I like taking chances. Normal and routine things don’t interest me much. I took a chance when I quit my cushy job and haven’t regretted since. I took another chance last weekend, when we decided we’ll go to a lesser known beach (Suryalanka) near Hyderabad. And thankfully, it was the most amazing beach trip I’ve been to. Prashant initiated the whole thing and I (as people who know me would know) never say no. We decided everything at the last moment and only booked the bus tickets on wednesday. No acco booked at the destination, no return tickets either. Prashant did have some doubts about all this, even suggested going to Vijayawada and then to Bhavani islands instead, and this when we’d already boarded the bus from Hyd. I guess he was comforted by my confidence that we’d make it good, and this question didn’t come up again.

I’d scoured the internet for reviews about Suryalanka and all said that it was a very secluded beach and you’d have the entire beach to yourself. But, the reality was not so rosy and we hesitantly took the auto driver’s suggestion to go to Ramapuram beach near the nearby town of Chirala. And, I can say that the reviews would actually have suited this beach more than Suryalanka. A few KM of pristine beach and best of all – no people at all. Just us tourists, and the crabs scuttling around on the beach. We did get some company later on, mostly the kids from local colleges and fishermen returning from their trip out in the sea. Having our American friends in our group got us quite a few onlookers too. Overall, it was a lot of fun, the water being quite shallow, we went quite far out into the sea. One reason for daring this was that Julia has been a lifeguard back in NY. We had lunch at Chirala, had lunch and then took some rest. In the evening we’d planned to go to Vadrevu beach to check out the fishermen returning after their day at sea, but we (me) got up late and so had to do with just visiting that place for a little while. I was a little concerned because it was evening and didn’t know what kind of troublesome people we’d find at the beach, plus my friends planned to booze there. Was even more concerned when another guy got in with our auto driver. But fortunately, they were both good people and waited for us at the beach.

The next day we went back to Suryalanka, only to find an even larger crowd. There were a couple of groups getting ready to sacrifice goats and sheep. But the guard at the fenced off section of the beach (IAF property) was kind enough to let us use that section of the beach. So we all had a good swim, then lunched at the APTDC restaurant beside the beach and came back to Chirala. We headed straight back to Ramapuram beach and stayed there till evening. The good thing about the entire trip was that I did not feel rushed at all, felt like more time than just a weekend.

The trip back to Hyd was a little bit of a problem because all of the private travels were booked, finally took a red bus (RTC), which wasn’t comfortable at all (I slept well though, never cared much for comforts). I liked the trip so much, I’ve been recommending this place to everybody I met recently. Like most chances I’ve taken, haven’t regretted this one bit. Here’s some of the pictures –

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On the work front, I’ve been working with my partner in arranging big ticket funding and facilitating some other big deals for a client. Hope they go through without any problem and I make some money for a change. The new company registration has been stuck for so long because our DINs got rejected. The website development is going steadily and I like the new design much better. The SMS idea application also is getting built, but only the backend, have to work on getting the web app done quickly too. Anyway, I’ve finished the template for the basic look and feel already.

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