Well, Corsica for me was more of a self imposed mental pressure and a little of peer pressure. This was because we had been in Nice for a month and kahin bhi ghoomne nahi gaye the. Moreover everybody else had started travelling so the ppl here concerned with their travel CVs felt that their CV wud not reach the "most travelled" list if they did not act soon!!
So, the planning fell on me and dada. At that time (15th of Oct), we still had the Euro Rupee converter in our minds and we had not experienced the costs involved in travelling so money was a major concern for us. After considering the prices, ports, time, distance and convinience we decided to leave sat night on a night ferry, stay whole of sunday, camp for the sunday night and return by the early morning ferry on monday. Corsica is an island famous for its white sand beaches and has a lot of ports. We were taking the ferry to Bastia port since its tickets were the cheapest. Although the beaches in that region were not that good but we were pretty enthusiastic about the camping! In fact, camping was the main attraction since there is not much to see in Corsica and we already have wonderful beaches in Nice.
So far so good. It was our first trip and we did a lot of research on the net. We wanted to be WELL PREPARED, you see!! We were taking the night ferry and we were pretty concerned about sea sickness. We had booked "Pullman Seats" for the night (this again after a lot of research). Poor Anee did not eat much (when actually her appetite is enviable, esp since it does not reflect in her figure!) due to the possibility of sea sickness and i carried lemon concentrated juice (which later spilled in my bag and spoiled everything). When we reached the ferry, we were in for a shock!! The 'ferry' was more like a big hotel!!! A grand reception and the whole layout more like a good hotel....in fact people were booking cars and buses to be taken across!! What sea sickness in there????
Our Ship - Seasickness???
More like a hotel reception!We were real impressed by our ferry (SHIP by our standards) and excitedly did around 10 min of shooting in Jai's videocamera after which the disc became full and he realised he had forgotten the spare disc! Khair this did not dampen our spirits and we passed the night in anticipation. We reached Bastia early in the morning at 7 and went to the tourist information which was supposed to open at 8. A lovely flea market was being put up and we were so lost in it that time literally flew by.
The flea market being put up.....the lady is the "shopkeeper"Finally the tourist information opened and we were given a map of Bastia (the tourist attraction consisted of 3 churches and an old port) and told that camping was open in only one beach since it was off season. Also, public transport is poor in Corsica (which explains the numerous cars being loaded in the ferry) and it being a Sunday, there would be no buses available! Well, we were undeterred remembering the tourist adage "you can get a feel of the city only by walking"...we started according to the map and were finished with the 3 churches and the old port in half an hour. It was the first map I had come across in which distances were in reality shorter than what seemed on the map!!
We then decided to walk down to the camping beach, get the tents and then have a bath on the beach itself. After two hours of walking in the hot sun, we finally reached the camping site. The receptionist dint know English AT ALL. We somehow managed to learn that the charges were 4 euros per person and 2 euros per tent. We wanted to know the size of the tent before booking par kitni bhi koshish karein usko hamara question samajh hi na aaye! Finally manghani showed her the 7 of us one by one and then said "one tent" then she understood our question. She seemed a bit surprised by our question and said yes if u wish 7 in one tent! We thot that maybe there is a standard size of the tent and we dont know so we asked her if we cud see it first. We went towards the beach and there was only one tent there, it was so small that the more endowed of us (me/dada/manghani) wud never be able to fit alone, leave aside 7 ppl!! Then we saw some wood etc lying there and we thot that maybe we were supposed to build our own tent instead of them which seemed pretty adventurous and exciting to us....We approached some ppl who were building a tent and they told us that we were supposed to get our own tent material!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The tents.....the first look changed the day!!The world came crashing around us and we rushed to tell the lady that we did not have a tent with us, maybe she could rent one to us. SHE WAS SO SHOCKED WHEN WE TOLD HER THAT WE DINT HAVE A TENT! I CAN NEVER FORGET THE EXPRESSSION ON HER FACE. She told us that she dint have a tent to rent and refused to give us a caravan since it was out of season. For caravan, she said "it is not possible" and manghani uspe chadh gaya "why is it not possible!!" we calmed him down before he could make the situation more volatile and enquired about bungalows which were 100 euros for 4 ppl.
Khair, ab kya karein, we went to the beach which was pathetic!! It was actually dirty and nowhere like the "Carrebaen style beaches" Corsica is famous for. We were so upset that we simply lay on the beach and slept off!
Our dream of "white sandy beaches"Finally we woke up around 4 and decided to walk back to the port and look for accomodation.At the port although we found a hotel where we would have to pay 115 euros, we decided to spend the night in the waiting room at the port. (I especially did not want to waste good money after bad!). The waiting room was wonderful with good showers,loo and warm enough to sit without sweaters. We freshened up and were playing antakshari and dumb charades when suddenly at 9 a person came and said that we wud have to vacate the waiting room since he had to lock it up and it wud reopen at 5 in the morning! We were dumbstruck. We cud go to the hotel (although the reception wud have closed at 8) and try to wake somebody up but the gates of the port wud be closed and we cud not come bak if that failed. We tried to appeal to the better side of the person but he did not budge. Finally at 9.30 we were thrown out in the wind (not yet cold!)
The worst part was that no portion of the port was covered from at least 2 sides. We finally chose a wall and barricaded ourselves with luggage.The two homeless men who had been with us in the waiting room had sleeping bags and slept off cosily! At 2 it started becoming cold.....the others slept for some periods but me and dada did not have a place behind the luggage and we passed the night walking around the port. Finally we got some sheltered spot and tried to sleep. Dada did not even have a shawl and we were sharing mine.(the others had one sweater and shawl each which we had got to cover ourselves in the pullman, which incidently was very warm) By 3.30 every body was awake due to the cold and walking around to keep ourselves warm!!Somehow 5 o clock came and we waited for the waiting room to open. The person went to open the gate which reqd a lot of effort to pull and Raju laughed out loud at his unsuccessful efforts which piqued him and drove off without opening the door. Finally at 6.30 Manghani got someone to open the door and we rushed inside to warmth. We spent half an hour defreezing and then boarded the ship at 7.10. The ship left at 8 and we spent the 5 hours trying to get back to normal. Most of us slept throughout and did not even care enuf to enjoy the cruise bak home.
A glimpse of how we spent the night!Us raat ki sach mein subah nahi thi and hum saaton mein se kisi ke saamne Corsica ka naam lo to hamare chehre pe hamare dil ka dahakna saaf nazar aata hai!! After that we never move without having a booking for acco and whenever we reach a new place, we first find out where we are staying!!
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