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former_member184494
Active Contributor
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Intelligroup SDN team has a splash at exotic Goa, India!!  They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The pictures say it all, be it the world famous beaches, Fort Aguada or the beautiful Bom Jesus Church, we Intellians made a splash especially with our colorful SDN T-Shirts and Intelligroup T-Shirts and being there as a large group of 16 people.  Professionally we guys were as diverse as the range of SAP topics on SDN and had never actually met each other before (at least few of them), but the one thing common to these 16 people were that along with delivering to perfection on their demanding global SAP projects, they were all being active on SDN, learning from SDN and contributing to it thus adding value to the SDN community. This had prompted Intelligroup to give us a completely sponsored vacation break at an exotic location!!!  The whole team of  SDNers got together at the Bangalore airport (most of them had started from Hyderabad), and had fun putting faces to the names we used to see on SDN and the bunch of mails that were exchanged before this trip actually started.  We landed at the Dabolim airport at Goa in the late afternoon after an hour’s flight from B’lore. An hour and a half’s drive from the airport took us to our beach resort. We were by far the largest group at the resort and we immediately made our presence felt by making a big splash in the swimming pool at the resort!!!. Few of us did not know how to swim and SDNers being true to their nature started helping out those who did not know how to swim too!!!.     That day passed without much ado, the main focus being getting to know each other and finding out more about everyone else at Intelligroup!!. We did go to the beautiful weekly Night Bazaar where we were treated to some acrobatics shows and rock music. We then were back at the resort, lounged around the pool before retiring for the day, looking forward to the exciting 3 days ahead.  Day 1! began with all of us starting off to do what Goa is famous for – beach combing!!! We first started with a visit to Fort Aguada which is an old (15th Century) fort of the Portugese era overlooking the sea, and of course made famous by the movie ‘Dil Chahtha Hai’. From there we went to Vagator beach where we kicked it off with an energetic game of Beach Volleyball and of course a dip in the sea. We found out to our glee that the beach was pretty shallow with gentle waves and not much of a crowd. The brave ones ventured further into the sea and did some swimming while the others chose to carry on with their game of Volleyball. We met some foreign tourists and had a guitar demonstration from a Finnish tourist on the beach.  After Vagator, it was time for lunch with some Goan delicacies on the menu. After a hearty lunch, we were off to one of the most beautiful beaches in Goa –the Baga Beach. As soon as we hit Baga, it was off to the water and some Frisbee in the water. Once we had enough of the sea, we found some space on the beach to play volleyball again!, this time some others who had come to the beach joined the fun. We alternated between Frisbee, Volleyball, water scooters and swimming until we caught the picturesque sunset and a lot of photo ops.Done with Baga, we returned to the resort for a good dinner and some interesting discussions on SDN and SDN @ Intelligroup! after which we all went off in groups to the last of the trio of beaches, Calangute, especially with the beach being 10 minutes away from our resort. We found some shacks, as they were called, on the beach and picked out some of the beds that had been laid for sunbathers in the morning and quietly watched the stars, reminiscing how SDN came into our professional lives and how SDN has made a difference to the work being done by the contributors world over and more so, the respect that each person has in the forums with regard to what they post and how people across the world are being helped with their projects. We finally got back to the resort in the wee hours of the morning and called it Day 1!!  Day 2 began hitting the swimming pool, breakfast and then off to Old Goa to see the one of the oldest Church in India and other things that Goa was famous for other than beaches. We visited the very beautiful Basilica of Bom Jesus Church and got to see the sacred relics of the body of St.Francis Xavier. We were amazed at the ornate chapels. We then checked out the Archeology Museum nearby which had some stunning collections of sculptures, paintings, coins .etc. all ranging between 11th and 15th century Goa. We then headed to the Dona Paula Jetty which is famous for its piers and water rides. This was followed by a pleasant boat cruise where we were treated to some Goan folk dance and music. After having a blast at the disco on the boat we headed back to the resort for the final time content that we had seen most of Goa and had a rocking time doing it. Hungry but not tired, we walked down to our neighborhood beach, Calangute, to one of the shacks for a midnight dinner and retunred to the resort in the wee hours and called it Day 2!!  Day 3! we realized we had not been to Calangute Beach in daylight at all! and promptly headed there to swim in the beach and some Photo Op sessions and beat it back to the resort with just enough time to stuff our belongings back into bags and grab lunch before we left for the airport , Al Qaeda contributing to this rush by getting Goa onto the Terror Alert and extending Security Formalities!!!Finally the team – energized by the trip with the knowledge of what we have done and thoughts bristling with ideas to add more value to our projects and to SDN - landed at B’ lore, said their goodbyes to those SDN mates from Intelligroup, Bangalore and the rest of them continued to Hyderabad, with everyone’s thoughts sinking back to deliverables and waiting to tell everyone else what they had missed but could have been on!!
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