Camping at the Beach, Part 4 | Travelogue
Dragging the heavy luggage and water bottle, we reached the entrance of the beach where our car was parked. Anurag was gonna drive and since Amrita and Rutuja were in dry clothes, they sat in the car. I wasn't cleaned up, though I had worn dry clothes on top of my swimwear. Pratik, who was in dry set of clothes, walked with me for company. We were on our way to the cottage room, which was five minutes away from where our car was parked.
The night was dark, and there were dogs barking. I was a little tensed of the dogs because of what the policemen had told us about Kelwa's gang of deadly dogs. I was just hoping these were good dogs. Also, ever since I was bitten by a dog when I was on my degree college's Industrial Visit to Udaipur, I would say, I have a slight paranoia.
I was someone who would play with street dogs and not care about them being deadly or anything. But ever since this thin chap has bitten me, when I was absolutely ONLY standing, I would say, I have become someone who checks twice if a dog is following me.
Nevertheless, I was tensed while walking, though Pratik was next to me and there was a car with us. Pratik reassured me to not worry about the dogs. Pratik has been the best, most helpful, most caring brother, especially on trips.
Anurag was driving and suddenly they stopped, which indicated that they were confused about the route to the cottage. Pratik and I sat in the car too and then shortly, we saw cottage owner, in his shorts that touched his knee and a white cotton t-shirt, looking for us in distrust. His expressions depicted doubt towards us. But he was relieved after knowing that we did not fool him when we said we were gonna stay at his cottage.
He showed us the directions and we reached the empty space in front of it. Amrita muttered saying she hadn't imagined the rooms to be like this and Rutuja said it was a great house. Two dogs and a grown up puppy had followed our car and entered the empty space too. On that, the brown-furred pet dog came barking to shoo the strangers away. However, it turned out, they became friends.
I was psyched by this scene but later cooled down after the dogs started wagging tails and demanded some pampering from us. The owner opened the door of our room and directed us where what was. Anurag and Pratik set up both the tents again. We girls went in the room. I changed into dry clothes, Anurag showered, and Amrita and Rutuja started digging their bags. It was getting quite colder and I was regretting not packing a sweater (even though I had mentioned it in my To-Pack List). I borrowed a striped t-shirt from Anurag.
Amrita and Rutuja opened hakka noodles packets and the chhole puri Anurag had carried. Pratik joined them too. Until we reached the food, chhole puri was over--thanks to the overly hungry Rutuja and an equally quick-eater Amrita. I only had last few bites of chhole puri and the amazingly delicious Benares pickle Anurag had carried along. I also had hakka noodles to fill up the tummy.
Sitting by the campfire |
Rutuja was too tired and so she dozed off. Before that, she had ordered us to wake her up at midnight to celebrate my birthday. While she was sleeping, we started preparing for campfire. The dogs were still out, disturbing us and still demanding love. The fire was set, but wasn't as strong as it should have been. Since Rutuja was missing, I didn't enjoy the campfire.
Shortly, it was 11:45 pm and we decided to go to the beach to celebrate my birthday. We woke Rutuja up. I wore Anurag's yellow hoodie and asked Amrita to carry a bedsheet since even she hadn't carried any warm clothes. Rutuja was in a hoodie herself and Anurag and Pratik apparently weren't cold.
We reached the entrance of the beach, near the parking area, where we saw a group of 10 men. We thought of retreating and going somewhere else. Anurag said we should go to empty roads which had empty field adjacent to them. So we went ahead and coincidentally, we halted in the same place where we had halted in the noon for toilet break.
We took the car to the empty field and played songs on high volume via our car's Bluetooth. We were dancing and it was midnight. Closed ones started calling me up, whereas, the four people who were with me were getting impatient to hug me and wish me. After everyone had called, they hugged and wished me too. I was happy; finally, I was celebrating the midnight of my birthday outdoors. I danced, and since it was dark and I was not in a body-tight party dress, I danced wildly. In a while, observing that the energy was lowering, I told them to head back to the beach. We went back to beach and the men were no longer there; even their cars were gone.
Chilling by the beach at night |
We sat in a round structure on the beach and just talked about random things. Later, we played see-saw and it was so much fun! And then, we climbed up to the lifeguard's cabin and crumpled ourselves to fit on the short bench. We were discussing how the majestic waves were and how could the lifeguard save people from drowning, because the distance was so much in between the cabin and the deeper area of the sea. We were also counting the number of boats that were fishing.
Second meal inside the larger tent |
We went back to our tents/room. We laid the extra mattresses inside the tents and were hoping the owner does not figure that out. We were hungry, so we thought of finishing the two packets of hakka noodles that were left from our dinner and the parathas Amrita had carried along with Anurag's pickle. After clearing out the empty boxes and plastic bags, we played Uno. Then when it was around 3:00 am, we dozed off. The guys slept in smaller tent and the girls in the larger one. We had set alarm of 6:00 am as we had to vacant the room and leave for Mumbai.
Next morning, we all struggled to wake up, but thanks to Anurag, he tried hard to make sure we all were really up. We woke up at 6:30 am and then started dismantling the tents, getting ready, cleaning out the mess, while also envying the four dogs that were sleeping peacefully.
We didn't shower because there was no hot water. The cottage was new and hardly few people had stayed there before. We packed our bags, bade a goodbye to the dogs, and left for Mumbai.
Previous night, from the empty fields to the beach, while we were looking for directions, we had come across a board with Bhavangarh Fort written on it. We'd kept it in mind and had thought of visiting it early morning before heading back to Mumbai.
Recreation of the Dil Chahta Hai fort scene |
So we did go to this fort. There was more of mud and less of stones at this fort. We just went up, clicked few photographs, Amrita, Rutuja, and I celebrated our trio by recreating the Goa-fort-scene from Dil Chahta Hai movie. It was fun.
We rushed back to our car as Anurag had to go to his office at 1:00 pm. We drove really, really fast until he gave up reaching at 1:00 pm to his office. We breakfasted on wada pav and tea. Pratik had 4, Anurag, Amrita, and Rutuja had 3 each and I had 2 wada pavs.
We resumed our journey. Anurag dropped all of us home and then returned the car. It was a lovely experience...
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