The Goa Diaries - Day 1

This trip has been a decade long in the making. Vidyuth and I had made an official trip by road in 2012-13 to watch some Vijay Hazare matches in Goa and spent a week there. Ever since we've been planning to make another trip and it finally materialized (the stars aligned and the gods were willing).

We took V's car, a new one, and headed off from Sainikpuri at 645. By the time we got to Patancheru it was 830 and we were thinking it will be a long journey. The traffic near Patancheru was bad mainly thanks to some road work. Anyways once we got out of that it was smooth sailing. So smooth, that we were at Sholapur by 1115! (Actually much credit to Vs driving skills and the new car.)

Since there were packed sandwiches (tomato cheese and chicken) we snacked on the go, stopping only for a quick look break or to fill in gas. Since we generally followed Google maps I don't remember the road, following it like a zombie. Vaguely though we turned towards Bijapur, hit the new highway NH 166 which seems headed to Ratnagiri. This was a brilliant stretch of some 120 kms, turned off into the state highways, bypassing most except Nipani, then Ajra, and then Amboli.

Some where here it started pouring like crazy and stopped just before the ghat. On and on until we reached Calangute at 540 pm which places Hyderabad -Goa at record time of under 11 hours. 

We got into our stay in Calangute which is very close to the beach and a shack. A drink or two and some dinner and planned the next day.

 While at dinner we witnessed some ceremonies on the beach - one was a proposal (the colour dressed up, stage set, director, cameraman), another a first birthday, one seemed like an anniversary celebration. Very interesting.