Go Goa

Last few years, it has almost become a custom for me to go for a short trip outside Bangalore, during Christmas time. Until last year, I used to go out for trips with the usual suspects RSAS (comprising of myself, Goldfather, Kasri, RL, Gethu…). This time, I went to Goa with my wife during the Christmas holidays! Not much has changed in Goa between my last trip in 2003 and this trip. We stayed at Palolem, a beach village in South Goa, which was made famous by the movie “The Bourne Supremacy” starring Matt Damon. Apart from visiting the usual tourist places in Goa, we spent a whole day on the beach, swimming and floating on water! It was so good to live a couple of days without thinking of space and time (yeah! I hardly used my watch there). Though Palolem is far off from the tourist attractions in North Goa, if you are planning a second trip to Goa, I strongly recommend a stay at Palolem beach! We also went for a short boat trip to Butterfly island, which probably had the shortest beach in the world! The best thing is that the weather was awesome during our visit, it was bit cloudy and wasn’t too cold.

Coming to the Goan people, almost everybody here speaks all South Indian languages! Though we were lucky to get  a good driver, who didn’t rip us off with high fares, we could see that the foreigners were being taken for a ride (just like in all places!). I was told that this time, the foreign crowd is less in Goa and during peak seasons, they would have 4 times as much crowd as in this season. During their golden days, vendors sold tender coconuts for about $10 each (approx. Rs 500 now per drink!).

On the way back to Airport, while everyone else were anxious to reach the Airport on time, I was eagerly awaiting to cross the gates of “BITS Pilani – Goa” Campus. I was delighted to catch a glimpse of entrance as well as the campus. The campus looked really different from the one where I studied! I don’t know if there is a purposeful strategy by the BITS management to locate its campuses far off from any big city (But I assume that the guys in Goa campus will have bikes to head to the beaches every weekend).

In the airport, we also came across Sreesanth, the Indian cricketer famous for his dancing capabilities or rather infamous for “Bhajji Slapgate”. Thankfully, he didn’t show any residual symptoms of Swine flu J

We landed in Bangalore on Dec 31^st evening. While I was driving back home, I tried to think of my 2010 New Year resolutions and sadly, I couldn’t think of anything! So I guess I will keep 2010 free of any resolutions and take it up in 2011 ;)

Wishing you all a wonderful 2010!