The Goa chronicles- Part 1

I still don’t get it as to why I was having a fixation on Goa right from the time of my maiden visit to the coastal state somewhere in my mid twenties. For starters I come from a state that has got some great beaches so that cannot be a reason. In my childhood I was extremely religious for my age and mind you I am an altar boy* with close to 6 years of experience,could it be churches; again a vehement no . Was it cheap alcohol? as I am not much of a tippler so that can be ruled out as well. Could it be food; but you do get great food in Bombay and Kerala; partly yes i would say. What impressed me most was the laid back vibes of the city akin to my personality. Time stood still when you were there; many a times you could witness that the people lived their lives at a leisurely pace, a far cry from the din and fury associated with Bombay.

The first birthday of either one of us after marriage coupled with the fact that both of us had just recovered from a bout of jaundice made us think that we need to do something special. I don’t recollect as to how exactly Goa came into the mix of things. I had only been to Goa a couple of times before;Jeslin had never been to Goa. She had been going ga ga about her trip to Kashmir for quite sometime now which she undertook a few months prior to our marriage. So the stakes were pretty high as far as I was concerned because I wanted to beat that.Driving down from Bombay to Goa a distance of about 600 kms would be a coup d'etat under the given circumstances. 

I was quite skeptical to be frank, for the uninitiated I was not much of a guy when it came to driving a car. I used to drive only if it was absolutely necessary. My brother was crazy about driving so I was more than happy to hand over the wheel to him whenever possible. This resulted in my driving being beginner level but he turned out to be an exceptional driver. Towards the end of my bachelorhood when K, an officer from the armed forces had got posted in Pune. Most of the weekends Jian, Arun, Soto,John and myself used to take off either to Lonavala or Pune with me at the driving seat of the White Swift. All of us were classmates in our alma mater Loyola School,Trivandrum so it was like a homecoming after so many years and very much anticipated. That was the longest distance that I had driven before the erstwhile Goa trip. The trip to Goa was at least 3 times more than that and had to be covered within a day.   

I had heard about the Mumbai Pune expressway for the first time in my 7th standard about how the tires of the car would burst because of the heat caused due to friction as a result of the speed at which they would be traveling. Though not a pleasant fact for some odd reason it stuck to my memory. I was quite thrilled when I drove through it for the very first time because it is like revisiting something you studied in school in flesh and blood. Quite often you are transported back to the classroom where I was a brooding bespectacled teenager.It was quite a coincidence that my very own classmates at that time were my co-passengers in the current trip.  

Lonavala

We zeroed down on the resort that we needed to stay at and made the bookings promptly. My only criteria was that we needed to spend enough time for me to rest and recuperate before driving back. I switched on to my planning mode to finalise the route that we should be taking. Meanwhile,Jeslin went on mapping the must visit food joints that we should hit according to the distance from our place of stay along with other places of interest. Our individual objectives were pretty much mutually exclusive so that there was no room for a conflict. I was in charge of getting us to Goa and back while she had to ensure that we had a good time over there.The fact of the matter was that I enjoy planning a trip meticulously beforehand as much as the actual trip.It wasn’t much different this time around as well which was very similar to the than countless other times like our college trips.

Finally the D-day arrived, we woke up at 4:00 am in the morning and started our trip around 5:00 am. Jeslin remarked to me that she had not woken up so early in her life even for her board exams. The rains had let up a bit and we could leave Bombay without much hassle. Incidentally, this was also our first time that we used Google maps for navigation courtesy my birthday gift for Jeslin. 

All set

The Mumbai Pune expressway was a breeze; it was quite romantic to be driving through lush greenery with the monsoons painting a wet blanket over everything.After Pune the route was quite new to me, the last time I had travelled through here was exactly 2 years ago on one hell of a trip from Bombay to Trivandrum along with my mother and brother.In a bid to save time Jeslin had packed chapati rolls with a filling of chicken and a few boiled eggs. There was enough supply of water as well so that we didn't need to stop for food enroute. This was a masterstroke I would say because the few heavy spells of rain slowed us down considerably. But nothing prepared for what was to come next.

There was an all important detour at Nipani(refer map above) a little after Kolhapur where you get off the Pune Bangalore highway to make your way to Goa. Thanks to my attention to detail we took the right turn.Back in Bombay I had even checked out the real time google maps and memorised it a couple of times because of its importance. But on our way back we got a bit complacent and lost a turn in the stretch which caused us a fair amount of inconvenience to us and made us realise its importance.

The beast

Once I took the turn it took quite a bit of time to adjust because suddenly you are switching from 4 lane to 2 lane. Now you have to also factor in the vehicles coming in from the opposite side which was not the case earlier. We had covered a little over two thirds of the total distance by then. The progress was understandably slow and to compound matters there was a torrential downpour when we crossed Amboli Ghat. It was raining cats and dogs, our descent downhill had turned tricky with raindrops crashing into the windshield with unmatched ferocity that even the viper blades failed to keep up .With the visibility being reduced to a few metres we had to switch on our headlights and put on our blinkers as well. Till date this is one of the toughest and challenging stretches that I have ever driven through. I will be honest with you that my heart was in my mouth as I was driving at a snail’s pace. We could have parked the car by the side and waited for the rains to clear a bit. But living in Bombay for a few years now made us realise that this kind of rain could go on for hours. Moreover, we were also losing daylight quite fast, navigating such dangerous terrain bereft of street lights could be even more treacherous for driving. The calculated risk paid off because we reached the plains by the time the sun set, by then only around 80 kms separated us from our destination. 

Dark clouds over the horizon

But the rains were relentless and things were starting to get tough given the fact that we had a long day. The final stretch was excruciatingly frustrating more than what we had signed up for. There was no other option but to soldier on. The last nail in the coffin for my desperation to peak was when the so far reliable Google maps pulled out a fast one on you by taking you to the backside of the resort. I vented out my ire on my navigator even though it was no fault of hers. We finally checked in by 7:30 PM after being on the road for close to 15 hours. Due to which we decided to call it a day and grab dinner from the resort itself. We weren’t disappointed to say the least courtesy a live band was performing at the dining hall. They dedicated the popular goan song “maria pitache” to the tired couple in attendance making their evening all the more special. Our first goan trip together had indeed started with a bang.

Picture abhi bhi baaki hain mere dost….

                       

                                                                                                    {To be continued……}