It was a common consensus that the three of us had arrived at, we needed to get out of town, and the sooner the better! Be it the cumulative effect of one too many "wasted weekends", as Amu and Aakanksha would probably put it, or just the maddening mundane little cycle that i was caught up in; whatever be the motivation, the bottomline was, we didn't know HOW we would go, we didn't care WHERE we would stay, we weren't too particular about where we would go either! "I need to get out of this city!", Aakanksha, (having spent almost 8 long months in the city!) said to me over Gin and tonic. And i'm guessing my lukewarm response kind of got to her, for she gave the most motivational speech that i've heard of late. True i don't remember most of it, but one little bit that really got to me was, "You need to stop getting so DOMESTICATED! We need to make our Twenties memorable!" That was the moment! There were loads of loose ends, but In for a penny, In for a pound, we were!
All of this was on Jan 11th. I remember the date for my own reasons. But getting bad news at work, getting additional work, and coming home to dodge my folks' endless volley of questions about work, convinced me beyond doubt that Aakanksha was right. We decided we needed a "Sun, Sand and Sea" kind of vacation. So our destination was going to be Gokarna. She asked me if Amu could join us. The more the merrier, and with Amu in the picture, it's as merry as merry gets! Mind you, up until the 20th of Jan 2012 (the day we embarked on our trip), Amu and i had never officially met and had only heard about each other constantly, probably since 2003!(9th grade).
Amu, Aakanksha and i met on the 15th of Jan (on gtalk) and i booked the round trip tickets to Gokarna. It was finally happening! This was about my only contribution in planning anything for this trip. Book the tickets and find out the must-sees of Gokarna from my Well Traveled friend Neha Bajaj, who had well, traveled to Gokarna recently! Amu and Aakanksha did the homework as far as accommodation etc went.
As the days crawled by, our excitement kept mounting. I had postponed informing my parents about my weekend away for a while now.At the end, i must say i managed it quite discreetly,"Thanks mom! Dinner was delicious! By the way, i'll be back on Monday". Phew! Time to pack!
Sunscreen and shades- check!
Shorts and tees- check!
Lip-gloss and eyeliner-check!
Penknife and Pepper spray- check!
Finally it was Friday the 20th! Had the bus to catch at 2105 hours. 7pm sharp i sprung to my feet and picked up my bag. Before i could exit, my PM (who to be honest is quite an understanding and accommodating person), asked if i could work the next day (Saturday) as we had a crucial deadline right around the corner. I'm rarely asked to work on weekends, but the timing was terrible. I smiled shamelessly and announced that i was heading out of town.
I headed to Aakanksha's place. We met Amu directly at the bus station as planned. The moment we met, Aakanksha and Amu exploded into a series of "WooHoos!!!" and "Yayyyyyy!!!". To be really honest, i was a little embarrassed! Not because they were woo-hoo-ing out loud at a bus station full of startled and amused people, but because i couldn't match up to their level of excitement. I felt like the sober man at an open bar! (Though i do like to believe, by the end of this weekend, it all changed). It was already 9pm and we needed to get to our bus quick. We found it easily enough. Apparently after the "Woah! We are going to Gokarna!", every bus conductor at the bus bay knew which bus to direct us towards.
We boarded the bus in single file, with Aakanksha (clearly the most excited one) at the head and i (the one who needed some antidepressants) at the tail. I took out the bus ticket and passed it along. Aakanksha handed it to the bus driver. There seemed to be some problem. The seat that were assigned to us already had occupants. The conductor seemed puzzled, as both the tickets (ours and the other occupants') seemed authentic. As we were three girls traveling alone, and the previous occupants were ladies as well, the conductor was in a dilemma! At this point i had an epiphany, and i realized i had given the conductor the return ticket by mistake. i hastily passed the "CORRECT" ticket to Amu, who handed it to Aakanksha. Aakanksha put on her puppiest of puppy faces (Amu and i sensibly cowered behind her) and handed the correct ticket to the conductor who by now was about as pleasant as we were prepared! In a matter of seconds he tossed the ticket back at us, and told three of us to GET OFF the bus! We were shocked and obviously protested. "But we have the ticket!" we said confidently! The conductor smirked impatiently, grabbed the ticket from our hands, etched something across it and handed it back saying ,"What ticket! check the date!". And sure enough, he had underlined the date of departure "15th Jan 2012!"
All of this was on Jan 11th. I remember the date for my own reasons. But getting bad news at work, getting additional work, and coming home to dodge my folks' endless volley of questions about work, convinced me beyond doubt that Aakanksha was right. We decided we needed a "Sun, Sand and Sea" kind of vacation. So our destination was going to be Gokarna. She asked me if Amu could join us. The more the merrier, and with Amu in the picture, it's as merry as merry gets! Mind you, up until the 20th of Jan 2012 (the day we embarked on our trip), Amu and i had never officially met and had only heard about each other constantly, probably since 2003!(9th grade).
Amu, Aakanksha and i met on the 15th of Jan (on gtalk) and i booked the round trip tickets to Gokarna. It was finally happening! This was about my only contribution in planning anything for this trip. Book the tickets and find out the must-sees of Gokarna from my Well Traveled friend Neha Bajaj, who had well, traveled to Gokarna recently! Amu and Aakanksha did the homework as far as accommodation etc went.
As the days crawled by, our excitement kept mounting. I had postponed informing my parents about my weekend away for a while now.At the end, i must say i managed it quite discreetly,"Thanks mom! Dinner was delicious! By the way, i'll be back on Monday". Phew! Time to pack!
Sunscreen and shades- check!
Shorts and tees- check!
Lip-gloss and eyeliner-check!
Penknife and Pepper spray- check!
Finally it was Friday the 20th! Had the bus to catch at 2105 hours. 7pm sharp i sprung to my feet and picked up my bag. Before i could exit, my PM (who to be honest is quite an understanding and accommodating person), asked if i could work the next day (Saturday) as we had a crucial deadline right around the corner. I'm rarely asked to work on weekends, but the timing was terrible. I smiled shamelessly and announced that i was heading out of town.
I headed to Aakanksha's place. We met Amu directly at the bus station as planned. The moment we met, Aakanksha and Amu exploded into a series of "WooHoos!!!" and "Yayyyyyy!!!". To be really honest, i was a little embarrassed! Not because they were woo-hoo-ing out loud at a bus station full of startled and amused people, but because i couldn't match up to their level of excitement. I felt like the sober man at an open bar! (Though i do like to believe, by the end of this weekend, it all changed). It was already 9pm and we needed to get to our bus quick. We found it easily enough. Apparently after the "Woah! We are going to Gokarna!", every bus conductor at the bus bay knew which bus to direct us towards.
We boarded the bus in single file, with Aakanksha (clearly the most excited one) at the head and i (the one who needed some antidepressants) at the tail. I took out the bus ticket and passed it along. Aakanksha handed it to the bus driver. There seemed to be some problem. The seat that were assigned to us already had occupants. The conductor seemed puzzled, as both the tickets (ours and the other occupants') seemed authentic. As we were three girls traveling alone, and the previous occupants were ladies as well, the conductor was in a dilemma! At this point i had an epiphany, and i realized i had given the conductor the return ticket by mistake. i hastily passed the "CORRECT" ticket to Amu, who handed it to Aakanksha. Aakanksha put on her puppiest of puppy faces (Amu and i sensibly cowered behind her) and handed the correct ticket to the conductor who by now was about as pleasant as we were prepared! In a matter of seconds he tossed the ticket back at us, and told three of us to GET OFF the bus! We were shocked and obviously protested. "But we have the ticket!" we said confidently! The conductor smirked impatiently, grabbed the ticket from our hands, etched something across it and handed it back saying ,"What ticket! check the date!". And sure enough, he had underlined the date of departure "15th Jan 2012!"
We de-boarded confused and a bewildered. I went into denial! "It's not possible! i couldn't have been stupid enough to do that!! ". Within seconds it became obvious that i had clearly underestimated myself. There was no time to waste! We couldn't just go back home! Before she knew it, Aakanksha was forced (by us) to ask the vexed bus conductor if we could buy fresh tickets. His answer was short and simple. "No". So there we were, three girls all packed for the beach at the bus station with no bus ticket. We agreed to take a bus anywhere! We were willing to go trekking(in our beach friendly attire) if need be! On inquiring we discovered that the bus parked alongside 'Our Bus' seemed to be heading in the same direction as Gokarna, though not to Gokarna directly. The conductor of this bus told us the following, in his rustic, heavily accented english,"Humm...Gokarna...bengalooru...Sagarrr...umm...whunn-ha-ver....Gokarna" . We got him to repeat this, and once we decrypted the message we went back to "Woo Hoo" mode. So that was the plan. We would take this new (shoddy) bus till "Sagara" and from there we'd catch a bus to Gokarna that was one hour away! What luck! So we hopped on, full of excitement! And i realized what an impeccable first impression i must have made with my ticket mess up, on dear Amu who did not hesitate to pull my leg! We must've amused the conductor of this bus to quite an extent as well. Aakanksha and i couldn't quite digest the fact the our luck could be this good. So we "Excuse me Sir"-ed him at least three times to reconfirm the the Sagara-(1 hour) Gokarna plan. The row of engineering college boys sitting right in front of us were also quite intrigued. At one point, one of them (possibly on a dare) turned around and put on his version of a stud smile and asked us "Excuse me, where are you girls heading?". Aakanksha exploded in laughter (as always) and i had "Are you kidding me kiddo" face on. Amu, in all her MBA grad confidence replied, "This bus is going to Sagara. That's where we are heading. Where are you heading." Possibly a little intimidated they essentially left us alone for the rest of the night and busied themselves in bitching about their various engineering projects and how painful they are. And out of the three of us, only i could feel their pain!
We had the abominable last row to ourselves. This didn't prevent Amu from dozing off in a matter of minutes. Aakanksha and i on the other hand sat awake on extreme ends, at the window seats. For those of us awake, the bus ride was terrible! Like the meanest roller-coaster at nausea-land.Not sure how, but some how we got through the night and by 5:30 am Saturday morning we were at Sagara. Aakanksha and i crawled out begging for caffeine. Amu of course had a smile on her face and a bounce in her step. The conductor of our bus informed the owner of the little tea shop at the Sagara bus station to direct us to the bus to Gokarna once it arrives. We ordered 5 cups of coffee (Aakanksha and i needed the extra ones) and were informed by the tea shop owner in the same accent "Wohnn ha-ver...bus will come...then wohnn ha-ver". And sure enough, after Waiting for 1 hour at the tea shop the bus arrived and the shop owner let us know. We paid him, thanked him and "Woo-Hoo"-ed as we hopped onto the bus. Aakanksha asked for 3 tickets to Gokarna.
And this is when we got the shock of our lives. The conductor told us "Gokarna..No Bus...Wuhnn..Haver.. ...Wuhnn Ha-ver Kumpta...Kumpta Gokarna". And i have no idea what this man just said. But i understood "Gokarna No Bus". And i got off. Meanwhile, fortunately for us, the coffee was really doing wonders for Aakanksha who managed to understand what this man had just said! So after some deliberation we decided to go for the only option we had. Take this bus. And so our new plan was:
- Bangalore to Sagara which we had already done in roughly 8 hours.
- Now this bus was to take us to "HONAVAR" in 3hours.
- From "HONAVAR" we would get a bus to "KUMPTA" (which Aakanksha knew was a place considering technically she belongs to the place! what luck!) that would take 1 hour.
- And from "KUMPTA" we'd get our first direct bus to "GOKARNA" which was some 25 kilometers away.
We considered walking from the Gokarna bus station to Om Beach (where we intended to find a decent place 2 stay), but Amu talked us out of it (God bless her!) and we took an auto rickshaw, after much haggling. It was some 8Km instead of the 2Km which the bus conductor had told (why would you do that old man!). And finally we were there!
Next task, Get a room! We all had our priorities. Aakanksha wanted a shack close to the beach, i wanted a safe place with an attached bathroom, Amu was looking for a cost effective option. In the end we got a little cottage for 900 Rs a night at Cafe Namaste(The Leopold and The Britto's of Gokarna) with attached bathroom (Woo-Hoo!). Finally, vacation started! Time to hit the beach!
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| Yes that's me with the ticket! |
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| Yayy! Finally we are out of bangalore! |
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| What! you guys didn't sleep? |
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| Will work for coffee! |
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| And this is the 2 of them on each of our 5 bus rides |
