December 28:
The day the sojourn started. Usual suspects were the Sandeep-Geeta-Naan family, and the Parul-Aanchal family. We had Driver Ramesh in his Innova accompany us, and he arrived prompt at 9p.m to National Avenue. The journey began with everyone chatting, so as to try and stay awake and back-seat drive Ramesh’s car, but I slept so that I could be awake at the last leg of the journey and back-seat drive Ramesh during an hour I am more comfortable with. Of course, the noise from all the talk was not too conducive, so I awoke in a while, and joined in on the all the talk. We played 20 questions for some part of the journey, and watched with sweaty palms the rest of it as Ramesh navigated circuitous roads with near zero visibility because of “driving through clouds” – as explained by Aanchal with the Chandra Bindu!
This went on till about 4 in the morning, after which everyone crashed, and it was just me and Ramesh navigating the roads. Navigating and chatting. Ramesh seemed interested in knowing all the history behind me and Geeta!
And then this went on till we hit Goa at about 10a.m, and drove straight to Philip Olinda GH in Anjuna Beach where we stayed.
December 29:
The GH was a nice place – simple and neat with sufficient place for us to sleep, barely any distance from the Anjuna Flea market and the beach. This was part of the plan as we intended to hit Curly’s on New Years, and this place would be walking distance for us. Of course, on New Years, we could barely walk, but that’s getting ahead of the story. On December 29, we checked in, had breakfast at a nearby café, and then went straight to the closest shack and started off with beers.
We got back to our rooms around 2p.m, slept for a bit, and then went to Candolim beach to attend the must spoken of “Sunburn” party. Problem was we only had 4 passes for 5 of us. But we decided to figure that out once we got the passes. And then finding the passes itself was insane. Coz we reached a certain Gate A, and our source with the passes who was inside asked us to come to Gate B, and we walked and walked without finding this gate, and figured life only after getting a map from someone. This Gate B was a really long way off, but we managed to get there and get the passes with barely an hour left for the show to end, and realized that the entry is only through Gate A and we had to walk all the way back just to get in to the place. Naan gave up by this time and told the rest of us to get in whilst he sit and grab a beer at a shack.
So we 4 quickly went in, took a few photos to prove we were at Sunburn! And went out to meet Naan who was peacefully sitting on a bench against the beach sipping on good old Goan Kings beer. We moved to a shack called Sai’s shack as it had a neat looking upper deck. But after getting here, realized the place was quite sad, which expensive beer, poor food, and actually a cramped sitting place for the 5 of us. So we went to another shack called Francisco shack. And now this one was really neat. There were barely any people when we first entered, and the only reason we sat there was because we liked the music that was being played. Well, guess many other people too liked the music, and eventually, the place was fairly crowded, there was dancing happening (mostly by just the 5 of us) and even a bonfire where a lot of people gathered to sit or dance around. It was one of those really random, but killer fun we ended up having. After drinking, dancing and eating, we moved out of the beach and hit a restaurant on the way to the main raod where we told Ramesh we’d come, and had dinner here. Only good dish we had was a chicken gravy, that we gorged on with Roti’s. Little did we know that this would actually be the only good meal we were gonna have this whole trip!
December 30:
Day 2 in Goa began late. The plan was to have breakfast at Infantaria where Geeta promised there would be the most amazing non-veg burgers and puffs we’ve ever had, followed by a visit to Fort Aguada, a place I’ve wanted to see every since DCH, but just never managed to in spite of at least 10 visit to Goa since the movie, then lunch at Martins, followed by Caravella gambling at night. But instead of this plan, we pretty much had brunch at Infantaria where we were too late for the puffs and had to compromise with regular lunch which was really not that great, and then went to Brittos where we paid 100 bucks to sit on the couches on the beach, where we got tattoos done, Parul lost her slippers to a really well executed plot by a lady selling Goan paraphernalia, took tons of photos, and watched the sun set before doing some more shopping at Baga and then heading back to Anjuna.
So far, everything we set out to doing since morning hadn’t happened. Instead of awesome Martins lunch, we had crappy brunch at Infantaria. Instead of Fort Aguada, we got tattoos and played witness to the slipper losing incident. This was quite hilarious actually – all of us were peacefully sitting on those couches where this lady comes to sell her stuff. And very smoothly takes of her slippers and wears Paruls nice ones and leaves the place!
Anyway, the only thing left on the agenda for the day was Caravella gambling, but given how the day panned out, this was also gonna bite the dust. Party because only Parul and I seemed interested in gambling, and mostly because of a traffic jam between Baga to Anjuna that ensured we reached back to our GH only by 9p.m.
Another plan for the night was to meet Jidesh and gang at Club Cabana that was very close to Anjuna. So we decided to first meet at a shack on Anjuna and then head out clubbing. But once we hit the shacks, we just stuck to shack-hopping for the rest of the night. Agnelos, Elephant Café, and Hippies were the shacks we hit for the night. This and omlette-pavs from aunties on the beach was all we did coz we were low on cash and none of the places accepted cards. We borrowed 1k from Jidesh, and Naan walked all the way out to draw cash from an ATM and the damn thing was shut. So we stuck to bare minimum expenditure plan and went back to the GH at an hour I don’t really remember.
December 31:
New years eve had arrived. I woke up early to began the action for the day. Went out with Geeta to buy breakfast at Infantaria that we missed the previous day, and basically make up for all the lousy food we’d been eating so far in Goa. Did some shopping on the way for some table mats that Geeta really liked. Head back to the GH and had breakfast, which were indeed some of the best non-veg puffs we’ve ever had, along with Beer and Breezers, to get a good start to the day.
Then we got ready and hit Curly’s at 3p.m where Shreyas and company had a table reserved for us. We sat here, drank, ate and spoke till we watched the last sunset of the year. Ninja regaled us with stories on his various theories – the watchman-maali-chor theory, the JKES-kutta-baby-sher hierarchy, and the famous ladder theory.
After all of this, Zeelu and I head back to the place he and Ninja were staying to pick up the space cake Neha had baked. Man, this was soon to turn out the real “highlight” for the night. Zeelu and I had a good chat all the way to the house, checked out the place they were staying in while Shreyas and Neha got ready, and finally head back to Curly’s around 8p.m.
By the time we went back, Curly’s was a different place altogether. They had cordoned off all entries, including the little backdoor one that we had exited just an hour back. Sealed them off with metal detectors and over-grown bouncers. And charged a cool Rs. 500 just for entry! To think we were just sitting inside, and now had to pay 2500 for the 5 of us who had come out, which included Naan who stepped out just for a pee, unlike the rest of us who went to Shreyas’ house, just to re-enter the place where the rest of us were sitting. Anyway, this seemed to net off, coz the waiters at Curly’s only charged us Rs. 700 for all that we ate and drank there. So this made us not feel too bad about cheating them and about having to pay Rs. 2500 to re-enter.
Anyway, we went in and sat by the beach this time instead of our tables inside, and glad we did that coz the place had gotten really crowded and messy inside – always a downer during New Years where everything goes out of control! Worse than this was the space cakes we all had and Geeta and I developed a really weird reaction to it. We just kept throwing up and throwing up. I remember walking towards the beach at least thrice to empty out my stomach, and by the third time I was out of even the semi digested Infantaria breakfast that was there in my stomach, coz I was pretty much puking bile and air!
Geeta was having a similar reaction sitting where she was. Parul and Aanchal seemed fairly ok in spite of having as much cake as us. Zeelu and the rest were too used to it by now to have a crazy reaction any more to it. So basically, hours before New Years midnight, all Geeta and I did was sleep and throw up. The only thing we remember that night, post consumption of the cake, was the fire-works at mid night, that somehow we managed to wake up to see. Thereafter, it was just the walk back to our GH, where we went and crashed.
December 1:
Spent most of the day nursing our troubled stomachs as we drove back to Bombay. We took far longer this time because of a bad accident that had happened on the way. Left Goa at 11a.m and reached Bombay way past mid-night.
Except for those last few hours of the year, I must say it was quite a neat trip to Goa. I remember thinking that I’ve never really enjoyed Goa as much during my visits here, especially during New Years, coz I never manage to do the things I really want to do. Even this time, I couldn’t go to Fort Aguada, have Martins lunch, or do the gambling in Goa bit. But in spite of that, the things we ended up doing – partying in Francisco shack (me), chilling at Brittos (Parul), sunset at Anjuna (Aanchal), Shack-hopping at Anjuna (Geeta) and Candolim beach on Day 1(Naan) where some of the things each of us thoroughly enjoyed and reminisced about on our way back.
All in all, neat Goa trip, good trip with Naan, great hanging out with the clown combo of Aanchal and Parul, and of course, my first New Years married to Geeta :)
Btw, I just listed out the last few New Years I could remember..
2011: Bombay – Getting Married
2010: Bangalore + Chikmanglur
2009:
2008: Gokarna
2007: Bombay: Andheri Sports Complex
2006: Bombay: Bangdu’s friends house party
2005: Goa Bosch
2004: Bangalore – Kamanahalli Jiving place
2003: Bangalore Sparks
2002: Church – Nose accident
2001:
2000:
1999:
1998: Bangalore Army Place
