I was thingking about it since we came back, but I had lots of work and was too busy to get any time to even start on it. Amruta had already done it, I thought I will surely do sometime but tonight when Madhur sent the link of his blog telling the story from his perspective, then I decided that I will also start it now...writing about one of the most exciting trip anyone of us has ever had... The Guhagar trip!!
It all started with the cancellation of our last plan, Daman trip was cancelled at last moments and everyone was upset about it, though I did not take active interest in that trip, but like everyone else I was feeling that we should go for another trip... After few weeks I had a talk with Gari and Akshay and they told me about this place, a small village with beautiful beaches, with very less crowd, which was hard to imagine especially after seeing beaches of Mumbai and even Goa. Anyways, they told me to keep the plan in stealth mode untill they are ready with some options of accomodations and other arrangements. After few days when Akshay came up with the options after consulting with Suhas and other people we started asking people. Slowly, people were taking interest in the trip even Anuj and Madhur agreed to come. Anuj, I think, was ready to go out of Mumbai for the first time ;) :P
So, finally after lots of dicussions total 12 people agreed to go, Me, Akshay, Gari, Lalitha, Kanwaljeet, Madhur, Anuj, Dhawal, Nikhil, Anchal, Amruta and even Nimesh (well he prefers staying at home and resting than wandering around at new places). And the date was finalized as 14-15th November.
We decided to collect money before the trip(kind of prepaid) so that no one would have to take the burden of spending from his pocket. And we started mail chains to tell everyone about the status of the trip and to ask for the money (which was the main purpose).
By start of November 2nd week, accomodation and taxi were taken care of by Akshay and Garima.
The only thing remaining was the train tickets, which we had to book in tatkal. We decided to go by Konkan Kanya to Chiplun on friday 13th (:O I just realised why our trip was so different!!! we started it on FRIDAY THE 13TH) and come back by Jan Shatabdi from Chiplun on 15th evening.
So we were all set in the mood for the trip by the start of 2nd week. The week started with some good and bad news. The good news was that Akshay had made booking for accomodation and transportation at Guhagar, and the bad news was that our trip was on the verge of cancellation...
The depression at the west coast of Maharshtra was developing into a tropical cyclone which meant that we could not go for the trip. I was thinking that God is playing with us, last time Daman trip and this time Guhagar trip both getting cancelled because of weird reasons (atleast I felt so)
Anyways, we proceeded as planned, we decided to book the tickets for 13th which we had to do on 11th morning, but this was one of the busiest routes on weekends because many people go to Goa by this train so we had to be fast for booking the tickets, for this I arranged "livemmetings" with Paaji and Gari and discussed with them on how to book tickets as fast as possible :D
But later on only me and Gari had to book the tickets, so we had to woke up at 6:30 in the morning to get ready and come to office for reservation which was quite hard for both of us, so we decided to call the other when anyone of us wakes up.
Thank God we were able to wake up and book the tickets for our journey to Chiplun. Now there was no turning back :), but as the journey date was approching, the cyclone named Phyan, was approching towards our destination: Guhagar... we were constantly keeping track of the situtation as parents of many of us wouldn't allow to go for the trip and we did not want that. Luckily, the cyclone became weak and finally ended soon after the landfall. And the reports were that it didn't impact that much. Ratnagiri(where we were going) and some other districts were some what affected. But the cyclone was ended. I even sent a report and satellite image to our mail chain so that everyone one would be relaxed. Now it was sure that we were going! :D
The next day Maddy and Gari went HyperCity and did lots n lots of shopping...all for our snacks :D
On the journey day there was one more task to finish for me and Garima, the return tickets...This time we were more confident that we will get the tickets as easily as the last time, but when we logged in we were welcomed by the standard message from Indian Railways "Service Unavailable", we tried many times but we were constantly getting this message only. Finally after trying for 8-10 mins I was able to get the proper data and finally was able to get the reservations for 6 ppl in my list, but Gari was still struggling with Indian Railways...only God and people sitting around(if any as it was 8 o'clock in the morning) her know how much she had cursed that site on that day. Finally the site worked for her but she still had to get the reservation for remaning six people, and the site was showing total remaning seats as 9, but she was not going to let it go so easily, she booked the tickets with electrifying speed. Finally all the tickets were booked!! We were really happy and wanted to shout and tell everyone that we are going!!!
But too much excitment is also not good for u, and I realized that quite later. In the excitment I did a serious mistake...letting Gari write a mail from my ID :( ... this mail started a chain reaction of mails which everyone knows as the "See u at Dadar" reaction :(
Some of us were not bothered about where we were going until 2-3 days before the trip, they were excited just by the fact that we were going for a trip together. But now everyone was ready for the trip. Most of us decided to leave the office by 6pm, Anuj came office with all his luggage so that he could leave for Dadar station from office directly. In the excitement I could barely work but I had to checkin my code before I leave the office, but I wouldn't be me if I did that :) I left the office without checking in the code and thought I will do it on Monday after coming back. I left the office at 7:30 pm, was feeling relaxed after the thrill in the office a few hours back...
Everything was going fine, I was working on my code when suddenly my desk phone rang, it was Anuj's call:
"Tune kuch dhundha kya?"
"Kya dhundha???"
"Oh!! Tujhe kuch nahi pata na?"
"Kya nahi pata?"
"Upar aaja jaldi se, batata hun..."
I immediately went upstairs to Anuj n Madhur's desk thinking what the hell went wrong now... Garima was also there, she was googling for "Guhagar Hotels", I was surprised seeing this, Madhur was standing behind her, he said: "Jiske yahan rehne waale the usne Guhagar aane se mana kar diya hai, bola ki 3-4 din se lights nahi hain, wo accomodation nahi dega..." It was literally like 'Pairon ke niche se jameen khisak gayi ho'. But Gari, Akshay (who was on sick leave) and Maddy were continously searching for other places for the stay and transportation. We tried MTDC and other places, finally Akshay was successful in negotiating with one person but the problem was that there was no electricity. He agreed to use generators for whole night and few hours in day. Our major concern was that the budget was going to be more than what we expected in worst case. We immidiately called everyone to meet in cafe, we told about the situation. No one was ready to cancel the trip now, we all agreed to pay more. phewwwww what a relief!! :)
So now I just wanted to get ready and reach Dadar asap, didn't want to get late at any cost...
