A Journey to Goa (गोवा यात्रा)

Am not a professional writer or a frequent blogger, although at times I do feel to write about my journeys or thoughts or maybe about people I admire.

This is one of the journey I would love to talk about. It's been with my family and also it's about one of the famous tourist spot around the world, a well known name, Goa.

In 2006, I was working in Penang, Malaysia. My family members planned a trip to Goa (from Delhi) and asked me if I would like to join them on this trip, which I accepted without any second thought. At that time I was single or should I say engaged.. oh yes, I was engaged and my fiancee was there at some place between my journey destinations, somewhere between Mumbai to Goa.

So, the day reached, time to catch my flight from Kuala Lumpur which means I have to manage to reach KL(Kuala Lumpur), as I couldn't secure a ticket from Penang to KL. I reached to Bus Stand, luckily got a ticket to KL. I bought plenty of phone cards and planned to talk to my fiancee all the way to KL(5+ hours of journey). So the fun started from the first minute itself as the bus destined to KL started. Oops.. what a fat man was sleeping on the seat beside me. But who cares, what I had on my mind was a few moments that I might get to see my fiancee on this trip. And the talks were on and on..

I reached KL and I didn't slept even for a minute on the way. And as soon as I reached at the airport, I started feeling sleepy and I was afraid as if I went to sleep, I might miss my flight. And she helped me here, gave me a call at the right time to wake me up. All the way to Mumbai, I had thoughts about her alongwith my family members whom with I was going to spend my holidays luckily.

From last 5-6 years, I think we never gathered when each and every member of family were there. It was altogether a different feeling to imagine all of my family members, that too totally free to spend some time only for each other from their busiest of schedules. All in all, those were the moments giving me the happiest time ever in my life.

I started from KL and reached Mumbai, landed at about 2:00 o'clock in the morning. Came out of the airport and now I have to plan for my further journey. I enquired about different airlines, but as it was the peak season, there were no seats available in the morning flights. So the only options available were either by road or by train. The total traveling time to Goa from Mumbai by road was told as approx 12 hours and by train it's almost 7 hours. So I planned to go by train and reached railway station.

It's long time that I had traveled in a train. The only ticket I could get was of IInd class. But I was happy that at last I had managed to get a place to travel. The train was supposed to start at 7:00 AM in the morning. I reached to platform and wooaahhh.. such a crowd, so many people. I can imagine what it will be like for a few European people, who were around that place to catch there seat. It must be a scene for them to capture(a few did so), as they hardly got to see such a gathering in there lifetime.

Not enough seats were available for such a huge waiting crowd. Those which were available, were already captured by local station people/beggars/tea-vendor's customers. All in all, it was a place to give you a real image of India, which normally remains invisible to our high profile politicians.