Office trip to Holiday Inn, Goa: Day 3

Date: Monday, 2/25/2013

Location: Cavelossim, Goa

 

Day 3 began with a phone-call at 8 am from Kamal inviting me to come play volleyball. I had barely gotten 3 hours of sleep since the previous night. I was groggy all the way to the beach. We played volleyball till around 9:30. Everyone went to the pool after that. I took a detour and left went for the hotel's gym instead. The Holiday Inn gym isn't very well equipped. A couple of threadmills, exercise bikes and jogging machines. Some free weights and gym equipment. They don't have a gym instructor and exercising is at your own risk. Breakfast would finish by 10:30 which meant I didn't have the time for a full workout. I did a subset of the usual bunch. While I was there, I met Pratap, a guy fresh out of college who was in charge of the gym. He said his brother works in Pune so he'd been to places such as Shivajinagar. He told me that this was peak season for Russians to come visit Goa. Most of the book in advance for the next year as they leave. So there was always a predictable number of them swarming in every year. While the staff doesn't get any explicit Russian language training, many of them will learn it through books and the internet. Hailing from South Goa himself, he kept praising the natural beauty of Palolem beach.

The entrance of the Wharf.

The Mobor peninsula.

Goa - the few places in India where you'll find a McDowell's whisky on sale in a general store.

I had breakfast and then relaxed in my room for a while. Our checkout was at 11 a.m., but me and Kishore only checked out by 12:30. We relaxed on the beach for some more time. Lunch was at the Fisherman's Wharf, which was walking distance from the hotel. There are two Fisherman's Wharfs in India. This was one of them, and the other is in Bangalore. The Wharf in Goa is situated by the river Sal, giving a spectacular view of the peninsular region of Mobor.  They offer a good variety of local cuisine and are well known for their sea food. We had fish curry (king fish) with rice and crab. Our buses were set to arrive at 4 pm. We finished lunch by around 3:40 and walked back to the hotel. After dumping my stuff into to bus, I was quick to slouch into my seat. We stopped for dinner at the Red Chillies in Konkan, a local roadside restaurant. Food wasn't great and was expensive by Konkan standards. The bus arrived back at Pune at 3:40 a.m. the next morning.

Office trip to Holiday Inn, Goa: Day 2

Date: Sunday, 2/24/2013

Location: Cavelossim, Goa

On Sunday morning, after breakfast, we went by the beach for water sports. I stole the opportunity to click a lot of pics. Water sports consisted of a jet skiing, bump ride and a banana boat ride. The banana boat ride was the most interesting of the lot, where they take you out on a banana shaped boat and then drop you in the middle of the ocean. Must have been the deepest I've ever been at sea. I asked the water sports guy about the fuel efficiency of the jet ski. He claims that the ski can run for about an hour with 60 litres of fuel. That explained why a 1 minute jet-ski ride costs about 400 R.s. per head.

Breakfast with Shreya, Pooja and Kishore.

The water sport guy's dog.

Post lunch, I was chilling by the pool. In a few minutes, Gaurav invited me to go play lawn tennis with him, Dinesh and Dinesh's son, Ayur. After tennis, I was pretty exhausted. On my way back to freshen up in the room, I got a call to get a volleyball as a couple of people wanted to play. I went to the activity room to get one. The activity room had a wide variety of board games, sports equipment, consoles, books to choose from. There was enough in that one room to keep a person occupied for weeks. I quickly grabbed a volleyball and walked to the beach. Once there, it was difficult to resist the urge to play. So thats what I did. By the time we were done, it was past 7 pm.

Buffet at the Mardi Graz.

Cooking right off the stove.

There was a cocktail party organized at 8 pm at the banquet hall. Unlimited drinks and cocktail on the company. For entertainment, we had games and a live D.J. It wasn't until 11:30 pm that everyone actually went to have dinner. After dinner, we were by the beach till around 1:30 am. Aditya had already expressed interest in wanting to join me on an overnight photoshoot around the place with my tripod. We eventually got to it, and went around the pool and lawns, discussing photography and photographing. Aaditya, who had to drive back to Pune the next day left at around 3:15 am. I continued my expedition till around 4:30 a.m. I got back to my room and fell asleep effortlessly.

The pool at night.

A star laden sky.