Goa Ahoy!

So after all the confusion we reached The Beach at nearly 4:30 pm. We managed to pick up some booze enroute and had the sense to also take along a few chilled beers. A beer & some snacks later we hit the pool with Shreyas.

Shreyas is quite a water baby. He loves being in water. We were in the pool for a few hours. Had dinner & crashed into bed

Travelling with Infants

Inspite of having confirmed tickets & beating a huge traffic jam to make it in time to catch the Jetlite flight, we were bumped off the flight because the infant travelling with us was the 7th infant on board and the aircraft had only 6 infant jackets. Sounded ridiculous but the Jetlite staff was saved of our wrath since they were already bogged down with some 30 passengers breathing down their throats for a delayed flight to Delhi. We actually felt sorry for them.

So they moved us to SpiceJet flight which turned out be an infant special only since there were more than 20 infants on board. It was crazy with all the cachophany. Either SpiceJet has more than 20 life jackets for infants or they don't give a damn.

We missed on the snacks on Jetlite, the lunch at the resort & had to make do with some sandwiches in the Jetlite lounge, which were pretty average. We reached Goa famished and were dying to get to the hotel.

Kerala Ahoy

Well now we have another destination to cover in November. My Man Friday at office is getting hitched in Kerala on November 12th. And since we are in Kumta for Diwali, we will most likely stretch the holiday and make a 2 day trip to Kerala. I am hoping to take Snehal for a one day ride on an authentic Kerala house boat in the serene backwaters of Allepy

Travel Plans

Looks like we will be traveling for a few days every month in the coming months. We plan to end this year with a month long holiday to Sydney. This year is turning out to be quite a travel year. :)

The plan ahead

Aug - 4 days in Goa
Sept - 4 days in Gokak for Ganpati
Oct - 3 days in Manor with cousins
Oct - 3 days in Goa with family
Nov - 3 days in Kumta for Diwali
Nov - 2 days in Kerala for a wedding
Dec - 25 days in Sydney (hopefully!)

Whoa!

Mumbai Skyline

Driving back home the other day, I turned on the Eastern Express Highway towards Powai, which is the normal route home, and I saw a wonderful skyline with a burst of orange all over. I pulled over & clicked a few snaps. Couldn't resist clicking the snaps

Another Blog

Damn, Another blog?
I know, but since I am going to try and restrict my travel related posts on this blog, I've revived by old defunct blogspot address, Musings My Dear!. So for all those taking the trouble of reading the blog, or for those who accidentaly stumbled in here and have some more free time on their hands, can stop by at my other blog which has this & that & blah blah blah.

Airport Woes

Went to Jaipur for a day yesterday. Was met with the longest queue I've ever seen at Terminal 1A. It took me nearly 30 mins after the checkin to get past the security gate.

An interesting thing happened. While I was in queue one of the security guys came & handed me a small scissor and asked me keep it in my pocket. He wanted to check if his guys were doing his job well. And guess what, the guard who frisked me missed the scissor. So I came out of the frisking area and handed the scissor to the supervisor and that was the start of a very lousy day for that guard. He got a verbal bashing like I've never heard before. All in all quite an event making the long wait to board the plane, a bit amusing. The flight was delayed by 40 mins only because passengers couldn't board the plane due to the serpentine queues.

Its really getting quite frustrating to travel by these low cost airlines for business. Its a different thing if you are on a holiday. The return flight was on Jet, and it was a breeze traveling. Jet is such a well oiled machine, all it needs is good maintenance. Having said that, I spotted a no smoking sign, right next to an ashtray in the loo. The ashtray is bigger than the signage.

Windows Live Writer

Truly something new I am trying. Checking out remote posting from Window Live Writer. Should be a good idea to blog when I am not connected to the Internet

Bye Bye

It was Deja Vu in the morning and after hitting the snooze button a few times, we put the alarm off and postponed the early morning beach trip to our next trip to Kumta. Since we would be leaving in the afternoon back to Bombay, we thought its better to laze around a bit more.

Roamed around the fields a bit more and lazed around for a while before we got down to packing up our things since we had a train to catch at 2. Holiday Special trains are usually late and so was this one. So instead of its scheduled departure at 2 pm, it finally left at 3:30.

The journey back was nice. Me, Mom & Snehal were chatting for quite a while and looking at the lovely views the Konkan Railway offers. Tea, Tapioca wafers, biscuits, Appy & Tomato Soup were consumed, not at once, but at regular intervals.

We played Kaleidoscope for a while and then got bored. The rain was a few hours late and I had to rush for office within a hour of reaching home.

Getting back to work after a holiday is always boring and more so if you have a mountain of emails to clear. :)

Chicken, Shell fish, Gadbad & Gotisoda

We were home all day long yesterday. There was a puja in the morning, an amazing spread for lunch which was promptly followed by a quick nap and then there was a tea party in the evening for close family & friends around town who were curious to meet the newly married couple, us :)

Woke up quite late and had a lazy breakfast and walked in the fields & gardens in the backyard looking at the various fruit trees around. There are close to 400 coconut trees and various other trees of mangoes, cashew, chickoo and many more. With 8 acres of fields around the house, it is a herculean task to look after the entire area. With 2 wells, one which is potable water & the other for irrigation, the water supply is self sufficient for the entire household.

We were invited for lunch at a family friends place. There was some great chicken curry, shell fish, and some other vegeterian dishes & we were quite focussed on the chicken. We overate a bit, actually Shenal pushed the envelope quite a bit (for which she paid a price in the night) and we were compelled to take a nap for a while.

After some tea we roamed around Kumta market area which is quite a hotbed of activity. We grabbed some "gadbad" and "goti-soda" at Shimla Cold Drinks. The gadbad was great and so was the goti-soda. The goti soda is an old way of bottling soda. A marble keeps the gas in place and uncorking the bottle means pushing the marble down to let the soda be poured. We also picked up liquid jaggery which goes very well with chapati & dosas.

We drove to another beach which was deserted and had a beautiful stretch of sand with huge waves coming in. We spent some time and were forced to rush towards the car as we saw a huge wall of rain approaching towards us from a distance.

After chatting till pretty late we slept hoping we would be able to wake up early to get to the beach once again.