Sitting in the Railway station and having a simple dinner is an authentic Indian experience and Shoranur gave that to us. The train journey started as Solitons joined together chatting up, listening to “stories” and……. playing MAFIA. It was an amazing journey with lots of dance and hours of blackmail-worthy data collected on each Soliton. Night rolled into the day as we reached our destination from where we took a short bus ride to our resort. The journey matters as much as the destination – this could be understood if someone had witnessed the journey we Solitons had. A warm welcome awaited us in the ‘Paradise Village Beach Resort’ where we checked in and headed to the beach.

Dinner and DJ

Dressed up for dinner, we had our meals with everyone. What’s an Indian get-together without dance and music? Dancing started as the dinner ended. For around two hours as we kept dancing, the circle got larger as more Solitons joined. The enthusiasm was so high that even a couple of tourists joined us in dancing to the Tamil beats. P.S. If someone’s suffering from insomnia, prescribe them this day’s activities. Sleep came easily as we looked forward to another day.

As the boat moved farther from the shore, we saw the dolphins..! We anchored and a few of us dared to take a dip in the sea with the snorkeling kits. Floating on the surface as you look into the depths of the ocean; it makes you feel tiny and was a unique experience. Bonus: Some of us got to experience cuts from sharp corals and jellyfish stings. Then came fishing which tested our patience and we even caught a few small fish.

Day 3 Old Goa – Church hopping, Street Shopping, lazing around …

A trip to Goa would be incomplete without visiting it’s old churches, forts and strolling around. So, we stopped in to visit the famous ‘Basilica of Bom Jesus’. We had enough time to explore the church grounds, nearby museum, and the huge bazaar. Lazing around in the Goan sun and relaxing in the grass grounds of the basilica makes for many memories & much happiness :). Don’t forget the sunscreen – a lot of Solitons learnt it the hard way. Lunch at a Tamil hotel was great and we started to Madgaon Station- few creative Solitons suggested that the name “Mad-Gaon” would have been better. The return journey started as we said goodbye to Goa and started for Shoranur. “Go, Goa, Gone”. The mangrove forests, shorelines, and tunnels slowly passed by as the return journey started.