How would you define an ideal saturday evening ? lots of work during the week that just ended, a nice light movie/a rock show/dance to the tunes of a DJ, booze, a nice dinner, peaceful sleep till 11 the next day ?
If thats your idea of a saturday evening - picture this - vast blue ocean, surrounded by soft sand, cool breeze blowing, a mix of cold and hot ocean water, next, a vada pav by the beach, hot tea, then alone, secluded between two tall palms, in a swinging chair, listening to the chirping of the rarest birds. Aint that worth living for ?
It was a company sponsored trip to the Akshi beach near Alibaug. We had hardly expected such overwhelming response for the trip ! It was 70 people total for the trip, we all set out at 6 in the morning, only to wait an hour at the office for the driver maharaj to show up. On the way, we had to deal with the rarest of the incidents ! The tyre punctured. Nevertheless, we made nice use of the time at hand by playing petrolpump-volleyball.
After the tyre was fixed, it was the driver, he was so sure about the destination that he just kept ignoring all our directions and brought us right to the alibaug beach. It was after this, that we set out for akshi. This ate up another hour.
Finally, we reached the Akshi beach. The route to this beach was typical kokan, surrounded all around by palm, hutments, "homes" and not "houses" which everyone would like to own someday !
We had another session of volley ball at the beachside. By this time, the rats in our stomachs, had also started to play volley ball. We had no idea that the seafood lunch would be so good that even the Taj couldnt equal it. The fresh surmai's taste still lingers in my mouth.
After this, we all went to the beach for the cricket-baseball tournament. I led my side to a defeat ! Which I am very proud of. I got some more time to spend in the waters ! Nevertheless, the tournament was quite exciting, well organized, nicely umpired, and easily finised. For, I got to know later that Praveen hit 3 sixes in 3 balls to finish off the tournament.
It was after all this that the best time of the trip started. It is not everday that you get to see the shining orange ball dip in the water, by which side you are playing volleyball, frisbee and catch-catch by a tennis ball - all in the sea ! We all even competed on who can hold his breath under water which I gracefully won !
We then bade good bye to the ocean and the beach with a promise to return. When we came back to the so-called-resort, it was the long queue in front of the bathrooms, waiting for us. Some how managed to get some freshwater on us, got fresh, had hot vadapav, hot tea, found the swinging suspension between two nice long palms and dozed off, dozed off listening to the hinning of the mosquitoes and chrirping of the birds. I can bet - no other relaxation is such soul refreshening as this.
After this, we got our bottles filled with sol-kadhi, i had one last gajar-halwa, then we left the serene environment of the beach, back to the buses. While heading back, had makke di roti, sarson da saag, kharvas, iced tea-peach flavour, orange juice as dinner. We celebrated nanhi-aparajita's birthday, after which we headed back to pune.
The driver was a "dude" - took us a ride to the Alibaug beach when we didnt want it, assumed all directions, brushed the bus against the toll post, refused to get the bus from inside the city at 12 in the night, when there was no traffic at all, just because the bus owner wanted the bus to ply on the express road.
Nonetheless, the trip was worth going. As a proof, the day after, I slept the whole day, with a sore throat and the whole body pained wherever touched !
