Finally a Midnight Beach Trek

Last weekend was one that brought back memories of college days. I spent the weekend with Prasanna and Arun(who studied in SREC, eee). My memories with arun date back to college days when he was my college mate Ganesh's room mate. We just decided in the 11th hour to meet up on ECR. Prasanna and I spent some time, next to the Maayajal beach, and waited at Mayaajal till 7 30, for a few friends to arrive. Kishore had to make a urgent trip out of station, Arry gave one of the most confusing reasons for not coming, and LAN was busy with work at Satyam. Arun did not have a vehicle in hand, so I asked him to come to the ECR road, in his cognizant bus. He hitch hiked 2 bikes to reach us at 7 30 pm. We decided on a round of Go Karting and guess who won.....ME .... I bet Arun at the last curve to emerge the winner. Prasanna was 2 laps behind us when the 5 minute time interval got over. We were not particular about a movie at Mayaajal and decided that 1 bike cannot accomadate 3 people and we decided to leave the bike at Mayaajal and take a bus to Mahabalipuram. We got a bus to Kovalam, where we spent 90 minutes revising our crazy college life, waiting for a connecting bus to Mahabalipuram. We finally got a bus to Mahabalipuram at 10, and thats exactly when dear LAN call us that his work is over, but I persuade him to return home, as it would be difficult for us to now, head back to mayaajal and then proceed on 2 bikes. We reach Mahabalipuram at 10 40 pm, and found the place pretty desolate with just a couple of hotels open. We werent sure of our plan for the night, so we didnt book any room for the night.Each of us were game to just keep walking on the beach till eternity(sun rise :-0 ). After a rather expensive dinner at a shack restaurant, we proceeded along the bylanes of Mahabalipuram and reached the beach. Just as we were a few metres away from the beach, an ambassodor stopped in front of us and out emerged a 40 something foreigner. From what we could see, she seemed drunk and was limping. She requested me for help, as she wanted to go to some beach party that was happening a little further away.

She held on to me, partially swaying on my shoulders while her hands were around my arms. She was a British lady, on the umpteenth visit to India and seemed to have taken a liking for the Indian beaches. Those 10 minutes across the beach, under the moonlight, seemed like eternity. We dropped at her at the beach party, which was a wild beach campfire. There were 10 other ladies in various avatars of skimpiness and under heavy alcohol. Supporting them were 6 local guys, who supplied them all the liquor and took care of them.

We bid goodbye to them and set out to a secluded spot on the beach and settled next to a boat. Then from 12 am to 3 30 followed a huge discussion about various topics under the sun( errrr….the moon now). Arun managed to catch some sleep, while Prasanna and I were awake throughout. Mosquitos invaded our privacy and when I had enough of it, I decided to take a dip in the ocean against the dark background of the awe inspiring sea and the night sky.


Once Arun got up, we decided that we should take the earliest bus back to Chennai and at 4 am, we took the bus from Mahabalipuram to Koyambedu. Before we did that we were also subjected to some routine questioning by the police, as to what we were doing at this unearthly hour. A few seconds into questioning the guy realized we were tee totallers and had no amorous flings.

We had to walk a couple of kilometers to find buses plying on ECR and once we boarded the bus, every seat was occupied to its maximum capacity as men were lying flat on the seats, fast asleep. Prasanna and I got down at Mayajaal, while Arun went all the way to Adayar to catch a bus to Alwarpet.

Since it was pretty dark and to avoid paying a bribe to active traffic police personnel, we decided to spend our time, next to a tea shop, lying flat on the cemented floor till day break(6 am) and then decided to take the bike and driveback home. We took 2 breaks in that 30 kilmetre journey as lack of sleep, was showing, and I was starting to fall asleep. The 2 breaks helped me recharge my batteries and just a few metres from reaching home, I was thoroughly drenched in the showers that followed that morning.

It was one heck of a rough trip, and I expect to do more of these time permitting.

Right now, the next adventure rough trip would be a Chennai-Goa-Chennai 1000 bucks journey for a week. Mode of transport- unreserved rail journey. Lifts through bikes and lorries. Would know in a week, how taxing my B school life would be for the next one year, so that I can plan accordingly.