GOA DIARIES

This happens to have become one of my favourite photographs recently. Not because of great photography(I'm not even sure how good it actually is) but because every time I look at it I smile. It takes me back to a beautiful morning spent at a beach in Goa, watching the slightly chilly night lighten to dawn and finally to a beautiful sunrise. It reminds me of having tea at 6:30 a.m and running into the water, trying to save a slipper from floating far, far away. Just thinking about it makes me want to be there all over again.

Sometime in the second week of March, a day after my birthday I left for Goa along with 2 friends of mine. Seems like a small group but after a crazy number of changes in the plan and the people going, we weren't in a mood to cancel. Apparently, there were also going to be other people i knew on the trip, but that's something I got to know about half an hour before boarding the train. It was an interesting journey and a great trip, where I ended up running into quite a few people.

But this post isn't about all the experiences I had there, but rather about everything I learnt in that one week. So here, in no particular order, are some things that sleepless nights, lazy days and memorable train journeys taught me:

1. Accommodation is the least of your problems: It's something that you learn when your trip organiser can't exactly be described as efficient and you start looking for alternatives so that time isn't wasted being stranded in a hotel lobby. It's the easiest thing to book a decent and inexpensive place, specially in a tourist hub like Goa.

2. Be willing to meet new people-it's a lot of fun: A Deutsche couple who had been to Goa 6 times before, a couple of guys from Mumbai, a guy from Dubai(I think) who spent his college years in Hyderabad and a friendly waiter at a shack who thinks girls from Delhi eat too much and readily gave us his insight into cultural differences are some of the people I remember meeting in the 4 days that we spent in Goa. It's not even about learning what different cultures are about; it's just the experience of talking to someone you've never met before and making a pleasant memory out of it.

3. A little planning is okay but don't go overboard: So you didn't cover that one tourist spot you wanted to go to or you didn't try a particular dish. Big deal! It's good to go to a place with some knowledge and to have a to-do list, but don't go crazy trying to accomplish everything on it because more often than not you'll like a place more than you thought you would and you'll spend too much time there or there will be a difference of opinion or you might get to know of some other place which is worth a visit. It's worth the effort to try and do everything you want to but to rush and not enjoy anything is a spoiler.

4. Food is important: Train meals-not the best. So when this realisation dawned upon us we were pretty grateful to all our mothers for having forcibly packed food for us. Delicious breakfast, lunch, dinner-check!

5. Company is even more important: I'm all for solo trips, but when you're out in a group the company has to good. It has the power to create great moments and make the simplest moments memorable. Bad company equals irritability, moodiness, raised tempers and wasted money. I wouldn't be writing this post had my friends not made this a trip to remember.

6. A hint of safety is necessary even in adventure: First night there we had no clue that transport isn't a strong point of the state. As a result when we finally decided to head back to our resort our only initial option was walking. Thankfully we got a cab eventually. But it taught us to make arrangements for travelling to and from places, because no matter where you are, drunk, shady people aren't the company you want.

7. It doesn't take much to have fun: One of the best memories for me on the trip was when we were sitting on a part of a wall at Fort Aguada overlooking some wilderness on the hill and an unending expanse of the Arabian Sea. It might have been a hot afternoon but chilled drinks, moderately warm pizza, phone cameras and a slight breeze were all it took to drive away the heat from our minds.

8. Earphones: When you get tired of making fun of a compartment full of girls ruining every song they shout, sorry, sing earphones become magical devices that remind you that there is still melody in this world.

9. Do stuff you can't tell everyone about: This is probably the most fun part of a trip. When you really want to talk about an experience but you have to stop yourself, there's a really good chance that it was tons of fun. Well either that or really embarrassing. Or both.

10. Travel is a necessity: In one line-new place, new experiences. And if it's not a new place for you, there is still scope for new experiences. And if not that, it'll give you content for a blog post :P

On that note, all I want to say is that I want to travel more often because I want a lot more of such pictures that really do say a thousand words.