did not have a reservation and got pushed to the lousy section. It is open karaoke night and the karaoke section is not in line of sight which is actually a good thing as the mike gets hijacked by the customers one by one. It slowly becomes a weapon of mass destruction and we are glad to make an exit. We had mistakenly picked a table not under a fan and I am sweating profusely from a combination of the heat and spices.


This has been a short entry and I will end with some information on houses in Goa. If you are fond of architecture it is a pleasure to just walk on some roads and enjoy the old houses. My copy of Outlook Guide to Goa has some heritage walks and it is very interesting to actually go on them. You get to know the history of some of the houses you walk by and see some peculiarities. I would highly recommend making one of these walks and admire the houses. I don’t know how long it will be before they disappear and malls and apartment complexes start sprouting in their places. I pray that it will take a long time. It was interesting to note for example that the fishermen had their shacks on the beach as a result of which the gentry had their houses away from the beach. You rarely find stately houses on the beach or near the sea. Houses are also built slightly elevated so as to give a feeling of largeness. I had seen a large house just next to my apartment and wanted to chat with the inhabitants to find out the history but was deterred by an aggressive dog which had a very proprietorial view of the house



Old House

[deepak_misra]

Originally Posted by jeevmenon

5 star from me and wifey. I was reading it aloud for both of us to listen and enjoy. Never read anything like this in the forum since we joined (a year)! Great sense of humor. We did not have to order for a showcase movie this Friday night! Thanks, Deepak. Anxiously awaiting more.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Deepak you have some very dry humour that is unusually well written. Extremely enjoyable. Thank you for this and please do continue.

Thanks Folks. This is indeed an honour. I will just post day 4 & 5 soon.

Jeevmenon: I will for sure post all uncomplete stories

[StarVegabond]

Hi Deepak

Your log is wonderfully written. For me it comes at the right time,
Middle fo Nov, we will be in Goa for a wedding in the family for about 5 days. your log has given me some pointers about how to indulge ourselves.

We will be in one of the beach resorts in south goa for this wedding on the beach, This will be our first proper trip to Goa after 2004 Dec visit which lasted for 4 days.

thanks for sharing.

[deepak_misra]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

Hi Deepak

your log has given me some pointers about how to indulge ourselves.



thanks for sharing.

I plan on making a summary after Day 5 which I hope to post in the next few hours or so. ALong with all the other travelogues on this forum, I hope it would serve as a complete guide

Deepak Misra

[deepak_misra]

Day 5:

Today has been one wonderful day. We needed the break from the sea and the trip to North Goa provided the break(Day 4).

The morning started off with the usual journey to Maria Hall to pick up Pav. We were lucky to get the Kadak Pav and after breakfast set off to our favourite Sernabatim. There was a feeling of melancholy-ness as realization set in that this was to be our last day.

I always thought that High tide was the best time to swim since the waves were big and the water seemed deeper. Today however high tide is already passed and the tide is receding. The water is by and large placid and it feels like one large swimming pool. It is quite cloudy and it is just wonderful, One of the best feelings is to simply float in the sea without any movement, making very slow and minimum movement when you feel you are sinking. The still salt water helps you to float and it is extremely therapeutic. It is actually a form of meditation and the brain gets into a calm and relaxed state. It is also very addicting. Again there are not too many people and all 4 of us continue floating in the water and go deeper into the water. The life guard eyes us suspiciously. They have a big responsibility to protect life and are always watchful of tourists who go into the water without knowing how to swim. On a previous trip the life guard had actually shouted at us when we went some what deeper than ankle deep and asked us if we thought we were foreigners (this was his exact question translated from Hindi. He did followup by telling us that “foreigners” were stronger and knew how to swim unlike most Indians. I found his talk more funny than offensive but could not convince him that I could swim as well as a “foreigner”). This time in Sernabatim we pass approval and the lifeguard decides not to waste his attention on us and concentrates on some other guys who clearly don’t know how to swim but are trying to go deeper. This is actually very foolish. The tide can easily pull you in and if you don’t know swimming the consequences will be disastrous.

We had pitched camp next to a shack called Antys and head there with for light snacks and not surprisingly end up having the usual heavy lunch. The shack has some strategic tables right on the entrance and we sit in a line with an unrestricted view of the beach, focusing on the sea and food. The food is not too good but the gregarious waiter makes up for it with his constant chit chat. I tell him about my visit to the shack the previous trip 2 years back and am surprised to note that the waiter who was there then is his brother. He entertains us with his style of talking and I check up on the rooms which are available along with the shack. The rooms look quite decent, each with attached baths and are clean. I can imagine that this would be the closest to the beach once could stay. Not that I am an authority on Goa but I have not seen anything closer to the see and with this quality. Though I tell him that we stay there next time I don’t believe myself and neither does he. I can however imagine staying right on the beach and add one more item to my TODO list.










View from Antys

The basic needs (Refer to Maslows hierarchy of needs) of food completed we pack up and head back towards home. There is however a strange and strong pull possibly of magnetic nature from the sea and before we know it, we are back in the sea. How this happened was not very clear but we don’t bother thinking too much about it and instead spend a lot of time in the sea again. The water is still reasonably still and warm now at 2:30 in the afternoon. We finally extricate ourselves from the strong pull of the ocean and with a heavy heart head back to the car. I look back at the sea knowing that this was the last swim of this vacation and I don’t know when we will be here next. My kids advise me that it is best to march on ahead without looking back. Very very profound.

Back home the atmosphere is getting more and more gloomy. Packing does not take too long. We are planning to leave at 4:00 in the morning and would like to wind up everything early. Some semblance of packing done we head towards Colva for some shopping which my children demand and deserve. Purchases done we walk on the beach which is horribly crowded. Though the crowd is not on the same scale as North Goa it does seem too large us who have got used to our almost private beach at Sernabatim and Betalbatim. The photos below don’t exactly do justice but will give an indication on the crowd.





Crowds at Colva



Colva Beach



Fishermen cleaning the catch






Fishing Village, Colva

We walk towards Sernabatim but come back as the sun starts setting. Dinner is planned to be low scale and quick and we go to Johncy. It is quite crowded and as part of the preparation to go back to Bangalore (acclimatization is the word I think) I skip the Goanese cusine and stick to Chinese. Sweet Corn Chicken Soup and Chop Suey was what I ordered. My theory is that you just cant go wrong anywhere you go if you stick to sweet corn chicken soup but I am proved wrong. As everyone knows Chop Suey is not a Chinese dish ( Neither is Sweet and Sour Paneer, Alu Chilli , Gobi Manjuri OR Triple Schwezan fried rice) so there is no authentic recipe for the same. This is a strange variation I am seeing here where the chop suey is served on a bed of cut tomato. The health conscious chef has skipped the salt from the food.








Johncy by night


Last Supper over, we head for a last walk to our beach. It is very still and there are some people sitting near the water, We discuss about how nice it would be one day to swim in the night. The half moon shines making a nice reflection on the still water though I cant capture it fully on camera.




Moon by the sea


We head home and retire early in preparation for the journey tomorrow

Day 6:

The plan was to leave at 04:00. Alarms start coming on one by one from 02:50. We miss the 04:00 deadline and manage to leave at 4:30. There is the ritual of checking the baggage, noting down km reading and then we ready for take off. The roads are by and large empty at this hour and Maria Hall looks so strange without the panchayat in session. The air is still but with some imagination I can see the palm trees swaying and imagine the smell of salt on my face. Our family tradition is to listen to Harry Belafonte when we leave Goa and the lyrics of Jamaican Farewell rings in the ears

Down the way where the nights are gayAnd the sun shines daily on the mountain topI took a trip on a sailing shipAnd when I reached Jamaica I made a stop CHORUS:But I'm sad to say, I'm on my wayWon't be back for many a dayMy heart is down, my head is turning aroundI had to leave a little girl in Kingston town Sounds of laughter everywhereAnd the dancing girls swaying to and froI must declare that my heart is thereThough I've been from Maine to Mexico Down at the market you can hearLadies cry out while on their head they bearAckie rice and salt fish is nice ...

IN a few minutes we reach Margao and I see a lonely man sweeping the road under the Margao flyover. I don’t know why he is sweeping the road at this hour and why he is alone. I don’t think Lucia even registers on him and I am sure he does not know that the car whizzing past has 4 very happy and contended people. We whiz past small villag and try to overtake trucks which are the only vehicles on the road. The Goa forest looks very different in the night. ON the onward journey we are in a hurry to reach and don’t have the time to admire the forest. On the return journey there is a conflicting emotion trying to prolong the sojourn while at the same time of returning back home and leaving this trance like dream of the last many days and the beauty of the forests seem to register better.
There is a thin fog along the way but we make good KMPH
Before we know it we are at the border and are stopped by a guard who has completely wrapped his face in a muffler and is carrying a big torch. I am not sure if he is from Goa or Karnataka and what he is looking for. He shines the torch on the car and seems to approve of the Misra family since he waves us on. My unshaven face is in contradiction to what I had declared in the T-form and my complexion has changed from brown to dark brown. Along with the fabrication on being slim built I think I have pushed it too far. The guard is oblivious of any of this and we are now in Karnataka. The holiday is officially over.
How many good deeds must a man do before he is reborn in Goa ?? This is the question that goes over my brain. The family is sleeping and I don’t have a forum to discuss this further.

We stop in Kamats in Ankola for the idlis.



Daughter discovers that there is a clone of the Hubli dustbin here. Looks like they purchase them in bulk. We have soon crossed NH 63 and are on NH4 and stop at Genesis in Davangare for a quick lunch bite. Last time we were in Genesis we had some Chicken Biryani. The Rice was piping hot while the chicken was still frozen. Obviously they had not mastered Zen and the art of defrosting. This time we play it safe and I order an omlette while the family stick to Dal Fry and Alu Gobi. Driving on we are at the outskirts of Bangalore by 2:30 or so. The big mistake we make is not to take the NICE road. We get stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic after Neelamangala. At 4:30 sharp we are back home – Goa just a dream in our consciousness.





Yeshwantpur Bumper to Bumper Traffic


This is the end of this episode of the love story and my hope is that there will be many more episodes to come.

-Hopefully, not The End-

[jeevmenon]

6 days of travel took 6 posts and the TL done in 6 days. Crisp and fast. Enjoyed it. You must be writing more regularly even if its a couple of paras about day to day events. Will wait for the hanging wire story.

[arindamray]

Hei, where is the wire story?

Very nicely written.

[deepak_misra]

There were some questions about the wire hanging in the car. I have been having general bad luck with car music since a long time. Lucia had come along with a cassette player, maybe one of the last lot to come with only a cassette player. The need initially for a CD player was not felt very strongly and MP3 players were not yet really mainstream. For a long time I managed with the cassette player,. The first upgrade happened shortly after getting my first IPOD, The necessity for connecting it to the car stereo became strong and I purchased one of the FM transmitters which could be connected to the IPOD. These could be powered either by batteries or by the car lighter. For some reason the power from the lighter stopped working within a week and I continued using it with batteries. The battery used to drain out within 2-3 days and it was obvious that there was a problem with the power, I simply chucked it out and made the next purchase of an adaptor that went into the cassette player. This worked fine for some time till one day I was listening to some song and found part of the lyrics not coming. One channel had stopped working !. I upgraded to a transmitter again which I purchased in the USA. The first shock was when I opened the wrapping and found a 1 mt. antenna. I have seen lots of transmitters but had never seen one with an antenna let alone such a long one,. This one was temperamental and used to start crackling very frequently. Wrapping the antenna wire or just moving it helped at times. During this Goa pilgrimage, the antenna wire fell off just as we were about to leave. Initially the transmitter did not work without the wire but through some accidental observation I found that the cable connecting the ipod to the transmitter seemed to work as a better antenna provided it was help straight. The quality of sound improved a a lot and the only hitch was that the ipod had to be placed in the sunshade and the wire kept straight. It is working in this mode right now and is working fine. The only pain is that it is not easy to change songs. This is the wire which is shown in the pipcture




Lucia versus Steffi:

Lucia is the Honda City with 55K kms and Steffi is the Chevrolet Beat with 5K kms done. Honda Cities have a big problem of clearance and I seem to scrape every speed breaker. I had taken Steffi once to Mysore and was very impressed with the road handling. Hence the question came up whether we should take Lucia or Steffi for the pilgrimage. It seems like a no brainer that a City is a better car for long distance but the thought of hitting speed breakers made me want to take Steffi. However Lucia won out in the end because of the driving comfort and the space. What do others feel ? Ss there a big difference in driving comfort between a sedan and a smaller car ? Does a new car have better road handling by virtue of it being new ?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by deepak_misra

There were some questions about the wire hanging in the car...


...This is the wire which is shown in the pipcture

That's a very interesting story! And I had no idea why Honda didn't even offer a simple CD player. Even in the ANHC initially, they offered only USB connection!

Originally Posted by deepak_misra

Lucia versus Steffi:

Lucia is the Honda City with 55K kms and Steffi is the Chevrolet Beat with 5K kms done. Honda Cities have a big problem of clearance and I seem to scrape every speed breaker. I had taken Steffi once to Mysore and was very impressed with the road handling. Hence the question came up whether we should take Lucia or Steffi for the pilgrimage. It seems like a no brainer that a City is a better car for long distance but the thought of hitting speed breakers made me want to take Steffi. However Lucia won out in the end because of the driving comfort and the space. What do others feel ? Ss there a big difference in driving comfort between a sedan and a smaller car ? Does a new car have better road handling by virtue of it being new ?

This is the same debate we had when we were planning our Goa drive! We had to choose from the supreme Civic and our latest acquisition, a sparsely driven Honda Jazz. The biggest problem that we expected to have with the Jazz was the boot-space. We assumed that the hatch wouldn't be able to swallow our 4 suitcases and another tote-bag. But the debate took an interesting turn when, on the last day, we loaded our Jazz's boot with our luggage just to confirm it! There was enough and more space!

While our Civic's boot is large, it just about manages to take in all the suitcases albeit with some struggling and head-scratching. It was quite the opposite with our Jazz. The 4 suitcases could be placed horizontally and there would be space for 2 more on top of them!

In the end though, we felt that the Civic is the better mile-muncher and given the 'designed-for-the-city' rear seat in the Jazz, we decided that the Civic would be more comfortable for the long drive.

Looking back now, we felt that the Jazz deserved to be driven on those beautiful roads! What a car it is!

Sorry for going OT!

[deepak_misra]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

That's a very interesting story! And I had no idea why Honda didn't even offer a simple CD player. Even in the ANHC initially, they offered only USB connection!



While our Civic's boot is large, it just about manages to take in all the suitcases albeit with some struggling and head-scratching. It was quite the opposite with our Jazz. The 4 suitcases could be placed horizontally and there would be space for 2 more on top of them!

My Citi predates the ANHC i guess. If I understand you correctly, it is easier to put 4 suitcases in the Jazz viz a viz Civic? Is it boot space or how the boot is organized ??

Deepak

[lordofgondor]

Man, you've got me feeling nostalgic, big time! Your writeup and pics are making me feel like dropping off everything and head to Goa.

Originally Posted by deepak_misra

Does a new car have better road handling by virtue of it being new ?

I do believe that a new car (5-10K km) does have certain advantages in terms of handling over an old car, because of:

1. Newer tires, better tread, better grip.
2. Suspension parts are in a lot better condition.
3. No chassis flex.

Of course, all that also depends on make and condition of the new & old car respectively.

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by deepak_misra

My Citi predates the ANHC i guess. If I understand you correctly, it is easier to put 4 suitcases in the Jazz viz a viz Civic? Is it boot space or how the boot is organized ??

Deepak

Yup! Loading up our Jazz is easier than our Civic, which requires us to get into very uncomfortable positions leaving you with a terrible back-ache after loading up the sedan. But in the case of the Jazz, it's a breeze to load it up. The boot is very well designed despite being marginally smaller than the Civic and this helps in placing the luggage and making it relatively easier.