I don't remember exactly where the idea of this trip originated. After the Tawang drive last year, we tried putting together a trip again, this time with Parul. As it would happen, not many thought of that as an all boys trip (actually that part isn't exactly bad, is it?), and it never materialized. Somewhere from the remnant of that conversation, Pawan (yea, it seems like we are stuck with each other) and I figured we would go for a driving trip to Konkan coast. Somewhere it got converted to west coast drive.

And there we started finding our recruits . By now I guess I and Pawan know the dna of this, so all we needed to do was to ping a couple of friends. I called ashish - I don't know if I was just pulling his leg fully sure that he wouldn't go - and he proposed to revert. Curiously he came back with a yes, and Parul continued to bet he wouldn't finally land up - she seemed more confident of Shilpi than I was of Ashish.

Pawan caught hold of Ameet, his IIMC batchmate. I guess we like having new people around on these trips. I remember I and Pawan asking each other is the respective recruits were "theek", and a nod sealed it.

And then the inevitable happened! Mails flying around about what the itinerary and hotel bookings. Breathe deep. I let the mails go unanswered. Asked Pawan "banda theek hai na"? "Nahin hai to ho jayega". The conversation died. Ameet would arrange a car, and that's all we need.


Except that a couple of weeks before the trip Ameet reverted that a self-drive wasn't available, and we would have a driver who hopefully would let us drive . Choose between a gypsy and innova... Choose! Give me a break - can you imagine convincing people for a gypsy, even after someone titled that thread znmd trip! BTW, I don't like that name - templatizes it.

So I decided to do some background work to find a self drive. Called friends, and despite best effort, didn't look like we were making progress. Then it struck. Got a spam mail one morning mentioning taxiguide.in - saw that they could provide car with driver. Asked my admin to check if they would let us drive."we normally don't allow it, but I know Alok so we will arrange" came the response. Are you kidding me! We were in business. Someone useful finally knew me! So we were all set with a xylo with no driver to worry about. Thanks Ashok. Moral of the story - "read spam, serendipity wins".

Ashish has already flown into trivandrum. I, Pawan and Ameet are on the same flight. Met ameet briefly at airport. He was munching away on French fries 30 minutes before flight - no fear - this guy might pan out... just as I was catching up on my sleep, there was some entertainment on the plane - two guys shouting at each other in thick bangalorean accent. Apparently one guy is drunk and tired after 4 days of being in transit. The other guy is shouting at this drunk guy. Wonder who takes the cake! The tone is set. Trip on.

Bangalore pitstop - message from ashish "this place has nice touch and feel to it" - shilpi sorry, don't know what touch and feel is he taking about. We normally don't do this even on all boys trips. They apparently took the drunk guy off the plane - that makes it 5 days in transit!

Landed at trivandrum past midnight and the driver was right there to deliver the car. Thought we'd drop him to bus stand, but none of us knew where it was. It's fun to guess directions in a new city - umm... right! Eventually reached the bus stand and then the hotel. Ashish was dutifully waiting with beer and vodka. Had a nice stroll to the beach before dozing off.