A day to Chandigarh: duration 19 hours. time spent in travelling: 12 hours
Inception of plan:11 p.m February 9, 2007
Execution : 4 a.m February 10, 2007
Time taken for the same : 5 hours including 3 hours of sleep
Comment: Boy! thats fast! After all sardar is known to do things quickly except for eating. :)

It all started when Harpreet (the omnipresent sardar you just cant miss in Indus!) messaged me out of nowhere "Chalo Chandigarh chalein". And despite the innumerable holidays which were taken by me the previous month-the count is at 7 owing to the boredoom at work and offcourse my brother' s marriage, i was forced into saying a yes. The reason being again boredom at work and a need to fill up my senses. So the initial plan of 4 people saw the day of light with 2 of us on the bike towards the bus stand at 4 in the morning. Considering that the message arrived at 11 p.m, this was pretty quick for a trip :) But then thats the way i love it.

On the bus and that demon called sleep caught us quickly. So i would say it was a back breaking sleepy journey of 5 hours. I could have been caught thinking aloud "Sleep sleep go away, come again another day..little sid wants to enjoy the journey." But it didn't budge. Cutting the long story short, we reached Chandigarh at 10:30 am. And then another bus to Punjab University where Harpreeet had some work of approx 45 mins (Now i did believe him on that! How stupid of me!)
Beautiful weather, lovely breeze and above all the college atmosphere were enough to keep me engaged even when the best thing we did throughout the day was roaming around the campus to get a work as trivial as submitting an application. And you could see that a trivial submission of form can take you ages in the Government Raj. The form is available at place A, submit the form in place B, get it attested in place C, submit it in place D and A, B, C, D have no relation what so ever in terms of distance with each one as far apart as possible from the other. I was just wondering the futility of such processes. Weren't the processes meant to simplify and make things faster? And ding dong! a business idea stems which can be talked about in the future blogs! For now lets concentrate in this trip. So a job which was approximated to be completed in 45 mins took 5 hrs and the est part is that you are turned down after that just because a signature was missing. So the purpose of visit for Sardar was not at all served. Frustrated as he was, i was oblivous to all, enjoying my way, enjoying the mindless and the purposelessness of the stroll, the escape from the normal routine and the beautiful breeze which was enough to bring a smile on my face. So here is sardar all vexed and here i am, happier than the happiest. :) The day begins to close without a trace of progress for sardar and a mind boggling growth in my content levels and satisfaftion graphs. So we jsut leave the damn work with one of her cute friends who takes the onus of doing it for sardar. And the next stop is : Lake sukhaya Chandigarh. Boating and channa garam zor go really well and a cool weather adds feathers to the cap. 1 hour of sitting in the boat without uttering words of wisdom/foolishness.
The day quickly closes with us leaving again for the bus stand and being on hte bus by 6:00 and again comes the back breaking journey with lots of sleep added to it.
The result of this 19 hour day with 12 hours of journey is a tired but very much satisfied me. Though i had been to chandigarh quite a number of times earlier, the freedom and the purposelessness of this trip toghether with its unplanned nature and doing nothing made this one worth. Words of wisdom: Don't over plan your trips, go on trips impulsively and enjoy the small small things and you will surely be a travel buff!

Glossary

sid: aka siddharth jain the one who takes the moral, legal, verbal responsibility of this piece of writing. All rights reserved
sardar: a species which is very very rare in the whole world. This species is generally found wide awake at unearthly hours. It stays miles away from water and is too witty to handle. words of caution: don't open your mouth without being permitted cos then you are susceptible to the volly of illogically logical rhetorics which are impossible to handle owing to the sheer logic of the illogic.

Polalam-A goan retreat

Mention the name of Goa and there is unusual excitement in the people around you!The ultimate Honeymoon,Holiday,Travel destination Goa has indeed found its way amongst the most preferred Holiday destinations in the country and has a following amongst Indians and foreigners alike.Infact its amongst the cumpulsive new year's destinations and why not..with all the beaches,free flowing bear and flesh(you bet!) to be spotted,it surely deserves that spot.

Not that i am denying it its top spot,indeed even i did enjoy it in my first visit to Goa with all the bike riding(pillion though!:) ) and beautiful beaches,still i thought there was something missing.The calm beaches,the escape from over polluted and populated city life was what i wanted and Goa failed to titilate me in those aspects.

And here comes Polalam,a virtually unknown paradise!
Polalam strictly is situated in Goa but far removed from the Goa we all know.It is a 4 hour journey( by train ) from NITK and the nearest station is Cancon.We decided about the trip at around 1:00 pm in the afternoon and Bingo!we were on the station at 2:30.Now thats why all unplanned trips are great.Its beacuse you don't have any expectations from the trip and you tend to enjoy every moment then. Me Som and Assy in the general compartment of the train

We enjoyed even the Train journey a lot with all the guuys in full form to crack the PJs and stuff!(Now thats what we did throughout 4 yrs of our college life!)
In any case,coming back to the trip.We reached Cancon at around 9 at night.From there it a 10 minuted auto ride.

Polalem is a small beach but undeniably an awesome one.One of hte key features out here is the bamboo huts which are built on the beach itself.These one room huts are availabe at as low as 150 INR.The first thing you see and hear in the morning is the beach and i can tell you it is really refreshing to wake up with the soothing music of sea waves.
Since we were quite late, the immmediate concern was a sumptous meal which was more than sumptuous with the beach in the backdrop and the candle light on the table.In other words, it was nothing short of a romantic candle light dinner.Even the normal lime juice seemed like the best drink we had.Though a little bit over priced but still the experience the experience is just awesome.
The beach is spotlessly clean given the very few tourists who visit it and that too mostly foreigners. Spotlessly clean Beach of Polalem

And those who are looking for some beautiful flesh, its all here given the obsession of the gurls to bare it all in such an exquisite environment.:)In any case,after the heavy dinner we all were done in for the day and just dozed off. Candle Light Dinner at Polalem Beach.Me and Som not in the pic are Assy,Ush and Tush

The morning was great...To watch the sun rise and then having a great breakfast on the beach.The restauranters are a bit rude to Indian customers beacuse they are used to the heavy tips from the westerners but this hardly matters to the college grads like us.We are used to all this.After the breakfast we tried our hands at a game of volleyball and needless to say two of the players were useless(they were girls!) still had fun diving like crazy on the fine sands of polalem.

And then the waters!just the right temprature and a shallow beach is a deadly combination0 which would just want you to go on and on. Lazing rite away in the morning!What a great day to start your day!

Swimming against the waves is a hell of an experience and i did try my hands at it but was put off by the image of a lurking shark in the depth! :) so much for the fear!Splashed, dived in the waters for hours.The waves kust picking you up and throwing you far away.Trying to be afloat over a wave...The words are less to describe the experience.
And when we got out of the water all tired and worked out,iu assure you it was worth it.Enough to make some of the ppl back in college jealous.Time for us to wrap up!Though it was a short tour,(infact too short given our engagements with the approacing final sems!) it was just the right trip which i would indeed remember for life.Its not that this was the first time we had been on the beach but i guess it was because of the fact that it was so very unplanned and unexpected.And thats when we tend to enjoy the most when we don have any expectations from anything.Just living the moment!In any case thanks to Assy cos if it was not for his Bday we would have never thought of taking the pains of coming here.I owe this one to you assy! :) Having Dinner after the exhaustive ordeal in the waters!

Hey what say!Lets have another trip when we meet for the Convocation..Come on we can afford some leaves yaar.All you guys,Thnk about it! ;)

Auf WiederZehn!