Goa Trip

Saanvi enjoying on the Varca Beach

The trip to Goa was brewing on our minds from a long time. The thought of this trip had come up during our trip to Pondicherry. I had tentatively booked club Mahindra, Varca beach around 4 months in advance. The Vijapur and Keerangi families left Bangalore on the evening of 16th Feb at around 4:00 PM. Coincidentally, Manoj Roshan and family from HMWC were also driving to Goa on the with a similar driving itinerary like ours. I have frequently driven from Bangalore to Hubli. Most of the times we left early in the morning. This was late afternoon and traffic was more as expected . We stopped at coffee day at Dobaspet and another couple of times for break and reached hubli at around 9:00 PM.

We all checked in at Ananth Residency at Hubli. We have stayed here couple of times and it is pretty good. For anyone driving down to Goa from Bangalore this plan of reaching Hubli on previous evening would work out very well. You will be still fresh when you reach Goa and you will reach there in time for lunch thus adding another day in Goa.








Next day we left Hubli after having breakfast and hit NH17. This is my most favourite road, it is here that I have tested top speeds of M800 and RX135 in my younger days, would never dare to do it today. I had driven on this road for many years when we were in Sirsi. Road is curvy and has nice surface with minimal traffic.

We took couple of breaks for snaps and snacks.

Thanks to Cruze whole Journey to and fro from Bangalore to Goa was wonderful.

Got a call from my friend Manju, he had driven from Belgaum to Goa and we decided to meet for lunch.

Ishu and Pappa enjoying on Varca beach.

We decided to check in after lunch and went straight to Colva beach, caught up with Manju, Jyoti and Udayan. Had lunch at a nice place called Zeebobs.

After the lunch we went back to Varca and checked in at Club Mahindra. We had come here in 2008 when Saanvi was 4 years old. It is a nice resort and we had quite liked it. It took another 15 - 20 mins to complete the checkin process and we wasted no time.  We quickly got ready and headed for the beach. Manju and Jyoti also joined us but unfortunately we forgot to take any snaps with them.We had pretty good time at the beach. We all went deeper and enjoyed the waves hitting and pushing us. The Goan beaches are a lot better than those of pondicherry.  Ishaan and Saanvi had gala time with the waves, Ishaan wanted to go further and further inside. I took him till he was drenched. He and saanvi both enjoyed the waves as well as playing in the sand. Saanvi could play alone although I had too keep warning her not to go further. We had fun till the sunset and the lifeguard blew the whistle asking us to leave.

We went back to our rooms freshened up and had some snacks and planned for dinner. We had dinner at a seaside shack on Colva beach. There were many options, some had laid out dinner tables with candle lights on the beach and some had loud music. We settled for a quieter one and had a nice dinner. By this time we were pretty tired, returned to the resort and hit the bed.

Ishu's pose near swimming pool in the resort.

Saanvi relaxing near another pool.

Got up early next morning, plan for the day was to visit Archu's cousin in Mapusa for breakfast, visit Baga beach for the adventure activities and some shopping .

There was heavy traffic from Madagaon to Mapusa. GPS is a must while visiting Goa it was a blessing for us. We went to Baga beach after the breakfast. We parked our car and strolled towards the beach. Bought some things from the shops and we headed towards the beach.

Beach was crowded, this beach is strictly for the watersports there is no place for anything else. We got a good deal for watersports courtesy Dipti (Jyoti's sister). Camera / mobiles were left back so no snaps here. We experienced  parasailing, water scooter, banana boat  and bumpy ride. Parasailing and waterscooter were like trailers they ended before we started to enjoy, shuru hote hi khatam ho gaya. Banana boat ride was interesting as they made us fall in the sea floating on life jackets. Archana was pretty scared, we again fell down couple of times trying to climb up. After thast we relaxed for some time and returned to resort.

Naughty Ishaan and Vihaan.

There was no particular plan for the third day, we went to beach in the morning and evening, played in the resort pool, did some shopping, had heavy buffet lunch at the resort and dozed off.

Relaxed day at the resort

Rakesh and Jyoti.

Buffet @ Club Mahindra, my favourite part :).

Retro snap - once upon a time in Goa

Sunset at Varca 

Kids had another fun filled day at beach and pool. We were supposed to return back to Bangalore the next day. Next day also was our dear Ishaan's second birthday.We had got Ishaan a nice T-shirt with a big corvette on it. Last year his birthday was celebrated with lot of fanfare, here is the Link. This year it was going to be a comparatively simple affair.

We had heavy buffet breakfast, again my fav part, I really like buffets @ CM  and checked out at around 10 AM. It will be a long drive back to Bangalore.

I am 2 years old today

See you again.. next year

We stopped near karwar for some snaps, water here has a nice greenish colour.

We need to visit Devbagh island near karwar sometime. May be on our next Goa trip.

We stopped at Hubli for lunch. Chennabasanna had come with a nice cake for Ishaan for his Birthday.

We left Hubli after lunch. I slept on the back seat, Rakesh was driving. It was first time I was enjoying backseat in any car after a long time. Rakesh enjoyed the drive and touched some unmentionable speeds. As we crossed Tumkur, I took the drivers seat. The traffic builds up here and it is crazy. People start racing each other, no rules. Similar to mysore road traffic. We reached home for dinner, thanks to NICE road again. Thus another memorable trip came to an end. We had great company, weather was good, tasted variety of food and the drive was fantastic. Let us start planning the next trip. As far as I can see it will be post monsoon trip to western ghats.