It was still dark when we bid “bye” to the memorable place we stayed.. Carrying our bags we headed towards bus stand which was just a ten minutes walk… Had no idea which bus to board.. yet managed to catch hold of a conductor and ask for the buses moving to Goa… We boarded a bus going to Karwar, instead of Goa, because they said the direct bus to Goa would take some time to arrive, and catching a bus from Karwar would be a better option.
Journey to Karwar was a “sleepy” one… all passengers in the bus were enjoying the “early morning” sleep.. n my eyes cud not resist the sight and shut off in no time…. And approx. at about 7:00 am we reached Karwar bus stand, where we were supposed to board the Goa bus…
We tried figuring out which buses moved to Goa. Unlike BMTC buses in Bangalore, there were no numbers assigned for buses there … the word “MADGAON” written on one of the buses caught our eyes.. And it was almost ready to move.. Gathering all our strength with our mighty heavy bags adding to our weights, we managed to throw ourselves into the bus.. Unfortunately, since it was a Monday, the bus was too crowded with people going to work…phew!!! All three of us were distributed in different places, we could not even see each other, and we had to communicate to each other through SMS…!!! All thanks to technology!
In a while, I was lucky enough to get a seat right in the front, beside the driver... … I could get awesome views of the beautiful rising sun, bridges, rivers, greenery, trees, all in all a calm serene world… I was all the more excited to see the Karnataka –Goa state border… People talking in typical Goan Konkani to the conductor brought a smile on my face… I admired the little kids who boarded our crowded bus with their huge bags… facing a lot of uneasiness, yet smiling…. Some kids even boarded the bus through the door where the driver hops in the bus!! It was such a nice sight to see the kids’ face glowing with excitement as they looked at everyone, to see us reacting at their heroism! Toooooo cute!I could also get glimpses on the headlines for that day, as the person sitting next to me was tooo busy reading “The Times of India”…
Soon it was 9:00 am and we reached Madgaon! We got down and looked out if there's any auto stand so that we could first go to the railway station and confirm our ticket for the evening and release our burden by keeping our luggage in the cloak room.. Soon we picked up a “less corrupt” among the existing ones … (all the auto fellas were at their best trying to get the maximum loot, as it was too evident we were new to the place) We had no way but pick one who could quote the lesser price and soon we moved to the railway station.
Requesting the auto fella to wait, we rushed into the railway station, confirmed our tickets, unloaded our luggage and got back into the auto, deciding on the plan of action.. We started with the first innocent question to the auto driver: “Which beach is the nearest to this railway station??” He gave us two options: Kolva or Benaulim… We were still in the process of discussion… when my tummy started crying aloud for breakfast…we opened the bread and jam packets, started hogging right away! By then, the auto driver took his own stand and dropped us at Kolva Beach…
And though the sun was so brightly smiling at us (it was approx. 11:00am), we headed towards the beach…. Excited at the water sport activities going on… Paragliding, water scooter, motor boat… and obviously dint wanna miss even a bit of it… But since Paragliding was a bit out of our time n budget we decided to try water scooter and motor boat… We really enjoyed the rides!!! We walked, sang and danced in the waters, collected shells on the shore, lent a helping hand to the newly wedded couples who badly wanted someone to click their snaps and in turn asked them to click our snaps too as a “cute commission”:)
TO my bad luck, the battery of my camera went off… and our photography session had come to a standstill… anyway we did manage with our cells for the rest of the day...
As it started blazing n sizzling on the sands, all exhausted, we thought it would be better to take a break, and treat our stomach with good food… we moved towards a decent looking hotel just near to the beach, and thanked God for two facilities first of all: One: water to wash our feet that was overloaded with sand, Two: for the air conditioner. Food was good, I had my favorite fish curry rice
So tummies full, we thought to spend some time visiting the shops nearby, to find “typical Goan” things for our remembrance… there were many cute small shops with things but they seemed to be dam expensive… yet bought a few things n set our journey back to the railway station as our train was scheduled at 3:30pm…
There were frequent mini buses from Kolva to Madgaon railway station.. so we did not have to worry much about the conveyance… we set our journey in one of the buses.. Hoping that the bus would reach on time and we would soon be in the train taking good rest coz we were dam tired…. To our surprise, the conductor told us that the bus won’t go to the railway station and we had to get down at a stop and walk…. “What??? Did he say WALK????” no way!!! We thought we’ll hire an auto, by then a grandpa kinda person in the bus said “Don’t worry, its just a few mins walk….” And we were relieved… thought that’s sounds ok… and got down at the stop.
We kept walking for five minutes in the blazing hot sun, putting our sweaters on the head to prevent the harsh sun.. lookin as funny as possible.. but we did not mind as no one knew us there, n most importantly looks were less important than getting burnt in the sun…. I couldn’t see the station to the farthest sight possible… Were we walking towards the right direction?? Had a doubt.. so asked the shop keepers there… one fellow said: “Madam its near.. just 10 minutes more”….. Goodnesss!!! I told my frenz its better we hire an auto before we faint.. but unfortunately no autos passed by that way !!! We continued our journey for the next ten minutes… legs aching … waiting to see at least a glimpse of the station.. and then again after ten minutes Gosh!!! No station seen! We asked another shop fella there.. he said “ madam, just 15 minutes walk from here” !!! Now that was enough to raise our BP to the highest level possible! We started mumbling about that grandpa who told us that it was jus “few” mins walk from the stop… did “few” in his dictionary meant “30 minutes”??? Goodness gracious… No other option we just kept on walking.. I jus had enough strength to breathe n put my steps forward until we finally reached the station and dropped ourselves at the platform seats!!! PHEWWWWW!!!!!
It took quite a while to calm ourselves down... and gradually we started shopping for snacks and books. I bought a pack of cards too thinking our journey back should be an entertaining one! All set to get in the train, we collected our luggage from the cloak room and in no time the train arrived at the platform.
“The Incident cum Adventure” of the year:
Carrying our luggage we moved towards the train... all excited, finding out our compartment number which was number 13 . So we went carrying our huge bags, dragging ourselves looking at the numbers one after another…compartment number 5…6….7….8….9….10 and….. a person dressed like a police, happened to ask us our compartment number.. n we said no. 13… He said : Oh that’s at the very end, the compartment even before number 1, he explained that our compartment had to be joined to another train which went to Bangalore and the rest would be going to Delhi…!!! GOSH!!!! What the hell mannnn!!! Now there was too little time for us to think or even react at his comment.. we just took an above turn.. running towards the opposite direction as hard as we could….. Looked like our run was endless… first time in my life I regretted the fact that the train was so long! Goodness!!! We had no clue how much more time are we left with, so we decided to get into the train and then head towards our compartment internally, so that we would be safe inside the train at least… On the way we happened to cross through a cafeteria. The guy there said its too crowded to move ahead, and that there was still time for the train to move… giving heed to his words, we three just got off the train again and began rushing to our compartment and to my greatest HORROR the train STARTED MOVING !!! Manjeet just screamed as hard as she could : GALSSSS…!!! Please get into the train!!!!! Get into the train at once!!!!!!!! It was a cry of helplessness… I was struggling hard to run, when I heard Sharmila’s voice… REShhhhh… gal get into the train gal….. and I knew both of them managed to get in…I was the only one left now!!! I dint know what struck my head…I had a big heavy luggage bag and running was jus tooo difficult! I just threw off my bag in one of the compartments of the moving train…and the luggage jus went ahead… never ran so fast in my life!! Finally, however, with a little strength that I cud depend on, I managed to catch hold of the handle and pushed myself into the train, clueless where my luggage was!
A group of gals and guys who were in that compartment exclaimed “HEY JAB WE MET”!!!!!!! at my unexpected entry in their compartment and I dint even have strength to react to them.. Nothing..! Just dropped myself in a seat.. Trying hard to breathe… closing my eyes… n thanking God at each breath I took!! After almost 5 mins I peeped through the way and at the other end I saw Sharmila looking at me.. both had no reactions just gazed each other with a feeling that we are saved!! Later Sharmila says that she could relate this gazing experience to the scene in the movie “Bombay” where the twins looked at each other when they met after a long time…
After some time all three of us met in a common compartment and gave a BIG HUG – a gesture, showing how much we were worried about each other.. Just couldn’t stop our tears…. Were wondering what would have happened if I could not run or hop into the train…. Goodness just can’t imagine!!! Settled in the same compartment, couldn’t jus stop talking about what had happened… We had a person, looked like someone’s granpa sitting next to us while we were talking about it… he seemed to be very interested in our talk initially... but after some time his face showed a clear indication that we were talking actually TOOOO much about it! A sign to talk something else now! :D
Anyway, the next station, we moved to our compartment number 13, this time making sure that there was ample time to shift.. Found our compartment to be really comfortable, and actually entertaining as a sweet little angel baby was continuously smiling at us… we enjoyed playing with her..
Caught some beautiful scenes on the way, especially “Doodh Saagar”... my fren Manjeet managed to capture few scenes from all angles possible…
As it was dusk and train took its “commercial breaks” at stations, we enjoyed spicy “Vada Paavn” with tea… it was jus soooo yummmmmmmmm!!!
One thing that kept us tooooo busy in the train were baby cockroaches! :( Yikesssss!!! I tried my best attacking them but most of the times they celebrated their victory over me! :(
Soon we had our dinner and went to sleep… hoping to see ourselves back in our hometown! Oops! “Office town” if I could rename it : P !!
We reached almost an hour late to our destination- Majestic railway station and were most pleased as our favorite people welcomed us saying : “Madam auto..????? Only 150 Rupees”--. To MG Road!!!! As responsible residents of the capital city, we managed to get a prepaid auto which just came up to Rs. 50 on meter charge...
All in all…in a nutshell.. We enjoyed to the maximum possible… No rules! No restrictions! It was just us and our adventures…. These four days spent together were a few among the “best days” of our life and surely would remain in our hearts as long as we breathe!
LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers!!
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