Mumbai Chronicles: Second weekend

After staying in Bangalore for a couple of years and a year in Lucknow, those two months in kerela for my TCS training where we had ample encounters with huge water bodies seem like some distant (but good) memory..hence this time round I was suitably determined to make most of my stay in Mumbai. So when my good friend in Mumbai invited me over to juhu one evening to visit the chaupati there I jumped at the opportunity.. the joy was however shortlived..the beach was full of people and on top of that we were forewarned by my friend \ that we should not go into the water as many people come here early morning to finish their ablutions i.e. to relieve themselves.. so all we did was to walk on the sand cribbing about our college and making fun of each other’s internship..
That weekend however it was tough twiddling our thumbs in the hostel and we decided to make it to Alibaug atleast.. only me and another guy finally made it..rest of the gang decided to come by evening..we reached at 11am at the Gateway of India (dwarfed as it was by the sprawling Taj Mahal Hotel) and booked our catmaran tickets..we were already soaked to the skin with sweat and there was no reason for us not to buy AC tickets..after taking a few mandatory pictures from my brand new digicam (Canon A520) we boarded the catamaran and it was quickly on its way..Ok forget to mention Catmaran is a kind of boat that allows water to flow through it i.e. it is hollow in the middle and the two ends join only at the deck.
Sitting in the AC we realized that we missed the sea breeze which appeared all the more luring now and so off went out sipping our warmish seven ups and gazing with wonder at different ships passing us by.. finally after one hour and some pictures we reached mandwa gaon ( made famous by a well known amitabh bachhan movie) from where we boarded a bus which took us to alibaug in another 45 minutes..once we reached there we realized that the last catamaran went back at six and it was impossible to come back by then. Hence the first task for us was to get a hotel room for the night..alas our misfortune that we couldn’t find any place to stay..finally we got a place right in front of the beach but it was so dingy that I would refrain from saying any thing more about it except that it barely served our purpose and was reasonably cheap.
We were informed that we would be allowed the rooms only at 6 pm. The sea looked very inviting even in that heat so we just changed a bit and went to the beach. At 4 pm the sea was neither at high tide nor at low tide..so we were able to waddle in a lot of water and gain confidence..even though we had decided to return by 6 to get our room we decided to follow people more and more into deeper ocean until we realized that those people intend to keep walking in the water and reach a far off fort called fort Colaba. It took us some time to realize that we could actually walk the distance and we decided to go for it. It was a merry journey and once we reached the fort we had a great time. We got to the front part of the fort where the sea meets the fort but which was then tranquil and dry. All in all it seemed like some columbusian expedition. We returned back walking at the stroke of six thoroughly tired but the depressing nature of the room drove us back to the ocean.. again a few mandatory pics and oogling at babes and their antics.. none of our batch mates arrived (later we got to know that they had gone to another beach nearby). We had a silent dinner at a dingy south indian hotel.. one of the few things I have learnt from my stay in the south is that if one is not sure about what to eat then just order a meal..they cant screw up the meal more than what it is already.. My poor friend needed a drink but ended up vomiting it all out and that put paid to our hopes for the night and all we did for the rest of the evening was watch the high tide hitting the shores..finally at 12 when we had no recourse but to return back to our dingy room the owner was good enough to bestow us with a kachua chap which seemed very inadequate in protecting us from the fury of the sea mosquitoes.. the night was spent in agony trying to save our exposed skin and hoping for it to end as soon as possible..

With the first rays of light we packed our bags, looked at the inviting sea and then returned back to Mumbai in the afternoon.. we did swore that next time we do something of this kind we would plan everything and then slept heavily in our hostel rooms..