I am not sure if I've mentioned this before, but mine was a batch which had the unique fortune of going on tours every semester. We'd decided to combine our 7th and 8th sem tours into a mega affair and go on an all India outing.

Dates ver fixed, all tht was left was to plan. We spent an exact month on planning the entire tour. It meant a whole month of class bunking, but since it was on "official" grounds, we got attendance. We decided the places we were gonna visit, which where Goa, Mumbai, Delhi, Agra and Shimla (for non-indian readers, if any, these are places worth visiting when in india :-D) in the order in which they were gonna host us.

Once that was finalised, we had to book the train tickets; 56 tickets in one bogie was always a tall order, but we managed to pull it off. Once the train journey and the dates ver in place, accomodation was next on list. Being college students, we were on the lookout for cheap accomodation when someone suggestd youth hostels. We booked accomodation for Goa and Delhi in youth hostels (one comment on youth hostels..if u need accomodation cheap, and at the same time need a homely feeling, youth hostels are the best bet..) Our biggest problem was gonna be Mumbai coz accomodation never comes cheap there; but surprisingly that is where it was cheapest, coz we got accomodation at the BARC, which was also on our list of Industrial visit centers..

Arranging local tours was never a problem. In goa, the manager of the youth hostel arranged it, in Mumbai, we had a friends relative do it, and in Delhi we had a package tour arranged with Panickers.

Come August 18th and we set off to Goa. My first memories of Goa are the Panaji station which we reached early morning. The youth hostel was situated on a beach and needless to say the atmospehere was as serene as they come. We had our share of fun, frolic and shopping at Goa and finally started to Mumbai. We almost missed the train due to a miscalculation by yours truly. I actually thought 1600 meant 6 o clock rather than 4. It was fortunate that the bus driver had to leave early someplace and so had us dropped at the station by 3.45. Providence!!

The next leg of the journey is the one I will never forget. I believe it was a full moon and she was lighting the world for us to behold. I had only heard of the Engineering marvel called Konkan railway, now i was realizing why it was called so. We passed through numerous tunnels, some of them had water falling down the mouths and the train actually cut through the mini-water falls. I had never had such an enchanting journey my whole life. We reached Dadar station the next day, and had quite a time figuring out where the bus tht was supposed to pick us up was.

Mumbai was in essence everything we had heard of. A city bustling with activity, a city which ws the economic capital of the country. Mumbai's memories are a little faded, mainly coz i slept off my tiredness. The second day we visited the R&D hub of India, BARC. What we saw there really amazed us..we knew the future of our country was safe. Second day evening we set out for the Capital of India...

Stay at Delhi is what comes to mind first. As i mentioned earlier, it was at the International Youth Center that we were put up. It was in one of the most pristine locations of Delhi - chanakyapuri - spat in the middle of embassies. The roads were 10 times as wide as what we had here. Tour of Delhi was arranged by Panickers travels who also arranged our leg of the tour to Agra and Shimla. The Taj at agra is yet another memory that I shall never forget. She stood so pure in between all those standstone buildings, and seeing her I realized and imbibed the love that built her. She was the most marvelous structure I'd ever laid my eyes on.

Our bandwagon then rolled all the way to shimla, where the winter was just starting to come in from the mountains. We trekked all the way upto the snowline; albeit there was no snow to play with. We also bought a lot of apples and sabarjalees, which were as cheap as you could get. Shimla and then back to Delhi, and Delhi and a long journey back home..

My second story begins here..