Treks and Travels

The Rappa (Hassan)

2011-04-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

Anoop recommended The Rappa to Shivanand and Shivanand gave a call to Vijay Das of The Rappa and asked the questions: Is the place available for 3 guys (himself, Hegdo and me) from April 2nd to 4th? Are 3 meals included in the tariff? The answer was positive and we had a place to spend time on a long weekend. Since we were given tents, we knew what things to carry.

I woke up at 3 AM, got ready by 4 AM and headed to Shivanand’s house. His house is 40 km away from mine and driving there wasn’t easy even that early. There was enough traffic on the road and there were enough losers driving on high beams. Yet, I managed to take only 45 minutes through the city to reach his house, where Hegdo had already come over the previous night. Fortunately, Shivanand was almost ready by then (extremely rare!), probably because of the excitement to visit The Rappa.

Within half an hour, we were driving towards NH 4, navigating through the huge trucks. It took a while to reach NH 4 and to hit the toll road. The new toll road is a breeze and we could maintain around 100 kmph throughout the stretch. Of course, we had to slow down some times, thanks to some silly drivers changing lanes without indication.

We missed the exit to NH 48 and reached Tumkur toll gate. Fortunately, I have done the same mistake before, because there is no sign board near the exit to NH 48. May be there is, but it doesn’t say that the exit is for Hassan or Mangalore. If any other place is mentioned, I can easily miss it. Anyway, we managed to take a U turn and hit NH 48. This road has improved a lot over the last few months. The road is broadened at most places and where it isn’t, there are not-so-clear markings (which might be totally invisible at nights) to show that there are single lanes. It was about 6 AM when we were cruising on this road. I had decided not to exceed 100 kmph any time. Even though it was still dark, most vehicles had already switched off their head lights. It was difficult to tell an oncoming vehicle from a vehicle going in our direction, on 2 lane roads. Hence my self-imposed speed-limit (note: I keep my head lights on always on highways, to make sure that others don’t miss me when trees overhang on the road and cast their shadows on the road. And there are enough morons frantically trying to indicate that my head lights are on during broad daylight. At least that guarantees that others can see me).

On the way, I even spotted a Palio taxi. That indeed is a rare sight!!!

The bypass for Kunigal is not yet open, so we had to drive through the bad stretch around Kunigal. We crossed all these small towns and stopped for breakfast at Kamat Upachar close to Hassan, at around 9 am. We entered Hassan to buy some things that Vijay had asked us to get, and then easily found the left turn from NH 48 towards The Rappa. However, just to make sure, we asked the villagers on the way, and everyone seems to know Vijay. We didn’t even have to ask the question. People gave us the directions just as we rolled the windows down!

On the way, after crossing a bridge, we spotted a dilapidated structure that looked like a church. It was on the other side, so we had been close to it while coming, but hadn’t spotted it. As we got closer and closer to the end of the road (that ends at The Rappa) the scenery kept getting better and better. The road wasn’t so great, but the surroundings were picturesque. Shivanand was busy clicking photographs. Like this:

I clicked a photograph too, of Shivanand clicking photographs:

We were welcomed by Vijay and Sibi. Vijay was about to leave for the city to get some supplies, so asked us if we wanted anything. We asked for Pepsi and Fanta. Sibi served us cocum juice and then showed us our tent. There are 4 cottages and 5 tents (I think).

Cottages have attached toilets, but tents have 4 common toilets, which are near the dining area (about 50 steps away from the tents). We couldn’t check out the cottages, but all tents have 2 twin sleeper beds. So each tent can accommodate 4 people easily. However, there are no locks (because they are tents) and so Sibi advised us to leave all expensive things in the car. Why expensive things only? We left everything in the car, and kept only 2 water bottles in the tent.

Then Sibi introduced the dogs to us: Milo (an American retriever), Dadda (an Irish Setter, whose name means lazy in Kannada – true to this character), Tootsie (a young british retriever, about 4 months old, and is very fond of eating other pets) and Shunti (a spitz named so because they wanted a Kannada word for it). He also showed us the rabbits, guinea pig, guinea fowls, turkeys, geese, different breeds of ducks and different breeds of chicken. There was one hen with some 9 newborn chicks.
Milo:

Shunti:

Tootsie:

Dadda:

Other (unnamed) animals:

Sibi also told us that we could go kayaking or swimming, but wearing life jackets is mandatory. Good, because I don’t know swimming. As Shivanand got busy shooting the animals, I took a nap. Shivanand shot me too! I was so tired (having slept only for 2.5 hours after playing football for 2.5 hours the previous evening), so I had fallen asleep on a concrete block, even when the sun shone on my face!

As there was still a lot of time for lunch, we went on a small soft-roading trip over the peninsula, driving over the grass land and through the grazing cows. Shivanand was elated to find a lot of scope for his photographs. I had played football for over 2 hours the previous evening, and had slept only for about a couple of hours. So I slept in the car. Hegdo too slept in the car. Shivanand was accompanied by Shunti. And that bloody SOB Shunti took a piss at one of the tyres of my Palio! Shivanand continued capturing the beauty of the nature, and the hunkness of his friends in his DSLR:

We returned to the dining area, and Vijay had returned by then, and had brought our soft drinks. He kept them in his fridge. Then we had a lunch of okra curry, dal, chapatti, pulav, rice, curd and chicken curry. We found all the curries extra hot, so we poured curd generously over them. Then Vijay took us in his Tempo Trax (an open top SUV) for an off-roading drive. He didn’t care where he was driving. He drove through the bushes, over the rocks, over the grass and through muck, at a constant 40 kmph. All we could do was, cling on to our dear lives by grabbing tightly whatever we could grab. Hegdo got a few scratches on his arm, because of some protruding metal. I got some scratches on my face, because of the tree branches. We had the ride of our lifetime, although it lasted only for less than 15 minutes. We didn’t have the guts to say yes, when he asked if we wanted to go for another trip.

So we returned to the dining area. By then they had moved the TV to dining area and also had connected a projector, to watch the cricket world cup final. The match started soon, and it was boring. After a while, we went on another soft roading trip, exploring another part of the peninsula. We waited till sunset (I again slept in the car, while Shivanand went behind birds asking them to pose for his photographs. Unfortunately, they kept ignoring him. He captured the sunset too). As the sun was setting, we returned, because we didn’t want to risk driving in the dark when there is no road, and road was what we drove on. We had to guess the direction and drive, but it wasn’t difficult. The Palio handles the rocks and soft mud like a true soft roader, not complaining at all.

By the time we reached back, a bunch of young men had gathered to watch the match. Everyone was screaming his lungs out, and these guys were drinking beer like water.. err, no, no one drinks water like that. They were drinking beer like beer. I found the match boring, so I took a nap on my favourite cement block. Then we went near the reservoir to watch others kayaking, peddling the boats and all. The dogs were also there, taking a swim. Dadda is not only lazy, but also dumb. Some people there tried to throw a ball expecting Dadda to fetch it and bring it back. Dadda fetched the ball and ran away and didn’t return. All the dogs are fond of swimming. Except Dadda, the others roll their wet bodies on the slushy mud after swimming. I think that’s their way of treating their skin. No wonder they are all fair. And Dadda is not. Later, we returned to the dining area, and started drinking our Pepsi. We were served some fried fish and chicken. Later, the dinner consisted of a menu similar to lunch, and fish curry in addition. By the time the match was over, these young guys were completely drunk, and were celebrating the victory with crackers and more beer. We were too exhausted to participate in the revel, and went to our tents and fell asleep in no time. I woke up at 6.45 on Sunday morning, to find Shivanand fast asleep and Hegdo awake. We went to the main dining area, had tea and finished the toilet duties. I had no problem, as I was equipped with toilet paper, and other usual bathroom stuff. I just had to clean the toilet before using it. Then Hegdo and I went kayaking. After initial hiccups, it was fun to row the boat, and we were in the water for close to an hour. Because of a large number of guests the previous night, all the water in the well was consumed, so Vijay, Sibi, Rizwan and Ashok were busy connecting pipes and pump to pump water from the reservoir to the well, and then to the other tanks. Shivanand had woken up by 10 or so, and breakfast was ready too. It consisted of bread, butter, jam, dosa, green chutney, potato baji and chicken stew. Chicken stew was excellent and I ate a lot of dosa with that. After breakfast, we headed to the same side of the peninsula where we had been the previous afternoon. This time, we took a full circle around the jungle. Soft-roading through the rocks and sand. Shivanand went after some birds and cows, to shoot them (in his camera). I felt some pressure in the stomach, so I went into the jungle, dug a hole and did it and then closed the hole. I believe in “leave no trace”, at least to what eyes can hear and ears can smell and nose can see. All our things were in the car, and we had left nothing in the tent. So I didn’t have a problem in unloading myself. We returned to the dining area by afternoon. Although I had planned not to take a shower, I did. Even Hegdo and Shivanand did. Then we sat chatting with Vijay, who had already begun emptying his Old Monk bottles, and then had lunch. We wanted to drink our Fanta, but we found that someone had already stolen it. Vijay said he cannot guarantee that our soft drinks will not be taken away by others, because there is only one fridge, and everyone has access to it. Then we headed to the same area where we had been the previous evening to capture sunset. This time we went exploring further, and found that the car couldn’t go any further, as we were blocked a long area of rocks on one side and shrubs on the other. Hegdo and I took a nap while Shivanand went after some kingfishers. We kept the doors open, so that maximum air would come into the car, and we didn’t need anything else to fall asleep.

When I woke up, Shiva was not to be seen. After looking around, I found him still clicking photographs. Now that I was fresh, we decided to get over the obstacles and drove through the shrubs giving numerous scratches and small dents to my beloved Palio, but I am sure she won’t mind it. But then we came across fields and they were at different heights (in step fashion). Without a 4X4 SUV, we couldn’t go any further, so we decided to return. It was just about 5 or so, and we didn’t want to wait till actual sunset, so we told Shiva to finish his sunset photographs right then, and he did.

Then we returned to the camp site, and Vijay and his Old Monk joined us. And then an untoward incident happened. There were a bunch of guests who had come in the afternoon and had spent time till evening near the reservoir, and now they wanted drinking water. But because Vijay and his men were busy all morning pumping water, and then cooking for us, they had found time only a while earlier to go to the city to get the cans of drinking water. So Vijay requested them to wait. They insisted on having water right now, so it looked like Vijay would give them the 1 litre Bisleri bottles which he gives to the guests when they arrive. But then this group started complaining about other things, such as spiders in the tents, no soap etc. that blew Vijay’s lid and he used some harsh words. So one of the guests said they would rather vacate than stay here and asked how much they owed. That was it. Vijay just told them to pay full, get their stuff and get out. They argued that they were there only for a few hours, but Vijay wouldn’t listen. Finally they paid in full and left the premises.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting with Vijay and Sibi and sharing some funny stories. A bunch of other guys too joined us, and we were served some starters by Rizwan. One of the other guests, Rohit, gave Shivanand some gyan about photography. In fact, he even asked Shiva to try out his bigger lens. And Shiva was excited to use it to click photos of Dadda.

After dinner, Vijay took some of the guests for a night off-roading drive. These guests wore life jackets, probably to protect themselves, as they were not going to go anywhere near water. Once they were back, Vijay said someone was screaming and asking him to slow down because they are newly married. Later, we went to sleep in the tent. The day wasn’t as tiring as the previous one, so I woke up once in the night and found Shunti sleeping in our tent.

Next morning, again Hegdo and I were up early, so we finished our morning duties (except bath) and headed into the peninsula again. This time, Vijay too joined us. We stopped for photography only once, when we found a hip bone of a cow. Then Vijay expressed his desire to acquire a Palio. I guess I will have to find him one.

Vijay insisted that we stay for lunch, although it not in our package. He said he himself was going to cook pork for us. So we stayed back, and because we had nothing else to do, we decided to visit a nearby church. The holy rosary church. This church is open for normal visitors only during summer months. During monsoons or winter, only skilled divers can visit this church. For the church is almost submerged in the Hemavathy reservoir during these seasons.

The church can collapse any moment, so hurry up if you wish to see it. But don’t be too disheartened when you read the scribbles of the idiots of our country. People have scuplted their and their lovers’ names all over the walls. It looks UGLY. And then, we remembered that we are yet to have a photograph with all 3 of us in it. So we managed to keep the camera on the car, supported by a small rock, and got this:

Then we returned, and spent more time chatting with them and listening to their stories of how the whole place was destroyed in fire, and how they are rebuilding it. They also showed us the brick machines they are using. They are not using any skilled labourers. They themselves are doing all the work. Considering that what they charge us is not a big amount, I guess they have to resort to such cost-cutting measures to get the place back to its former beauty!

After lunch, we wanted to leave, but Vijay and Sibi insisted that we stay longer. We wanted to tip the guys who work there, and these guys were playing cricket near the reservoir. Vijay offered me his Tempo Trax to drive till there. It is an old vehicle, and rattles a lot. To start it, I need to keep a button pressed to heat up a coil (which in my Palio, heats up automatically) and I need to turn on the ignition without getting my hand off that button. Brakes need to be pressed real hard, and gear shifts are hard. Absence of power steering means extra work to the shoulders. But once the vehicle picks up some speed, it is awesome to drive it. The driving position is amazing, and I could take zigzag turns without the fear of toppling. I didn’t drive as fast as Vijay did, because I wasn’t familiar with the vehicle.

Finally, we left at around 4. When I sat in Palio, the clutch and the brakes and the steering seemed like butter to me. So soft, so smooth. The junk Tempo Trax was more fun to drive. But no complaints about my Palio. She is sturdy, safe and can go fast and yet give an amazing fuel economy figure. We didn’t stop anywhere on the way, and reached Hebbal within three and a half hours. The trip meter read 508 km, which was the total distance we had travelled. Out of that, around 40 km was from my house to Shivanand’s, and from there to The Rappa was about 210 km, and off-roading and roaming around The Rappa was about 50 km and back to Shivanand’s house was the last 210 km. and guess what was the fuel economy figure? 22 kmpl. Because I had kept the speeds at constant 80 to 100 kmph on highway, I am sure the economy there was 24+ kmpl, and highway travel was about 300 km in total. It was balanced by rough driving on the interior roads and off-roading.

PUG (Palio Users Group) Meet

2010-08-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

It had to be just Finney and me from Bangalore. My 2 friends Rachana and Ashith (both married, and the best part is, to each other) accompanied me in my car. We decided to meet up with Finney at Attibele, which is at the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, because it is close to where to I stay. We 3 started from my house in my Palio Multijet and Finney met us near the toll booth at the Attibele in his Palio 1.2 NV.

Till Hosur, the road was full of trucks, but once I crossed it, it was easy to cruise at 80 KMPH. Finney was cruising at around 100 KMPH, so he went much ahead of us. I still don’t confident to go too much above 80 KMPH in IndiaL. Later we stopped for breakfast at Adyar Anand Bhavan, and then continued towards our destination, Yercaud. We crossed Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri and reached Salem, crossing many toll booths on the way. The roads are maintained well. They are painted well and have no potholes. There are flower plants along the median which increase the beauty of the road, and also block the high beams of irresponsible motorists. But at one stretch, the road is somewhat winding and goes downhill, so there are 8 speed-breakers. This stretch is tricky. Due to daytime heat, the asphalt melts and when huge trucks go over these roads, the melted asphalt shifts towards the lane dividers and so the road is uneven. At the speed-breakers, the road is worse!

But the biggest problem all along was the villagers who don’t understand the difference between a village road and a highway. Some of them drive their motorbikes on the rightmost lane. Some of them drive their motorbikes on the rightmost lane, in the OPPOSITE direction! And of course, some stray dogs here and there also test your driving skills. And then there are tractors whose birthright it is to drive only in the rightmost lane.

After catching up with Finney at Salem, we continued towards Yercaud. The road is uphill and winding. There are 20 hairpin bends. At the bottom of the hill, Finney offered me his car. Ashith drove mine. It was fun to drive the car on hairpin bends. There is no question about the ride and handling of European cars. They drive so beautifully. Having never driven a petrol car on an uphill road, I understood the difference between petrol and diesel. I don’t mean the engine, but the fuel itself. Diesel being much denser, gives a much higher torque. So a diesel car goes uphill without struggling too much. But not a car with petrol engine L. Perhaps a petrol car would also go easily, if the engine is much bigger. But our silly government rules ask for high taxes for cars with more than 1.2 litre petrol engines L.

It was easy to find Star Holiday Resorts, where I had booked rooms for us. We reached there at 2.30 PM. After freshening up, we went for lunch to Shevaroy hotel. This is apparently the best place to stay in or dine at Yercaud. Unfortunately, it was fully booked for the weekend, so I hadn’t got rooms there for us. We had an Indian lunch at the Silver Oak restaurant there and went back to our hotel. Mahesh Natarajan too arrived at the same time with his family in his GTX.

Then we all went to the Yercaud lake. Rachana had already grown fondness to MN’s children (son Uttam Kumar, and daughter Sri Meenakshi), so the children went with Rachana and Ashith in their boat. We went in another boat. By the time we were out of the lake, it was dark already. We also met up with Srinivas PS and his friend Alex, who had driven from Chennai in Srinivas’s 1.2 NV. They were also staying in Star Holidays, and were there since noon, and we had no clue!

We also met Thyagarajan and his family who had come to Yercaud from Chennai in his MJD (and also a Swift Dzire). We decided to meet up the next morning at 8.30 at the same place and we went our ways. Finney joined MN and family for dinner. We went back to the hotel. I had brought some beer in a Styrofoam box from Bangalore and it was still ice cold. As we had no more drives until the next day, we could have some beer to chill out. No drinking and driving, but always driving and then drinking ;-).

So Rachana, Ashith, Srinivas, Alex and I sat in Ashith’s room and shared a lot of stories. Later Finney too joined us for more stories. We probably spent 3 hours just chatting like that! And then we all headed to our rooms for a good night’s sleep. There were power cuts in between, but luckily the hotel provided backup power.

On Sunday morning, MN knocked on our doors exactly at 8.30 AM. By 9, we checked out of the hotel and went for breakfast to a vegetarian restaurant in Shevaroy. Thyagarajan and his family too joined us there. And also a couple of guys in a grey MJD. I forgot their names L.

It was raining all the time, in contrast to the bright Saturday. Yet, we went to Rose Garden and Ladies’ Seat. By this time, the guys in grey MJD had already left.

By the time we reached our next destination, Kiliyur Falls, it was not raining much. We had a Palio photo session there. We didn’t go till the falls, because of the slushy pathway and slippery rocks. From here, we went to the Shervaroyan temple, which is at a higher point. We had drive through the clouds and that was beautiful experience. It was cold but not enough to chill us. We parked our cars near the temple and some of us visited the temple.

This was our last point of visit, so we said goodbyes to each other. As told to us by Finney later, he sat in his car and wondered that nothing out-of-the-ordinary had happened. And within moments, MN and he reversed their cars together and that gave a broken tail lamp and a dislocated rear bumper to Finney’s NV and a dented door and a broker right rear view mirror to MN’s GTX L.

Then we went for lunch at Shevaroy. Few of us went to the non-vegetarian restaurant and a few us to the vegetarian one. After lunch, we met up at the lake again. MN gave us DVD copies of his recordings of his Leh trip at the beginning of the year. Then we said goodbye to each other and departed to our respective home locations.

FIFA World Cup matches that I watched in stadiums

2010-07-12T04:56:00.000-07:00

1. Brazil vs Ivory Coast - I got a seat directly opposite the camera that records the match and telecasts to you all. The Soccer City stadium is HUGE. It can seat 90,000 people! So it has quite a big number of rows and my row was 3rd from the last. This gave me a panoramic view of the stadium. The drawback of this is, it is hard to recognize any player. I was surrounded by thousands of Brazilian fans. Believe me, Brazilian girls look hotter than they look on TV or photos!!

And I could see how dirty the Brazil team plays (apologies to Brazil fans). Whenever there was an attack by Ivory Coast with more strikers than the Brazilian defenders, the defenders would simply fake an injury. Sometimes the referee would signal to continue play because the Ivory Coast striker wouldn’t be at fault. That’s when the Brazilian would not get up and pretend as if he is hurt. Then other Brazilians would stop playing and point the fallen guy to the referee. Now Ivory Coast has no option but to stop their attack and kick the ball out.

Sometimes, the Ivory Coast guys would get distracted and stop. Then a Brazilian defender would sneak in and take the ball in his control. Then the fallen defender would suddenly come back to life and the game would resume with Brazil attacking!!!

This happened so many times that it was frustrating to watch. I was happy to see Kaka sent off (although I didn’t know why, because the ball was elsewhere and you tend to watch where the ball is, and Kaka's so called foul took place elsewhere on the field). Later I found out that it wasn't entirely Kaka's fault. Yet, Brazil got a taste of their own medicine. But it was already late. Brazil needs an opposition that can give them this treatment right from the beginning.

And the sound of vuvuzelas isn't a problem in the stadium at all. When you hear the sound on TV, it is monotonous buzzing sound (like a bee's buzz). But in the stadium, the frequency and amplitude keeps varying. Frequency variation because of different sizes/shapes of vuvuzelas and amplitude variation depending on how far from you a vuvuzela is being blown.

Also, there was only one Mexican wave. It had 3 iterations before it died down. The problem with it was, the seats would fold back the moment you got up, so you have to turn yourself after the wave passes you and open the seat again.

My seat was between two old men and they were boring. Luckily there was one empty seat next to my one German colleague, so i joined him. Most people didn’t bother to sit and they stood on the aisles, so there were many empty seats.

The travel arrangements to the stadium are excellent. There is no car parking in the stadium. But there are many options: one option is to take one of those special buses to the stadium directly from certain points in the city. They drop you to one common point called west gate (common between Ellis Park and soccer city stadiums of Johannesburg). From there are dedicated buses to the stadium. Costs 50 Rands per person.

Another option is to park and ride. There are some places within 5 km radius of each stadium and you can park your car there and take a bus. This is cheaper, costing 50 Rands a car. So if you are 5 people, it is just 10 rands per person. But driving to park and ride facilities is a pain. It is bumper to bumper traffic everywhere and the jam even affects the motorways.

For this match, we (my 3 German colleagues and me) took the first option. But while coming back, the bus went through the city roads and not on the motorway, as it had to drop people. The match got over at 10.15 pm and we reached our hotel at 12.15 am!!

2. Spain vs Honduras: this was in Ellis park stadium. An old stadium and much smaller (60k capacity). Fortunately, my seat was on the 14th row from the arena, and again directly opposite the camera. And exactly on the midfield line. This means, I am sure I came on TV. But u sure can't spot me when i am surrounded by Spanish fans and a few Honduran fans here and there.

It was a do or die match for both teams, but Honduras hardly gave any fight. The players' body language showed that they had given up hope already.

On my left were a few oriental men and they just sat there and watched. But on my right were a few Spanish men who didn’t seem to speak English. And the guy sitting next to me would scream 'ole' every now and then in different tones. The tone varied depending on whether he was happy, angry, sad, delighted and all, but the word remained the same.

When Spain got a penalty, everyone stood up and an old lady behind me tapped on my shoulder and told me to sit down so that she could sit and watch. I told her to stand up, because people in front of me were standing and I didn’t want to miss the penalty kick.

But David Villa missed it. After scoring 2 field goals, he could easily have converted this and had a hat trick against his name. Dumb guy!

For this match, I had to go alone, because my German colleagues' boss had plans to take them and he had no place in his car. I opted for the park and ride option, so I had to go back to my hotel to collect the parking entry ticket (it is a silly thing, to buy the ticket online, and go to their shop and actually receive the ticket and their closest shop was near my hotel). While leaving from the hotel, I met another guest, a Spaniard looking for a ride. He joined me, and we left from my hotel at 4.45 pm. by the time we parked the car, took the bus and reached the stadium, it was 7.30 pm. and the stadium is just 9 km away from the hotel!!!

The return trip was easy. It took only an hour to exit the stadium and drive and reach the hotel.

3. Ghana vs Germany: This time I took the option of park and ride, and parked the car in a place called Gold Reef city. It is a mall with casino and Fun Park and all, and is built over an abandoned gold mine. It is in a place called Soweto (short for South Western Township, as it lies in the south west of Jo’burg).

I left from office at 4.45, changed my clothes from business formals to sportswear in the car and it took me an hour and 45 minutes to go to gold reef city that is 3 km away from office!!!

And from Gold Reef City to soccer city stadium, another half an hour. So I was at the stadium more than an hour before the proceedings could begin. The food, drinks and beer at the stadiums are expensive. Coke costs 15R, sandwiches cost 30R and Budweiser beer costs 30R. A rand is 6 Rs. For the lifestyle and economy here, perhaps a multiplication factor of 3 seems good. That is, multiply any rand value by 3 and see if the price makes sense in rupees, go for it. Well, to me, Budweiser didn't make sense at 90 Rs. I would rather pay 15R for sparkling water which tastes the same!!

There is nothing much to say about the match. The match began in a lame way and continued in that fashion and ended in that fashion. It seemed like both teams were looking for a draw. There were hardly any fouls. Germans play clean and Ghanaians are strong men who don't give a crap for small or medium injuries and continue their play as if nothing happened.

There were probably six or seven fouls in the whole match. And yet, one player from each team did receive yellow cards. I am sure the referee was bored, that's why he gave those yellow cards.

My one observation about the way the Germans play. Whenever there are a few defenders and one defender is controlling the ball and is attacked by opposition, he immediately passes the ball to the goalie. As no attacker can go close to the goalie (because he is the last in line, and any pass to the attacker by his teammate results in off side), the ball remains in Germany’s possession. But there was one close call for Manuel Bauer when a pass to him almost resulted in a Ghana striker stealing the ball. Luckily, Manuel managed to clear it before there was any risk.

And it didn’t seem like any German or Ghanaian played to their potential. The Ghana striker Gyan had to be replaced. German mid fielder Schweinsteiger (funny name, I think it means someone who jumps over a pig) also had to be replaced.

4. Brazil vs Chile (pre-QF): A friend of mine gave me a call and said he'll buy tickets. I didn't ask him which countries would be playing :-D

Somehow, Brazil seemed to play a much fairer game. There were very few drama incidents, and also the referee seemed to know Brazil's tactics, so he chose to ignore the fallen drama queens writhing in pain.

Yet, Brazil won the match. So, they can still win without cheating!!

The night was colder than usual. I had worn an extra t shirt than usual. So, even with 3 t shirts and a sports jacket, it was quite chilling. My seat was close to an open area from where wind blew into the stadium.

I borrowed a vuvuzela from the friend who bought my ticket. I am really proud of my lungs. I had blown about 25 balloons while 3 other guys could manage another 25. That was to welcome the newlywed friends to their house.

Well, I could blow the vuvuzela throughout the match. The guys around me (quite a few Brazilian fans) had given up already.

I will next try to inflate a car tyre.. HAHAHAHAHAHA..

Kalahari

2010-06-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

I had to change to a different hotel that weekend, and I thought, why not save some money of Standard Bank? Why not check out from the current hotel on Friday and not check into the other hotel not until Sunday? So where am I going to spend the weekend? How about Kalahari? There is a colleague (Arindam) who is ready to join me. So be the plan.
Fine Friday morning. I check out from the hotel and move all my stuff into the car and head to office. After a series of meetings, Arindam and I start for the city of Upington (on the edge of Kalahari desert, but on the shores of Orange river). The GPS shows an arrival time of 2 AM for 796 km. But no toll roads for the whole stretch. That’s not a good sign. The roads could be bad. Let’s find out!
After taking a few motorways and exits, we reach N14, which goes from Johannesburg to I don’t know where. But I know that it goes through Kalahari green area (the southernmost part of Kalahari where there is lot of vegetation, thanks to Orange river). The road is a 2 lane road just like our Indian highways, but is very well marked with no-ovetake zones and turns indicated clearly. Moreover, the speed limit is 120 kmph and where you need to reduce speed (at curves, or when the road goes through towns), there are too many road signs that you can’t miss. And no road bumps, obviously.
But within a few tens of kilometers, we were greeted with a signal. The next 5 km were one-way, as one part of the road was still being built. While cars and HUGE trucks waited on one side, workers from the other side would let the other side traffic to go through. It was well managed. But the arrival time shown in the GPS was only increasing. And it was getting dark too.
After 5 such stretches, we were literally flying (cruising at 180 kmph). The road had sparse traffic, and I was sure that there would be no cops, as it was quite dark already. After a short stop for loading the car tank and emptying our tanks, we continued through the straight roads. We could see head lamps of vehicles from far, and by the time we would pass that vehicle, at least 10 minutes would have passed. If I consider my speed as 150 kmph and the opposite cars as 100 kmph (I am sure I am underestimating here), the relative speed of 250 kmph would take me 10 minutes to cross the car. So you can imagine how straight the road is. And the road got only straighter, as we approached our destination. Thanks to constant overspeeding, we realized that we would reach our destination by 11 PM. And the car was quite stable at around 170 kmph. The only problem was of having to stop for refueling frequently.
When we were cruising at about 175 kmph near a town called Kuruman, a Mercedes Benz C class simply overtook us and disappeared. It was the first car to overtake us when we were driving (not counting the times when we slowed down to look around for fuel stations). We tried to catch up with him, but could not. At Kuruman, he went straight while we had to take a turn. So he won :-D.
Arindam had booked a room in Upington and when we reached the place, I really liked it. The lady greeted us warmly and showed us the room. It was SHOCKING! A beautiful room with a small kitchen and an attached bathroom. And PINK ROSE PETALS SPREAD ON THE BED. WHAT THE ****!!!! Because Arindam had just told her “two adults” she had assumed a couple would be visiting them. And thank heavens, there was a single bed besides the decorated double bed, and I immediately went and sat on it, to show her that we aren’t what she thought we are :-D
We didn’t wait for long to hit the beds, and next thing I remember is checking the time. it was 7 AM. It was very cold in the morning. After freshening up quickly, we had the breakfast that the lady served us. It was quite delicious. Bacon, fried eggs, toast, butter, jam, mushrooms, cheese and orange juice. Bed and breakfast for 360 Rands for two. Quite inexpensive.
We started the car soon after breakfast and discovered that the GPS wasn’t programmed to take us to our next destination, Twee Rivieren (two rivers in Afrikaans). That is the entrance to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park which spans across South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.
The landlady offered us to guide us to the road from Upington. There are a lot of intersections and she said we would not be able to figure out without her help. She drove for about 5 km in front of us and got us to the road we had to take. After thanking her, we started the next leg of our road trip, through the Kalahari desert. Now we could see the beauty of the desert. Hardly any trees, but a lot of dry grass on both sides of the road. Some shrubs here and there. Once in a while, a lone tree. And some small windmills. I am not very sure why they are there. It was exactly like the way you see it in the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. The sky was clear, without a hint of a cloud. The weather was pleasant. There were birds on the road, feasting on the flesh of the small animals killed by speeding vehicles. And one of those birds hit my windshield and crapped a truckload on it. As I was doing 160 kmph easily, I don’t think the bird survived. Fortunately, the windshield took the impact without cracking. I was careful enough to look for animals on the road and managed to escape without their blood on my hands all the time. But the birds weren’t so fortunate. I saw another bird just coming swooping towards my car from the left and then I didn’t see it. I would see it only a day later. You will read about it when I reach that section.
The fuel level was going down and there was no village in sight. When the fuel level had reached the red mark, we came across a village called Askham. When we took the turn, we were greeted with a rough road. After some 300 meters, there was sand and no road. Luckily it wasn’t for a long stretch and then there was asphalt road. There were kids playing on the road wearing South African national football team’s uniforms. Even in the remotest of the South African villages, there still was so much spirit in them!
From the Kgalagadi entrance in Twee Rivieren, we could either drive to Namibia or Botswana (by taking necessary permits) or just roam around the park for a few hours. We chose to drive around the park. The roads we went on had some vegetation and some small ponds of water. There were wildebeests, bisons and springboks. But no predators. After driving for a while, we got bored, and decided to get out of the park. Arindam was driving during this time. Unfortunately, we drove over a small rock that bent the wheel rim enough to drain the air from the tubeless tyre. We drove it with a punctured tyre on the mud road for some 20 km to the park entry point and got it fixed by the mechanic there. And we had beer while he did his work. People there wondered what made us drive the car all the way with a punctured tyre and damage it. I had one reply to them all, “rented car”.
Our next destination was a falls called Augrabies. This place is actually some 150 km from Twee Rivieren. But this shortest route is through Namibia. We had to come down south all the way to Upington (250 km) and then go west for another 100 km. We took nearly 3 hours to cover this distance, including a long break. Here Arindam had booked a room for us in a hotel. This place was nice too, and had a pub and a restaurant.
I hit the pub the moment we landed there, and soon Arindam too joined me. By the time we left the pub at 10.30 or so, I had downed six beers, two shots of Jägermeister and a bunch of snails in butter and garlic. There was only one bed in the room, so I slept on the sofa. Bad idea, because I had no blanket, and it was quite cold. I woke up somewhere in the middle of the night with a splitting headache. So I slept on the bed. It was quite comforting, but I didn’t get sleep for a quite a while, thanks to the headache.
The headache hadn’t gone down even a bit till morning. I tried drinking black tea and that prompted all my stomach contents to come out. I felt much better and we headed to the restaurant for breakfast. Half way through the breakfast, I had to barf again :-D. Then we checked out of the hotel and headed to Augrabies Falls and National Park. At the entrance there, the guard stopped the car, bent in front of it, and removed some feathers from the car’s grille. Then he removed the whole dead bird.
At the falls, I had to pay 88 rands to enter because I am here on business visa. Arindam had to pay only 22, as he is on work permit. But it is better than India where all foreigners are charged in dollars.
The falls was beautiful. Somewhat like Mekedatu near Bangalore, but well maintained. There were a lot of rabbit like animals called dassies around, basking in the sun. They are so lucky. They do nothing but eat the grass, crap, bask and sometimes mate. Some unlucky ones end up as food for eagles though.
After Augrabies, it was time to head to Johannesburg. My headache hadn’t gone yet, so I had some orange juice there and we left from Augrabies at 11.10 am. The arrival time showed by the GPS was 11 PM for a distance of 916 km. We continued at moderate speeds up to Upington, because it was broad daylight, and there could be cops (Upington seemed like a well developed city). After Upington, we continued our journey through the desert, overspeeding all the time. On the way, some oncoming vehicles blinked their head lights. Although my headlights are always switched on when I drive, it was unlikely that it was bothering them. So there is only one explanation, they are warning me of something hideous waiting for us on the way. What could that be? A speed trap, obviously. So we drove at just about 120 to 125 kmph and after some 30 km, we found a cop hiding under a tree with a speed gun. He had hid his BMW quite well behind the bushes. First of all it is so hard to find a bush around there, and it is nearly impossible to find a bush to hide the car and a tree for his own shade, and yet the cop had managed. And he was at least 30 km away from any nearest town!
After the cop disappeared in my rear view mirrors, it was time to fly again. And on the way, we saw a Volvo S80 pulling onto the road. After a while, he overtook us and he probably was doing 180 kmph. My blood boiled. Damn, just the 2nd guy to overtake me and that too in a car that’s at least twice as powerful as mine. Who cares? I started trailing him. Obviously, I didn’t go closer to him than 200 meters, so I could not see where he was headed to (a clue from his car registration) or the engine he had in his car. And then all of a sudden, two cops appeared in from of him and stopped him. Whew, missed by a whisker. They didn’t bother to stop me, and I braked hard to get below 120 kmph and continued we continued our journey. And after a while, the same Volvo guy overtook us again. But this time I didn’t try to provoke him. But he ran out of luck in a different way this time. He had to stop at a signal at road work, and behind him were a Tata Indica, then a big truck and then me. He surely was frustrated because he came out of the car, looked around, spoke to the workers and came and sat in the car. The moment the signal opened, he overtook the cars in front of him by going over the under-construction side of the road and disappeared. I didn’t bother to chase him, although I did go on the under-construction road to overtake the truck in front of me. These trucks are so irritating. They slowly cruise on the road (at around 100 to 120 kmph) and block all vehicles.
At the next signal, it was green when I reached and so I could continue without stopping. And there was the Volvo guy in front of us. He probably was stuck at that signal for a while. And he would not give up overspeeding. I didn’t bother much to trail him. But the road went through a town and he had to slow down, and so did I. the last I saw him was when he pulled into a fuel station.
As we went further, cops stopped us and told me that I was doing 135 kmph in 80 kmph zone. That’s quite unlikely because when I saw the 80 kmph sign, I had slowed down to 100 kmph. He had no proof because what was being shown in the radar was the speed of the car behind us (which was also overspeeding). But he said we have to pay a fine and all that. Saw my passport, and asked how much a fine of 1000 rands would be in rupees. I said 6000 Rs. He himself said that is huge, and asked where I work here and all. When I said Standard Bank, he told me to drive carefully and let me go. Whew! This is the second time a cop was letting me go without having to pay up. I guess I won’t be lucky next time.
We never saw the Volvo again. It was unlikely that he took a different route, because there weren’t any. May be he passed us by when we were speaking to the cop. If that happened, I am sure he had the last laugh.
We entered Johannesburg at around 8, and reached Arindam’s house at 9. After dropping him, I went to my new hotel, checked in, and hit the bed by 10. The distance of about 2200 km in 2.5 days had really drained me. I still am drained, and it is Monday afternoon already.
And most of the South Africans here who I tell about my weekend, tell me that they have never been to wherever I went!!!!

Johannesburg to Durban and back, within a day

2010-05-30T00:30:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning. I wake up at 5.30 and pack my stuff to go to Durban, stay for a day and return on Sunday evening. After breakfast, and some delays, I finally leave the hotel at 7. My GPS says I have to travel 583 km and I would reach at 12.51 pm. So I start. Just about half a km later, I see a police car and an ambulance, and dead man by the side of the road. Seems like a murder. A bad way to start a trip.
After taking different motorways, I reach N3. That’s the motorway from Johannesburg to Durban. Straight 500+ kms. Time to put my Polo (Mk IV, 1.4 petrol, 85 PS) to the test. I keep pushing the limits. On some toll roads, I even hit 180 kmph. I feel proud when BMWs and Mercs switch on their indicators and move to the left lane to give me way. Muahahahaha.
The car can cruise easily at around 170 kmph, but after that, it is a bit difficult to control. So I start cruising at about 160 kmph. And then, the dreaded moment. A cop signals me to stop. Damn.. Caught! No wonder these powerful cars were giving me way. They were just sending on the path of Hell!!!
The cop tells me that I was doing 147 kmph in 120 kmph zone, so I should pay 800 Rand fine. I try to act innocent, saying I am new to the country, and this is my first drive outside Johannesburg and I badly want to pee. And I ask her if she can reduce the fine. She keeps asking me how much I wanna pay. I say I don’t know how things work in South Africa, so she should tell me. Finally she says, “ok, give me 200”. I open my wallet, and there are some 300R. I say, “how about 50?”. Typical Indian bargaining. I think that pisses her off. She says, “that’s ok. Go. Drive safe”. I say, “this 50?”. She says, “no, that’s ok”.. whew!! I saved a big amount!
After that I keep cruising at 120 – 125 kmph when I have no company on the road. But when there are many other speeding vehicles, I try to keep up with them. First I find 2 BMW X5s. One of them gives me company all the way. For a while I lead and he trails me. After a while, he leads and I trail. Constantly doing 140 to 150 kmph. Luckily, no cops after that. I don’t know about automatic cameras. But in a country where theft is very common, I don’t think cops would risk planting such a camera!
And then I stop to reload the car’s tank and unload my tank. Time is 9.30 am. I have come only about 250 km. I now have lost the company of the X5. But now the scenery is getting better. Drakenberg mountains. I am so close to the border of Lesotho, and yet I can’t go. I see the mountains from far. So beautiful! The mountain that I am driving on, hardly has any vegetation, other than the elephant grass. The grass is brown and you can spot an occasional bush or a tree. Typical African savannah they show in national geographic. But drakenberg mountains are different. They are either rocky, or are full of flora.
As I continue, I get another company. A GTI. So two VWs racing. Well, not really racing. But trying to confuse the cops ;-). Now I am getting closer to Durban. The air is getting warmer. And now I have just about 5 km to reach the first place I want to visit, Ushaka Marine World. So I switch on the left indicator, and expect the guy behind to give me way. Stupid mistake. Because that is a city taxi (kinda car pooling taxi, used only by low income people. Usually full of people). I hear a thud and left mirror has turned inwards. That guy swerves left and right and then comes to a halt. I too stop the car by the road side. And then 3 black guys come rushing to my car. And start demanding money and my license. I tell them that I have no license, and I am driving illegally, so I tell them to call cops and that I’d surrender. I don’t get out of the car and I don’t get the window down more than an inch. So they really can’t do anything. After some abuses, they leave. Once their vehicle disappears, I come out and see. Whew!!! No damage to my car at all!
Then I go to the marine world. I didn’t expect it to be an amusement park. There are different water rides and all. Ha! Why would I want to do all that alone? So I roam around a mall there, and take a walk on the beach, and eat some Pasta and drink Peroni (Italian beer) at an Italian restaurant, and go to my next destination, Anstey’s beach. This place is a bit far from the other popular places, so no crowd. The weather is extremely pleasing. And the beach is beautiful too. About 30 feet sand on the shore that gradually goes up. And then some 15 feet of lawn. Then road. On the other side of the road, row houses. Beautiful beach houses. And the temperature is just about 15 degree C, and the breeze is chilling. I stand there for some 10 minutes, staring at the sea. Then I feel cold, so I sit in the car. The time now is about 3.15 pm. And I fall asleep. When I wake up, it is 4. The sun has almost gone down, but still not many people at the beach. So I go out and stand. I stand there for an hour, without even realizing it! When I see the time is 5, and still there are very few people, I decide to go. Go where? One option is to find a hotel to stay, and come to the beach again next day. Nah! Why spend on a hotel? I already had spent 160R on the toll (which meant another 160R while going back). Let me go back to my hotel, to Johannesburg!
So I leave from Anstey. My car’s windshield is hazy. The car’s wipers can’t clean it. They only make it worse. I hope that the haze disappears as I go on, so I continue. By the time I hit N3, it is 6 pm and is totally dark. And my windshield is still hazy. I can only see the tail lights of the vehicles behind me. And some vehicles don’t even have functioning tail lights. This is recipe for disaster and I am not on a suicide mission. I have to find a petrol bunk now. I need to take a leak too. I see a few petrol bunks by the motorway, but by the time I see them, I have already crossed the exit. I am getting more and more irritated, so I simply take an exit into some town and drive around. No petrol bunks. Heck! Then it strikes me. OH! GPS can show me petrol bunks! I find one, and get all the things done, and get back on the motorway.
I am convinced that the cops here don’t have night radars to track overspeeding vehicles. So I keep a constant speed of 140 to 160 kmph. As a toll booth approaches, I forget to slow down. And there is a lightning. Oh, no. that’ wasn’t lightning. That was a camera flash. Someone took my photo. Hehehe. So there are automated cameras, at least near toll booths (where there always are people). I want to get hold of that photo. That is my only photo from this trip!
Then I see a crashed city taxi. This one seems to have toppled multiple times. It is totally damaged and is being loaded into a tow truck. There are a few ambulances, which means there were many people inside.
Then I stop for dinner near Drakenburg. I walk out of the car wearing my t shirt. All the people there are wearing sweaters, mufflers and all. It is very cold. Like a big shot, I walk into the restaurant, and place my order. Now I realize how cold it is. I start to shiver. Still, I wait till my food comes (grilled prawns and rice), eat and then leave.
The moment I get in the car, I switch on the heater and wait till I am warm again, before I even move the car. After that, I drive non-stop and reach my hotel at 11. I had travelled 1195 km in less than 16 hours, and yet I had so much energy left within me. so, I start writing this travelogue within a few minutes of reaching my room…

The Plight On A Friday Night

2009-05-29T00:05:00.001-07:00

Here is how I describe my most adventurous trip to my hometown so far...

Some time around 8th May (Friday), Raghu mailed a few of us asking our opinion about travelling by train to Mangalore, to attend Pradeep's brother's wedding. Himself, Shiv and I confirmed. But he did not book the tickets until Tuesday, 3 days before the scheduled date of travel (it was because his internet connection had a problem, but let me blame him for everything ;-) ). A day before the trip, he cancelled his ticket, and so only Shiv and I were to travel together.
And the day came. I took a ride from my office to Marathahalli in a Vajra (Volvo city bus) bus, and from there to Wind Tunnel Road in another. Wind Tunnel road is where Shiv's office is, and the conductor did not know this place. I had trouble in explaining where this place is, until another passenger interrupted and told the conductor that it is near Total mall.
Fine, I waited for Shiv there, who came quickly (strange!!!), and we took another Vajra to Majestic. We reached there at 7.30 PM, and as we had another hour and a half for the train to arrive, we took a stroll on the busy streets of Majestic, and hopped into a shoddy pub. After sharing a pitcher of beer along with tasty chilly chicken, we bought some food from KFC and headed to the train station. We checked there and realised that our tickets weren't confirmed. Still, we decided to go to the platform 9, where the train would arrive. I called up Raghu on the way, and he told us that our tickets weren't confirmed, but we should try talking to the TC, who would try to give us some place in the train.
When we reached platform 9, there was no TC. We finished our KFC food (and realised that the KFC guy had cheated us, packing only 4 pieces of chicken, instead of 6), and waited for the train to arrive. The train arrived, along with that, the TC too. We asked the TC, and initially he said he can't do anything. When we met him again, he suggested that we board the car S3. We weren't sure, so we thought of going to KSRTC bus stop and taking a bus to Mangalore. I spoke to Raghu again, to check whether he'd get the money back for our 2 tickets, and he suggested that we should take TC's advice and board S3 because if TC has advised so, he can surely get us seats.
We jumped into that car just as the train started moving, and stood at the door for a while. After half an hour, the TC came, and told us to sit in 2 adjacent seats. Good, we had seats, that too together. Super…. We played Rummy for the next hour or so, initially Shiv having the upper hand, and later me. I guess the final score was 183 - 115, mine being lower. Just as we finished what would be our last game, the TC came and informed us that the seats we had occupied were already booked by someone else, from Mysore. He gave us two options: take a ticket in the general class and travel in that, or get down at Mysore. In any case, he said that the amount we (actually Raghu) had paid for our tickets already would already have been returned, so we must pay for the trip we had from Bangalore to Mysore. That would be 120 Rs for sleeper class. Add to that, the unconfirmed ticket means ticketless travel, so a fine of 250 rs. That meant each of us had to pay 370 Rs for a trip from Bangalore to Mysore. But when he had given those seats, his intention was very clear, to make money. Just as we expected, he took a total of 200 Rs from us, and we alighted at Mysore train station at 11.30 PM.
Then we took a prepaid auto from there to Mysore KSRTC bus stop, paying only 21 Rs. Just as we arrived there fifteen minutes later, we saw a Mangalore-bound bus departing. As I had to take a leak urgently, we skipped that bus and after I relieved myself, we went to speak to the station master there. He put a bomb on us, saying that the bus we had seen was the last bus to Mangalore. Great!!! Someone gave us hope saying there is an Airavata (Volvo intercity bus) in another 15 minutes. We waited, and the bus came as expected. But it was already full. We saw one junk red bus bound to Madikeri, and the conductor suggested that we take that bus and take another from there to Mangalore. But that bus was full, so we skipped that too. After that, there was no bus that would go anywhere close to Mangalore for the next hour and a half. Finally, another Madikeri-bound bus arrived, which was full again.
Then a kind police constable, who was watching us for the two hours we were standing there (taking only a cup of tea in between), told us that it was the last bus for the night, and the next one would be three hours later, at 4.30 AM. Great!!! We boarded the bus, and Shiv found a seat for himself. I saw one empty seat between two men (it was a 3+2 junk bus), but I was reluctant to sit there. A passenger, who was travelling with 2 drums, gave me one drum and told me to sit on that. So I put that drum in the aisle, and sat there with my back towards the direction of the bus. It was a circus. Every time the driver braked, I had to hold on tightly to the rods around.
At Hunsur, one guy sitting next to Shiv alighted (the route of the bus was not through the regular Kushalnagar bus station, but through Virajpet). Finally I had a decent seat. It was congesting, still we managed. I could not get sleep, so I was staring out of the window, trying to remember every place. I got the thoughts of the sort "hey, that's the place where we stopped for a leak during our first Irpu trip", "hey, that's the place where Raghu rode Kunal's Bullet for a while" etc.. Once we crossed Gonikoppa, the road was unfamiliar to me. Then I fell asleep for a while, and when we I woke up, the bus had stopped at Virajpet. The bus was 90% empty at that place, and the driver had suddenly had an adrenaline rush, and he drove like a maniac. We reached Madikeri at 5.25 AM, with me sleeping only for 10 minutes or so. I wonder how Shiv managed to snore!!!
The bus from Madikeri to Mangalore was at 5.30 AM. Aha, five minutes!! We relieved ourselves, and then grabbed a few bananas and some water. Even the Mangalore bus' conductor was there, and so we thought we still had time, so we went to drink some tea. As we drank, the bus left. Shiv tried to wave at the bus with his 2 hands full of bananas. I think the driver thought that Shiv was trying to attract some monkeys, so he ignore Shiv. Damn!!! We had another half an hour for the next bus, so we had Akki Shavige and Uppittu at that small eatery in the bus station. Just as we finished, the next bus arrived. This time, we got into the bus, wasting no time.
And then, 3 small children little ahead of us in the bus vomitted all over the place, forcing us to go to the back rows of the half-empty bus. The journey was quite rocking.. Literally.. Still we both managed to fall asleep. When I woke up, we were in the outskirts of Mangalore. And then the conductor came and reminded us that he owed us some change. That's only 4 Rs. That was very professional!!! We had forgotten about it, but he hadn't.
And the bus reached Mangalore city, and as I saw my house pass by, I asked the driver to stop. He said that the bus doesn't stop at all city bus stops. Damn, I had to get down 2 kms further, and take a city bus and reach home at 10 AM.
Later, Shiv said he reached home at 10.30 AM.

Yet another trip to Irpu

2009-05-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

Note: the actual travelogue starts from 4th paragraph. The first 3 are “preface” :-D

Another long weekend was coming up, and we had 2 destinations in mind: South Coorg (again!!) or Ooty. Needless to say, South Coorg was unanimous. So I dialed the Irpu Home Stay number and confirmed our place. That’s a month in advance. Two weeks later, that uncle called back asking whether our plan was confirmed. Indeed, it was!!!

Ragz, Shiv, Ashith, Sudheer and I planned go for the trip. Initially we thought of taking my Palio that could take all the guys’ luggage, while all the other guys would ride freely. Nah, I won’t get to ride, which I prefer to do in South Coorg. Moreover, I was sure that none would be in the car with me, because everyone would want to ride his bike. Later, Guru too confirmed that he’d join. All the guys got their bikes serviced just in time for the trip. Ashith and Shiv (and their Pulsar 180 and 150) hadn’t been to Irpu since January 2007 (I was with them during that trip, obviously). Ragz had been there twice last year (once during the same time and once again during rainy season with his colleagues). It was the first trip to Irpu for Sudheer (and his new Unicorn) and Guru (and his Splendor on which I learnt to ride a motorbike while in Manipal. And it still has the scar it got when I crashed it).

A day before the trip day, I cooked some fried rice for the guys, packed my bags, went to Koramangala and exchanged my car with Dawson’s Pulsar 180, then went to Hotel Ashoka (a bar in Domlur), met up with Sudheer, Shiv and Ragz who had already downed a few beers, and I downed a pint too. Once we were done, we headed to the GM house in RT Nagar. And after some timepass till midnight, we went to sleep, for the next 5 hours.

Although we had planned to hit the road by 6 AM, we managed to do so only by 7. That’s quite an improvement compared to last year!!! Guru met us near Hebbal police station, and we were on our way through West of Chord road to Mysore Road. Our plan was to stop for breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi after Ramanagara. But looking at the traffic on Mysore road at 7.30 AM, and the crowd at every restaurant by the roadside, it seemed unlikely that we would be able to. Truly, Kamat Lokaruchi’s security guard was really struggling to manage the cars there. Well, big deal. We headed to Kamat Upachar 16 kms further. Shivanand had trailed behind, and he didn’t notice us entering the restaurant, and so he went ahead. When we didn’t see him even when we were half way through our buffet breakfast (for 70 Rs only), we tried calling him. No response. And he called back after some time to tell us that he had reached Mandya!! So we told him to wait, and started the next leg of our journey.

The traffic was dense throughout. Add to that, poor management by Ramanagara district police. They didn’t bother to remove the barricades they had put on the road (which is good at nights, to stop people from overspeeding) even though there was slow-moving traffic for kms and kms. Looking at the dirt around those barricades, it looked as if they hadn’t been moved for at least a few years.

By this time, Ashith had exchanged his Pulsar 180 with Ragz’s Karizma. All the days before our trip, Ashith was dreaming about this opportunity to test the top speed of Karizma. And his dream had come true. Later he said he reached 130 kmph on it!!!

More woes at Mandya. This time, can’t blame Mandya district police force. Poor chaps were just bystanders because they could do nothing about narrow roads which were populated by vacation-goers and city motorists.

After Mandya, there was free-flow of traffic, marred occasionally by the slow-moving three-wheelers or trucks that occupied the rightmost lane, forcing the cars to slowdown and overtake from left. Unfortunately, the rearview mirrors of my bike (actually, Dawson’s) were in bad condition, so I too had to slow down quite a lot before overtaking or changing lanes.

And all this while, I was hoping that we would find lesser traffic on the route from Srirangapatna to Hunsur. We were kinda lucky. There was less traffic once we took that right turn into rural road from Srirangapatna towards Hunsur, but it wasn’t as less as it was last year. And while we waited for all the guys to arrive at that junction, 3 cars stopped and asked directions. Lucky for them, I knew whatever places they mentioned and so I was able to direct them. And that prompted other guys to suggest that I put a table and chair under a tree there and sit and wait for travelers asking for directions and charge them for my service too.

Once we hit the BM road at Ilawala, Ashith went ahead and disappeared from us, and we ourselves were riding at 80+ kmph!! Unfortunately, he missed the turn to Gonikoppa and went towards Piriyapatna. We all met up at that turn and tried calling him. No use. So I sent him an SMS to find his way to Gonikoppa and we’d wait for him. As we went ahead, he called back, and I told him how to reach Gonikoppa from Piriyapatna (I knew the way because we also had got lost and taken this route last year). The ride on this road is a wonderful experience. The road goes through the protected forest. And the weather is pretty cool even during midsummer. I can’t imagine how cold it would be during winter nights! We rode without our helmets or jackets, just to experience this climate.

And Ashith managed to reach Gonikoppa before us and there was more confusion. Sudheer, Ragz and I had some beer at Gonikoppa and while waiting for other guys to come. And finally we all managed to get back together and headed towards Irpu. Four of us (Guru, Ashith, Sudheer and I) went ahead and reached Irpu Home Stay. Ragz and Shiv somehow missed their way and managed to reach some half an hour later.

Uncle and aunty greeted us. And after the exchange of usual wishes, we were ready for lunch. As the saying goes, ‘hunger is the best sauce’, we gobbled up our lunch in no time. Then we spent some time on the benches (made of bamboo) and sways which the Timmaiahs (uncle and aunty) have installed in their front yard, under the trees. When you sit here and gaze at the world, to the extent that your eye can see, you see only green (except one small patch downhill where you see the roof of a godown). As you look up, the green ends and the blue starts. It’s so wonderful.

Later, we played shuttle and basketball in their front yard. The gentle breeze was tingling us once in a while, and also spoiling the game by giving unexpected twists to the shuttlecock. As darkness approached, it was time to play rummy. Sudheer is the punter in this game. But we did manage to get fewer points than him in some games. And of course, beer was there to accompany us. We had decided not to drink any hard liquor. We had no intention of getting drunk and ruining such a nice vacation. And KF Premium can never get us drunk. Jai Vijay Mallya!!!

Aunty served onion pakoda as we played. And it was so tasty that we had to pause our play to empty the plates. Even the dinner, complete with pork cooked in Coorgi style, was exemplary.

In between Rummy, we also played Donkey and Bluff. Guru, who had detached himself from us to sit under the trees because he didn’t know to play Rummy, also joined to play Donkey and Bluff. As the night went on, we got bored of card games, so we just sat there and chatted. Uncle also joined us and shared his stories with us. Finally, it was curtains down for the day by midnight.

When I woke up the next morning, Guru had already gotten up and visited the Irpu Rameshwara temple and had had his breakfast too. Once Ashith woke up, we 2 had our breakfast of dosa with a wonderful coconut chutney, lemon rice and sambar. By then, even the other 3 guys joined us. After breakfast, we played more shuttle. We cancelled our plan to go to Wayanad, that disappointed Guru. Not sure if it disappointed him because he also expressed a shock when we told him that going to View Point south of Wayanad, and coming back, would come to around 220 kms in one day. But in the end, it was a good idea not to go. We had our lunch there, which was totally vegetarian. They had assumed that we would not be having lunch, so they hadn’t had much stock of food. And we emptied every vessel in which food was served, and that pleased the old couple, who said they want the same “performance” from us during other meals too.

After evening tea, we finally decided to take a short ride through the tea estate of Tata. We headed to their Glen-Lorna estate. I felt that the tea estate region was colder than other parts of Coorg. Was it because of higher elevation, or was it the influence of some 2000 acres of tea plants? Anyway, one gate of the tea estate was open, so we entered the estate. Yeah, we trespassed into Tata’s property. After spending some time there, we headed back home for more Rummy/Donkey/Bluff and more food. Uncle prepared barbeque for us, and we had that along with onion pakoda, egg pakoda and beer. I slept pretty early after dinner, while the rest of the guys continued to play cards.

When I woke up the next morning, Guru had woken up again. The rest of the guys were still sleeping. We had nothing to do, so we plucked some chikku fruits from the tree and ate them. It is so thrilling to eat fruits directly from the tree!! Uncle saw us and called one of the guys (Bollu) working in his estate to pluck a few chikkus and that guy plucked a big bag full. By then, Guru had gone to Irpu falls, and the other guys were also up. Ragz and Sudheer too headed to the falls. And suddenly we realized that had not enough cash to pay for the expenses!!! Once Guru came back, we went to Kutta and found no ATM there and came back empty handed. That was some 30 kms of journey. Then we reluctantly asked uncle about the closest ATM and he told us that it is in Ponnampet, which is near Gonikoppa. So Guru and I went to Ponnampet and got the cash. By then we had traveled 80 kms already!!

When we reached back home, the other guys had had their breakfast and uncle and aunty were ready to go for some function that they had to attend. Aunty served the two of us the last few remaining KADUBUs with coconut chutney. By the time we had packed our bags, they had already left. So we handed over the room keys to their servant Gopi and we hit the road.

Guru stopped for some time to check his bike. That’s again at Ponnampet. But he joined the rest of us soon. Our return journey seemed quicker than forward journey. We had left from Irpu at 12.30 in the afternoon and had reached the BM road in about 2 hours. Ragz stopped to buy mangoes while Sudheer stopped by a garage to get his bike checked (as his bike had fallen to its left while going back to the road from the side, after a short break). The rest of us also stopped a little ahead to drink tender coconut water, at Ilawala. This is the place where the shortcut to Srirangapatna begins. As we were drinking the coconut water, we saw Ragz speeding by. He had missed the turn, but he realized it as he approached the outskirts of Mysore. We told him to come and meet us at that junction outside Srirangapatna. Actually, he took almost the same time as us, because the road he had taken is far better than the rural road. I think we will not take this shortcut anymore.

Once we were back together, we rode to Mandya and stopped there for lunch. After lunch, the trip continued. The road was as crowded with cars as it was when we had left. We were so desperate to get back home that we didn’t stop many times. Our butts were aching, and we all had the same complaint, that the elastic of the underwear was giving more pains. I think I will design underwear that is best suited for bikers and market it with a cruiser bike brand name.

Guru had gone far ahead of us. Ragz, Shiv and Ashith took the diversion at Kengeri to go to RT Nagar. Sudheer and I continued to his house at Domlur and have a few beers. Then I went to Koramangala and exchanged the bike with the car and went back home, and slept for an hour in the hot water in the bath tub. Today, my body still aches, but I like it….

Bike ride to Chikmagalur

2009-01-16T03:10:00.000-08:00

This year, the way to welcome the new year had to be different. We, the GM house fraternity, wanted to be away from the celebrations of the city. So Shiv found out this place called Koffee Woods in the Western Ghats. And we had our place for vacation. I spoke to the lady Kavya (whose husband owns the place) over the phone, and visited her at her house in Koramangala. Payment done, rules noted...

5 of us (Bala, Raghu, Shiv, Sachin and I) left from Bangalore on 31st at 7 AM. I got my Caliber for the trip. I had no idea how I was going to keep up with the speeds of Bala's CBZ Extreme, Shiv's Pulsar 150 and Raghu's Karizma. Yet, I wanted to try. Gummy (real name lost somewhere in the history of mankind) was supposed to come to Chikmagalur directly from his hometown Gangolli.

After riding for some 30 km on one of the worst stretches of Bangalore (Yashwantpur to Nelamangala), which is full of trucks, road widening and flyover construction, potholes and uneven roads, we regrouped at Nelamangala junction, the one end of NH 48 (the other end is in Mangalore, close my house there). The bikes needed fuel, but for next 15 km or so, there was no petrol pump. The road is good, and will be better in future as it is being widened to 4 lanes.

We continued after refuelling the motorbikes, and stopped at Kunigal for breakfast. This place is some 50 km from Nelamangala. Here we all had 2 rounds of breakfast and tea too. All for a meagre 110 Rs. After breakfast, we continued through many small towns, stopping occasionally to relieve ourselves or for smoking breaks and once for tender coconuts. I did not find it difficult to keep up with the other bikes thus far.
We entered the chaotic city of Hassan, off the NH48, by noon. It is one really bad city in Karnataka. For more information, drive in this city once. You'll surely feel that Bangalore is at least a thousand times better!!! From Hassan, we took the SH57 to Belur. This is one AWESOME road. Nicely paved, and well painted. Less traffic too. This stretch is close to 40 km and you can cover it in half an hour or so. The road is that good!!
Belur is a small town, and yet, chaotic!! Luckily, it is easy to find your way to Mudigere. The road from Belur to Mudigere is not so smooth. Not many potholes, but the pothole-fillings make the road uneven. Somewhat a bumpy ride for 30 km. But because I have driven on that road by car (while coming from Mangalore to Bangalore on 29th Dec) also, I can confidently say that it isn't as bumpy as the road from Yashwantpur to Nelamangala!!!
Once you cross the Hassan district and enter Chikmagalur district, the road quality improves considerably. Although the road is curvy, you can still maintain about 60 kmph. You will not feel like riding fast here anyway, because you would want to look at the paddy fields or huge trees on both sides of the road, plus the distant peaks of the Western Ghats where probably no human ever has set foot!!
At Banakal, Ramesh (the son of the caretaker of the estate house Seetamma) was waiting for us. After we bought a few bottles of beer, he led us on a dilapidated road towards the estate. This is some 2 km stretch I think. But it feels much longer because of its condition. But once you reach the house, all your tiredness goes away. The house is pretty big. It has 3 bedrooms and is fully furnished. It was about 2 in the afternoon then. Seetamma greeted us with refreshing lime water. As Gummy was still on his way to Shivamogga, it meant he would need another 3 hours to reach here. So we had our lunch that consisted of chicken biryani, chicken curry, fried chicken, raita, curd, rasam and rice. More than enough to satisfy 5 hungry stomachs.
Then we found a carrom board and its coins, so 4 of us started playing in the verandah while Raghu went to sleep. The problem there is, Vodafone has connectivity but Airtel doesn't. Strange, isn't it? Gummy called up on Raghu's cell to inform us that he will be further delayed as the bus from Shivamogga to Chikmagalur is going at a snail's pace.
We shifted the carrom board to the hut outside the house, opened a bottle of beer, and started playing and drinking. It was fun to stand and play, that too while drinking beer. At around 6, Gummy called up saying he had managed to reach Banakal. So Bala and I went to pick him up. It was dark and cold. very dark and very cold.
We found Gummy smoking at a shop in Banakal. We bought a case of beer and returned to the estate. After drinking more beer, we sat around the bonfire, while Seetamma and Ramesh served us with pork cooked in coorgi style, and fried chicken. We sat there till almost midnight. Once the new year arrived, we greeted each other and then had our dinner. The first meal of the year was similar to the lunch we had. After a sumptuous meal, we all retired to sleep.
By the time I woke up on Thursday, it was already 9 AM. The other guys too were just waking up. Soon we gathered around the dining table to have our breakfast. It consisted of akki rotti (kinda chapati made from rice), chicken curry and tea. It was good, but the chicken was already getting too much.
After breakfast, we walked to a small stream some 10 minutes away. Ramesh showed us the place and left. The water was cold and initial few minutes were achy. We spent some 2 hours in that place and then went back home. Then we played cricket in the frontyard of the house. Initially we played individual batting for 2 rounds, and then made teams. One team consisted of Raghu, Shiv and Bala. The other consisted of Gummy, Sachin and me. I was surprised to know that Sachin knew a few rules of cricket. All these years I used to think he had no idea how a cricket bat looked like!! Shiv started singing his favourite song "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me" to Raghu. We really had trouble restraining Raghu from breaking Shiv's neck.

There was one incomplete well (may be 10m deep) in the compound, and our pitch was such that the well was exactly at the mid on position. And one of us managed to hit the ball into that. But we had a spare ball. So the game continued.

We decided to have a 5 match series, each of 10 overs per innings. In the first match, the other team made some 32 runs, and we chased it successfully even though only Gummy knew batting. Sachin managed to bat well. My only 4 in the series came in this match. After this match, it was time to lunch.
The lunch had chapati this time. But the chicken was already too much so we asked Seetamma to prepare some vegetarian dish for dinner. After lunch, we played cards for some time: Bluff and Donkey. Later we resumed our cricket series. 2nd and 3rd matches went the other team's way. We batted first and didn't manage to gather a double digit total in both. And they chased easily. Throughout the series, beer kept us fresh.
Meanwhile, the 2nd ball too had managed to find its way into the well. We had to find a way to get the balls out. There was a rope to get into the well, tied firmly to the trees around. Plus, there were steps carved on the well wall. Initially Ragz decided to get into the well. But we felt that he would be too heavy for the rope ;-).. Finally Bala got down into the well and got the balls out and came out of the well, all within 60 seconds.. I think Bala should join the defence forces..

Time for coffee break. Seetamma made delicious coffee from local beans. It was awesome!!! Then we played more card games, in the hut, and with beer. By this time, bonfire was ready. Upon my request, Ramesh had brought a whole chicken. He also had readied an iron rod with a big handle. We tied the marinated chicken to the rod using thin wires, and held it over the fire. After some 40 minutes, our delicious barbequed chicken was ready. It took less than 10 minutes to consume it!!!
The dinner consisted of kadubu (or pundi) and chicken curry and, for a change, beans curry. More card games followed, with beer. I learnt how to play Rummy. Gummy taught us Rummy. Gummy is expert in Rummy.
Next morning, time for cricket. More cricket and more beer. Only then, breakfast. After breakfast, more cricket and more beer. Then lunch. Then Rummy and beer. In the evening, time for a short bike ride to a waterfall nearby. It is by the main road to Mangalore. So it is dirty. I could smell human waste and so I did not feel like entering the water at all. Even the other guys did not spend much time there. We came back and played more cricket and drank more beer.
After dinner, which had more vegetarian dishes this time (upon request, of course) and mackerel curry, we went to sleep.
The next morning was a boring one. We woke up a bit earlier than usual (by 8), packed our bags, had our breakfast, bid adieu to Seetamma and Ramesh, and left for Bangalore. On the way, we saw one KSRTC bus crashed into a tree by the road. Then a BMW 5 Series overtook us some 200 km before Bangalore. Later I saw the same car stuck in the traffic jam in Yashwantpur and I overtook it. Muahahahahaha!!!!

Another trip to South Coorg

2008-05-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

Ever since I visited South Coorg in January 2007, I wanted to go there again. Finally I got this opportunity during the first week of May (2008). Sachin, Raghavendra and my brother Roshan agreed to come, but none of the guys from the previous trip to the same place. I found out that the Poonachas' High falls Holiday Home had become too expensive for us, with 1200 Rs per person per day (though it included all meals, it still was expensive!!). So I got this place called Irpu Home Stay (Belonging to Timmaiahs), just about 300 meters far from High Falls, but at about one-third of the cost.
A day before our trip, Thomas and Kunal said they too would join. So we met these guys (both with their own Bullets) near City Market and soon we hit the Mysore Road. We already were nearly an hour later than our scheduled time of 7 AM. And we had to wait for nearly half an hour at Kadumane, just to get a place to sit and have our breakfast. Then we decided that we would meet next only at the turn from Mysore road towards Hunsur. Thomas and Kunal went ahead, while Sachin, Raghavendra, Roshan and I moved on slowly, as we were 2 guys on each bike: Pulsar 150 (which I had borrowed from Shivanand, as my Caliber wasn't suited for two riders for such a journey) and Karizma (Raghavendra's new bike that had done only 140 KM before this journey).
We stopped in between for tender coconuts (and in the case of Sachin, cigarettes too), and fought about who would ride the Karizma. After we crossed Mandya city (or town, whatever), Kunal called to tell us that Thomas and he had already taken the right turn after Srirangapatna, and were relaxing in a field. We too reached that spot soon, to find them sitting under a coconut tree, with sugarcane field on their side. By then our (the pillion riders') a$$es had taken enough pounding, so we desperately needed a break.
After the break, Thomas and Kunal decided to exchange their bikes, so they started adjusting something on Kunal's bike, while the other 4 continued towards Hunsur. We crossed the power grid area, and reached the BM road (the wide 4 lane road that goes on the outskirts of Mysore). After stopping at one place for tender coconut, we continued. Though the 3 of us were sure that Thomas and Kunal were behind us, Sachin firmly told us that they had gone ahead. So I told him, if at all they are behind us, I am going to break a tender coconut on his head. Soon Kunal called and told us to wait for him at some place, so that we could get together and go for lunch. So I still owe Sachin's head a tender coconut.
We waited for the Bulleteers at the bypass to Hunsur. Once they came, we entered the Hunsur town, and stopped at a veg restaurant for lunch. It was already 1.30 PM then. After ordering food, Kunal, Sachin and I went into the bar next door. Good old KF was really really really refreshing!!! And it was a perfect appetizer too.
After lunch, our next town was Gonikoppalu. We came out of Hunsur town and hit the BM road again. Meanwhile, Mrs Timmaiah called me up to check whether we are coming or not. I had told her earlier that we would be reaching at around 2.30 or 3, but now we had covered only about 70% distance by 3 PM.
Unfortunately, all of us missed that left turn from BM road towards Gonikoppalu, and ended going through Piriyapattana. The road was bad, and I could not remember going through this town last time. Still we continued, and after about 6 km, finally decided to ask someone (typical men, always hesitating to ask for directions). And there we got to know that we had to go back to Piriyapattana and take a right turn. So we went back on the bad road, and took that turn. This stretch of road was not very good either. Finally we came to the junction of this road and the road which we should actually have taken. Right at this junction is a checkpost and a board that welcomes you to Rajiv Gandhi Sanctuary.

And once you are on this part of the road, you don't feel like wearing helmet anymore. You ride through the forest, and feel the wind flowing through your hair. The road is straight, and gets your mind lost. But within a few kilometres, you are back into civilization. And so we continued, from Hudikeri to T.Shettigeri, stopping in between only to give rest to our aching rear-ends. At T.Shettigeri, we stopped for tea. It was already 5.30 PM then, and we had about 20 km more to go. And here the roads are not so good. They look good because they are tarred newly. However, while putting a new layer of tar, these repair people don't fill up the potholes, so the road gives you a bumpy ride.

By the time we reached Irpu, it was beyond 6 PM, and the Timmaiahs were waiting for us. They have only 2 guest rooms, and as we had booked both these, we had no worry of getting disturbed by other tourists/travellers. Though our original plan was to go to Irpu falls that day itself, it was already late. The entry to Irpu falls is controlled by the forest department, and you have to pay Rs 10 to enter. And it is shared equally by the temple there and the forest department. No free access to that beautiful falls.

Finally we managed to Reach Mr Timmaiah's house. And the moment we we saw the house, and the surroundings, all our pain vanished. Mr Timmaiah showed us our rooms, and other things we could use: a hammock (which, he said, is made of the same rope that is used to tie ships to the port, and so will not break even for my weight) and a swing (which is tied to the trees that are so strong that the tree will not break, even for my weight). The rooms had attached bathrooms, 2 beds each, and quite a few chairs, including two easy-chairs. PERFECT!!!!

Kunal, who preferred being closer to the nature than the rest of us, pitched his tent in one corner of the open ground in front of the house. I took a bath in the cold water, and it was as refreshing as drinking beer!!! The water was so soft, that I didn’t need to use much soap, and it didn’t affect my hair at all.

That night, the dinner consisted of pork and chicken curries, chapatis, sambar and rice. But before dinner, we guys had to have our usual tonic. So came out from my bag a full bottle of Black&White, 1/3rd Jack Daniel's, 1/3rd Teacher's Highland Cream and 1/4th Bacardi Reserva. Mr Timmaiah, who we had started already calling 'uncle', gave us the KF strong beer he had, plus ice cubes.After all the plates were wiped clean, we went to sleep. Kunal went to his tent, Thomas and Roshan went into one room, and Raghu, Sachin and I went into another. We 3 guys were thinking of chatting until late night. But the moment we hit the bed, we wanted to stop all other activities. Next morning Sachin told me that I was telling them something about my previous trip to Irpu, and just as I was telling, I stopped abruptly, and started snoring moments later.

Next morning we were up at 8, to finish off the poori bhaji that Mrs Timmaiah ("aunty") had made for us. Thomas and Kunal studied the map of South India and decided to enter to Kerala through Wayanad (about 7 KM from Irpu) and go to Calicut. The rest of us headed for Irpu falls, about half a KM from where we stayed.But we were shocked to see the number of vehicles already there. There were 2 tourist buses, and at least 10 cars. We entered the gates, and went through the cement pathway (perfect to spoil your mood if you are looking for a natural path to the falls). There was a bridge to cross the stream (that comes from the falls) but we guys went through the rocks of the stream, to get some feel of the nature. And when we reached the falls, all we could see was people. And the authorities have even put a platform made from bamboo, all the way to the bottom of the falls. It was so disgusting, that I decided not to get under the falling water. I would hate to stand in a queue to get under the water!!!! Once the other guys finished their bath (Raghu and Sachin hadn't taken bath the previous night), we sat there for a while, looking at all the silly things the people there were doing. Someone had put a fire in one of the wastebins, and the smell of burning plastic was all around.We came back to our house, and gulped some cold beer. And we went to sleep after lunch, at around 1.30 PM, hoping to get up by 3, and go to Kuruva island in Kerala. But when we got up (after great difficulty) at around 3.30, Mrs Timmaiah informed us that Thomas and Kunal were coming back and would have lunch there, as there was some strike in Kerala. FOILED!!!! Even we had no chance to go to Kerala then. Thomas and Kunal were back, and they said they had been to the island, and it looked very boring. So no island. What to do? Kunal said they saw a stream in Irpu and we could try spending time there. So we 4 went to that stream. It looked pretty dirty, and deep too. There was no possibility of going up the stream.

The shores were full of plants, and the stream was deep. So we tried going down the stream. As we were exploring, two young girls came with buckets filled with clothes. Hmmmm, it was the washing place for them, and there was no point for us to spend time there. So we went back to the house. Mr Timmaiah suggested that we could actually trek through his brother's estate, on the hill behind. This is Brahmagiri. And if you really want to trek, you need to take permission from the forest department, and you have to take a guide along (of course, you have to pay for the guide too!!).

Soon we had started our trek. After the coffee estate ended, it was a path through thorny bushes. And I felt really tired. So Sachin, Roshan and I decided to go back, while Thomas and Kunal continued trekking, as if they were walking on a tar road. Raghu went with them.

As we were walking towards our house, we could see the shiny yellow t-shirt of Raghu (If you look closely, you can actually spot him in the photo). After looking at him closely, we could see Thomas and Kunal (who weren't wearing "attractive" clothes) as well. From that distance, Raghu looked just as small as the nail of my pinkie. Those who know him also know his size. Now imagine how far up they were!!!

But it was getting dark, so we 3 went back to the house. After waiting for a long long time, the trekkers finally came back. By then it was pitch dark outside. They hadn't gone much further from where they were when we had seen them earlier. It is illegal to enter the area without permission and these guys didn't want to risk getting caught for trespassing into a wildlife sanctuary.

Soon we started our 2nd day's drinks. Jack Daniel's and Bacardi Reserva were finished, and Black&White was opened.

Mr Timmaiah had lit a fire with some wood, so make coal to prepare barbeque for us. Soon we had barbequed chicken, and some potato and onion that Kunal put under the coal.

After another sumptuous meal, it was time to end another day. We wanted to celebrate Roshan's birthday, but had no energy to wait until midnight. Next day Thomas and Kunal would continue to Calicut early in the morning, and the others had plans to go to Phookode lake and see the surrounding area.By the time we got up at 8, Kunal and Thomas had finished their breakfast of Akkirotti with some kind of spinach curry. We celebrated Roshan's birthday then. We left about an hour after they left, and headed towards Kerala. We had to go through the bad roads of Kutta. The moment we crossed the border, the condition of the road was completely different. There is one place with board that says it is the Karnataka-Kerala border. One side of the road has a road that hasn't been tarred for ages, while the other side has perfectly tarred road. Now we had entered the Wayanad district. We continued through the forest, and went on for about 70 km from the border, passing Mananthavady (the first town you get in Kerala on this road), Vythiri and Kalpetta on the way. We saw many roadsigns that gave directions to Edakal caves, and different waterfalls. We also saw tea estates for the first time during this trip.We reached the Phookode lake, and it was rather boring. There was a few peddle boats, and there were enough people in queue to use them. So we went 3 km further, to a place called Viewpoint. This is the beginning of the Ghat road that goes down, down and down and apparently we can even see Calicut from there. Well well well, when we went we could hardly see anything. The whole area was covered in fog. The fog seemed to rise rapidly from the bottom of the mountain, so it hadn't occupied the road. But the road seemed so maginficent and irresistible that we gave up all our other plans and continued on the road. It is a narrow road (a national highway, I guess), but well maintained. Riding on it is a pleasure, as long as you stay away from the monstrous KSRTC (Kerala SRTC) buses whose drivers seem to have problem spotting smaller vehicles on the road. May be their government should conduct eye-tests for them.

After a long long long journey, we reached the bottom of the hill, a town called Adivaram. We had tea there. Sachin had a cigarette too. There was a board there that said the Calicut beach was only 45 km from there. That's an hour's ride. But Sachin wasn't too interested, so we headed back, upwards. Raghu and Roshan went far ahead and Sachin and I went slowly. Half way through our journey, it started raining. As we got closer to Viewpoint, it was pouring cats and dogs. We could not see beyond 20 meters or so. Still some irreponsible drivers hadn't switched on their headlamps. We stopped at Viewpoint, and the rain got heavier. It was one awesome experience. Sachin could smoke without the fear of being caught (public smoking draws 500 Rs fine, we heard).We continued on our journey back, and when we reached Kalpetta, it was 3 PM. Mr Timmaiah had suggested that we lunch at Hotel Woodlands there. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed. Fortunately, the food court was open. And the food there is awesome. The place is unbelievably clean and economical. In the food court, the food is cooked in front of you, so you know the quality. Raghu and I weren't satisfied with one round of food, so we asked the cook what food could he cook. The restaurant was long closed for others. But for us, the cook agreed to prepare food, so we bought more food. When we were finally done, it was 4 PM, and they were sticking the evening snack menus to the wall. But we were too filled up to have tea and snacks. So we continued our journey back to Irpu. We crossed Mananthavady and continued further. We stopped at a shack for tea. We asked the boy there whether the road led to Karnataka, and he said yes. All in broken English and Malayalam. As we went on, to my surprise I could see lot of tea estates. But I could not remember seeing them while going to Phookode. The first tea estate we had seen then were very close to Phookode. It was obvious that we had lost our way. Luckily we found a few men who had parked their car on the roadside, probably for a smoke. They told us that we had come quite a distance on the wrong road (which led to Talassery), after missing a right turn at Mananthavady. So we begain our 11 km journey back to Mananthavady.It is easy for a traveller to get lost in Mananthavady. There are many one-ways, but and very few roadsigns. But this time we managed to find the right road. We picked up some snacks at Kutta and headed back home. It was probably about 7 PM when we reached back home. By the time I finished my bath and came out, Sachin and Raghu had already emptied the Teacher's, and now only Black&White was left. Mr Timmaiah joined us with his bottle, Mansion house brandy. We sat and shared a lot of stories. Mr Timmaiah said that we were the best group who had been there, since the time they started homestay in January 2007 (DAMN! That's the first time I went to Irpu!!!). We were the cleanest, and least fighting. He said he really liked our way of putting all waste in one plastic bag, instead of throwing into their garden. And he shared with us their experiences while running he homestay: some tourists of one room stealing cigarette packets of a britisher staying in the next room, 2 people of a group fighting over the girl both were interested in (but luckily, the girl wasn't there with them then), some people fighting over the bill etc.

Sunday morning was a sad time. We had rice idlis with sambar and chutney, and after settling our bill (which was nowhere close to what we had expected, with beer and cigarettes costing only a few rupees more than MRP, and non-veg food costing very cheap too), we left from there at 8.45 AM. We knew the way, and we had no intention to stop often, except to let the blood flow into certain parts of the body that are deprived of blood while riding. We stopped for lunch at Kamat Lokaruchi, and by 4.30 PM, we were back breathing the polluted air.

Goa!!!!

2007-11-18T23:07:00.000-08:00

Spending the long weekend (of 4 days holidays) in Goa was really exciting. Thomas too liked the idea. He asked a few of his friends, and from among them, Diana joined us. I called my brother Roshan, and he too agreed. Through a friend of mine, I arranged an apartment for us at Calangute.
So we 4 left in Thomas' Scorpio from Bangalore at 5.30 AM to beat the possible traffic jam near Peenya.
Indeed, we managed to beat the jam and we continued on to Tumkur road. After paying the toll of 22 Rs (single payment for both the toll booths at the two sides of Tumkur) at Tumkur toll booth, we continued to Tiptur and reached Arsikere. The Tumkur road is really good, but the road from Tiptur to Arsikere has a few bad stretches. But in a Scorpio, you don't feel it much.
After having breakfast at Arsikere at around 9.30 AM (that consisted of masala dosa, rava masala dosa and tea), and buying some fruits, we headed towards Shimoga. I tried to drive the Scorpio, but realised that I was in no position to control this beast. I felt that should have tried driving on the broader roads, as the roads here are narrow, and you have to go slightly off the road when a similar sized vehicle comes from the opposite direction.
So Thomas had to take the wheel again, though he was already tired. Then we reached Jog through Sagar. Again, this part of the road reminds you that you are in Karnataka. But when you get closer to Jog, the road is good. It is full of sharp curves though.
When I saw the Job Falls, I was awestruck. It was my first time at Jog. The Sharavathi river fell from about 250 meters, giving us this magnificiant view (and also electricity!!!). The glory was not at its best though. Still the Raja, Rani, Roarer and Rocket didn’t fail to awe us. From the top, you can look at the people near the bottom of the falls, and they don’t look much bigger than ants.
We parked the car (for 20 Rs parking fee), and decided to go at least half way down. The time was already 3, and we had to hurry up. So we trekked down on the steps created using big stones. The path is really nice. It is well decorated with the wrappers of all the brands of biscuits, chocolates, soft drinks and gutkha. So if any of you or your friends are doing some survey/research on consumables, this is a place to visit.
While going down, I saw some green thing moving near my legs. I leapt in fear, because it was a snake. Green in colour, perfectly camouflaged between the green leaves. I was just thinking how lucky I was, until a man there told me that it is not venomous and it just hits you like a whip. Whew, that's gotta be painful!!!
We didn’t go much further. We came back to the top, had some tea at a hotel there, and continued towards Karwar. This road is also good, until you hit the national highway NH 17 (that goes from Kerala to Mumbai, via Mangalore, Karwar and Goa). And once you are on this NH, your worst nightmare comes true. The road is virtually out of existence. And the movement of heavy trucks further worsens the driving condition.
After continuing on this road for what seemed eternity, we came to Gokarna Cross road. By this time it was already dark. We went into Gokarna, and when we reached the beach, it was 8 PM (no no, not the whisky... The time..).
There were many people here still. We walked along the shore towards our right side, after seeing a few lights and what looked like a celebration at a distance. It was some locals celebrating Deepavali, so they were bursting crackers and having a pooja. We spent some time there, where Diana successfully lit a cigarette after a 3 or 4 failed attempts. It must say, that's an achievement. Once a friend of mine and I had spent more than 20 matches on the shores of Someshwara beach (in Mangalore) to light a cigarette, that too while hiding behind rocks!! And she did it while standing on the shore, facing the sea!!!
After Gokarna, we hit the NH again. We stopped at a fuel station for refueling and the guy told us that the road continues to be in this state for the next 60 KM or so. But he was wrong. The road improved after some 45 KM. He had cheated us by giving us wrong figures X-)))))
The road was good once we reached Karwar. So we could continue without much delay. I called up Mr Puntu (who, being a neighbour, would help us in finding the apartment). It was already dark and we were getting desperate to reach our destination. Tiredness was obvious from Thomas' face. It isn't easy driving some 700 km in one day!!!
At the Karnataka-Goa border, the Karnataka police demanded 100 Rs 'entry fee' though we weren't entering Karnataka. Little further, the Goa police also stopped and asked for Thomas' passport and the car's documents. It was obvious from his face that he wanted money, but he didn’t ask. So we didn’t give. And finally we were on Goan soil. We entered Canacona district. Here also the roads are bad. Until then I had thought that all the roads in Goa are good.
We continued towards Panjim, but lost our way somewhere. The problem was that it was too dark, and there were no signboards. The national highway itself wasn't any broader than the town roads, so it was almost impossible to make out the correct way. Clock showed something like 11 PM. And there were no other vehicles that we could follow.
But luckily, a man helped us in finding our way. We were back on NH and we continued further. Once we came close to Panjim, there were enough signboards to tell us where to go. We had no problem in finding the diversion to Calangute after Panjim. But once we reached the road to Calangute, we had to find St. Anthony's Chapel. But even after driving for 7 or 8 km, I could not find it. Even Mr Puntu could not figure out where we were. Just as we thought we were lost, we found the chapel. Mr Puntu was waiting for us near the chapel, clad only in a blue coloured lungi. He showed us our apartment and went to his apartment to sleep. It was beyond midnight already. So we went to sleep without wasting much time.
Next morning, we were ready by around 9. As Diana wanted to go to Panjim, we drove to Panjim, parked the car in a parking lot in the market area (at 5 Rs per hour) and had breakfast at a small hotel there. Even though we ate a lot, the bill was very less. After breakfast, we walked to the place where Diana wanted to go, and found it with less difficulty.
After Panjim, we drove to Old Goa. The road is very straight, with the river (I think Mandovi river) on the left side. The roads in Goa, especially around Panjim and other tourist places, are maintained very well. They are narrow, but there are no junctions to cause traffic jams. And signboards are all around helping you to simply look at them and drive.
So at Old Goa, we first went to the Bom Jesus Basilica where St Francis Xavier's body is kept. St Francis Xavier is considered as the patron saint of Goa. The body is kept at a height and so it is not visible. It is kept for public display only once in ten years and the next such display is in 2014. the basilica itself is really beautiful. It is built using red stones, something that has been very common in buildings along the coast since centuries. The interiors look somewhat like the Chapel of St Aloysius in Mangalore (the chapel is in the school where I had my primary education). But I think St Aloysius chapel is more decorated (with paintings on Jesus' life) than Bom Jesus basilica.
Then we crossed the road and went to Se Cathedral. When we crossed the road, Diana remarked that the road looked like some road in Europe. Quite true. The lines on the road are clearly marked and the footpaths are very good. After seeing the old bishop's house (which is an art gallery now), we went to St Cajetan's church, which is a little further from Se Cathedral. St Cajetan is the patron saint for workers and the unemployed. But this church does not seem to be as popular as the other churches around. There were very few visitors.
It was noon by the time we left Old Goa and headed towards Fort Aguada. Diana was getting more and more restless to jump into the sea. And we disappointed her further by going to see the fort at Aguada. We trekked for about 20 minutes to see the different parts of the fort. As it was already 3 in the afternoon, we decided not to go further (though we could go for another 2 KM at least, from what we could see). So we headed towards Coco beach. A beach of glory once, now this is ruined. It seems that the level of sea increased and destroyed whatever was at the shores. Now there are only red stones on the shores; those from the destroyed walls and those dumped there to stop sea erosion.
We walked into the sea towards a sand island created by the sea water. The water was below knee level. Here we dumped our stuff, and the three of us except me went into the sea. I was feeling very hungry, so I packed all the expensive stuff in my bag, left the clothes behind, crossed the sea and came to a restaurant that is named after me (seriously!! It was called Rohan restaurant!!!). Here I ordered seer fish fry and prawn fry. By the time my mates returned from the sea, I had almost finished my dishes. We ordered more of sea food, including prawns, squid and fish.
After this, we headed back to our apartment. We stopped on the way to pick up some water, fenny and some orange juice. I also bought some bebinca. Later at home we had fenny, with me drinking the most. Diana didn’t seem to like the taste, especially because it was coconut fenny. But then, unlike most coconut fennies that I have had, this one was not pungent. It wasn't much crude, and it was smooth. And when we mixed it with orange juice, it didn’t taste much different from screwdriver. Probably because it cost us 3 times the normal cost. We paid 150 Rs for this bottle.
Later we decided to walk to Calangute beach. While walking, we didn’t take the deviation towards Calangute, and instead we walked straight. We could see restaurants on both the sides of the road, but not the beach. We were actually walking parallel to the beach (something which we realised the next day when we took a look at the map) without realizing it. Finally we stopped at restaurant where a band was playing. I had my usual prawns curry with rice while the rest had little food. The band was interesting. They were playing some jazz and blues kinda music, but using only guitars, drums and keyboards.
Later we took a taxi to Calangute beach. After spending some time sitting on the shores and chatting (we didn’t want to get into the water as we had already had bath), we took another taxi to return to our apartment. Taxis are somewhat compareable to the autorickshaws of Bangalore. They demand excess fares easily (but unlike autorickshaws of Bangalore, they don't refuse to come).
The next morning, Saturday, we headed towards Anjuna after having breakfast at a Spanish-looking bakery at Calangute called Infantaria. The food was good, but they took lot of time to serve us. There were lots of customers, so we could excuse them.
While driving to Anjuna, we saw the Ingo's Saturday Night Bazaar getting ready for the night. We already had plans to visit this place in the night. As we drove on, I could remember the roads on which we (few friends) had ridden bikes on our last visit to Goa about 2 years ago.
As you know, the beach at Anjuna is rocky. So once we reached the beach, we went towards the right side of the beach (towards Vagathor), walking on the rocks and on the path created by earlier visitors on the edge of the hill. After some 10 minutes walk, we reached a place which was somewhat hidden from the main part of the beach. It was kinda secluded. We could see the boats at a distance, and one or two men at a distance on the rocks searching for crabs.
I decided to stay on the shore while the rest of us went into the water. I was too scared to go into the water because I don’t know swimming. And I know at least 3 guys (2 of them from our neighbourhood in Mangalore) who got drowned after slipping from the rocks. After spending some time on the rocks taking pictures of the three, I decided to take a nap under a small tree. I just put my floaters under my head, covered my eyes with my arms and slept. I don’t know for how long I slept. I forgot to check the time before I went to sleep.
I was woken up suddenly by some heavy thing on my stomach and some giggles. When I opened my eyes, the three were standing in front of me and laughing. Diana had kept some pieces of a big wild fruit (that looked like a pineapple, and grew on a tree whose leaves looked exactly like pineapple leaves) and a few small, round stones on my stomach and taken a photograph of me. It looked really funny :-)
After spending some more time, we headed back. Time was something like 4.30 PM, so we stopped for food at Anjuna itself, at a place called Biryani Palace. Indeed the fish biryani Roshan ordered was so tasty that I finished it off, forcing him to order a chicken biryani. Thomas also ordered a fish biryani after tasting some. Even the tea there was excellent. That was the best tea I had had in Goa.
Then we headed towards Vagathor, going in front of the house where I had stayed during my previous visit to Goa. Vagathor is just about 3 km from Anjuna. When we reached Vagathor, the sun was just setting. And we could see the fort at a distance. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go there. And I cursed myself for not going to Vagathor fort the last time!!! Guys (those who were with me the last time), if you are reading this, let us curse the guy who planned the trip!!!!
When we went to the beach, the sun had already set and it was getting dark. People were leaving, and so we got a chance to go into the water again. While I waited on the shores guarding our stuff, the rest of us went into the water again. I was just soaking my legs when I noticed a 1 litre Dettol bottle. So I threw it into the sea. And it came back to me. I kept on throwing it (taking care to throw it away from the swimmers) and it kept on coming back to me. But when it slipped from my hands and fell close to Thomas, I decided it was too risky to play around.
Later we went back to our apartment for a good night's sleep. We had to get up earlier than usual on the morrow because we had to leave for Bangalore. Though we wanted to visit the Panolim beach, we decided to take a different route, through Hubli, for a better ride. So we could not visit this beach.
And by 8 the next morning, we were back on the road. We went on NH4A through Old Goa and Ponda. After a short stop at an average hotel for breakfast at Ponda, we continued towards Karnataka. The Goan roads were still good, even when we reached the ghat section. But once we crossed the 'Welcome to Karnataka' sign, expectedly, the road condition was really bad. But then, after a few tens of kilometres, the road was good again. The same road, NH4A, continues to Belgaum. Though I was aware of a shorter route (through Dharwad) to Hubli, we decided to go to Belgaum and then to Hubli. Because, from what I have heard, the road through Dharwad is really bad.
We took a short break at Belgaum. Diana was not feeling well at all, so she slept on the 2nd row of the car. So I sat in the last row, and Roshan sat next to Thomas, who was driving. For the first time during our whole trip, the positions were changed!!! All the while, Thomas was driving, I was sitting next to him, Roshan was sitting behind me and Diana was sitting behind Thomas.
We reached Hubli and then the road to Bangalore, the NH206 (I think). This road is excellent most of the time. But there are bad stretches. They are bad mostly because of abandoned road construction. There are so many pillars and structures built for flyovers, but then the work seems to have stopped completely. At one particular stretch, about 1 meter of the road had gone down. And this is almost impossible to make out until it is too late. And it was too late for us. I was listening to the music with my laptop on my lap. And it went flying and hit the roof and its display got shattered. Boo hoo, my new laptop :-(
We missed out a detour before Harihar. Instead of taking the right part of the Y, we took the left and entered Harihar. From there we had to go through Davanagere also. But finally we managed to reach Peenya at around 10. And there was a huge traffic jam in which we were stuck for about an hour. And by the time I reached home, it was almost midnight. Thomas would have taken another half an hour more to reach his house.

Midnight Trek to Kalavara Betta

2007-09-26T02:09:00.000-07:00

A trek after a long time. And my first trek at a place so close to Bangalore. This time I went to Kalavara Betta, close to Nandi Hills. The uniqueness about this trek was that the upward trek was completely at night!!!
It was organized by KMA, and so there were over 40 people. Many of my friends and colleagues had joined me, because I got the information well in advance, and so I was able to inform all the interested ones.
So, after parking our bikes at one of my friends' house near Hebbal, we (Rachana, Ashith, Gurunandan, Murugesh, Suraj and I) went to the meeting point in Hebbal. Many of the trekkers were already there, some I knew from earlier treks and some new. Thomas was already there, wearing full trousers (after we told him about the leeches earlier that week). A bus took us to the bottom of Kalavara Betta. It took about an hour. After some food at the temple there, and taking further food (Frooti, chikkis and Parle-G biscuits), we started our trek. Everyone was excited because in a country far far away, Indian cricket team had almost triumphed over the ODI world champions. Within five minutes of our trek's start, Indian cricketers had eliminated the Australians from Twenty20 championship.
The black night was all over us. The moon and the stars were hiding behind the black clouds. We could see the lights of the city at a distance. We could see a few flickers of lights of the small houses nearby. They were of no use to us to show us the way. We had our own torches and headlamps. Or at least, a few of us. There were many who, despite knowing that it was a night trek, had failed to bring their own torches. Pretty surprising!!!
One of the guides led the way. I think it was Laxminarayan. He is a man in his 40s, but still has the energy and enthusiasm of a young trekker. This was my third trek with him. No matter how the terrain is, he always wears a t-shirt, either shorts and full track pants, and slippers. There were other guides at the end of the line, to make sure that people don’t get left behind or lose their way.
After crossing the fields, we started our jorney through the huge rocks and boulders. The guides showed us the way. After an initial journey on the flat rocks, the climb began. All of us slowly climbed through the rocks in a long line, a few of us struggling, some even slipping and falling. Some parts were really steep. And there were parts where we had to climb straight up on the artificial steps (very small, just enough to keep half your foot over them). And I was wondering how to trek on these treacherous rocks while going back. One false step, irrespective of whether you are going up or going down, would push you a few tens of feet down. That would surely give you a fracture or two!!!
After the long climb, we came across an almost flat land. We probably had covered about three-fourth of the distance. And at that place, we were shocked to see a tent. We got further shocks when a small black head popped out of the tent and said, "omlette, tea, coffee...". Who on Earth would expect a tea shop at that height??? Those who didn’t see this small boy thought that someone among us trekkers was shouting like this.
From there, we trekked further to reach the fort there. It is not sure who built this fort. Some say that Hyder Ali started building it and it was completed during Tipu Sultan's reign. Some say that it was built by Kempegowda himself. However, one of our guides told us (with an initial warning that he himself isn't sure of it) that it was built by a local ruler called Mahadeva Nayaka to protect himself and his people from Hyder Ali and later Tipu Sultan. May be this is true. There was a temple at the top of the hill and a lifesize statue of Nandi.
I think the time was around 4 AM at this time. From this place, we went to the campsite where we would stay till the dawn. This place had big flat rocks on which we could rest. And the wall of the fort protected us from wind. How fast the wind was, we would discover only the next morning. But for now, we were not bothered about exploring. It was too dark, and thus it was too risky. And it was really cold. I hadn't worn my jacket yet. But many of us had curled ourselves like prawns (hmmmmm!!!! My favourite food!!!!) to protect ourselves from cold. Some of us were sleeping on each other, at least partially, with the intention of sharing the body heat. I could see Thomas sitting with his chin on his knees. He was fully covered up, and only his fingers and a small part of his face could be seen. Gurunandan was sleeping on a rock. Suraj was sleeping with his head between two sitting guys. Rachana was sitting between Ashith and Shivnanad. Murugesh had covered himself in his leather jacket. Within half an hour, I too wore my jacket, the same one that has been my companion in every trip since four years or so. It is thick and gives perfect protection from cold. But this day I was wearing three-fourths, and so my legs were still exposed. Somehow I managed to survive the few hours there.
After about three hours, the sun could finally be felt. We could see the light, but the clouds were still thick, so we couldn’t see the light giver. A few us now decided to explore the place. We climbed on to the wall of the fort that protected us from the wind. And now we realised how strong the wind was. It was hard to stand straight. Wind was probably strong enough sweep a child off its feet.
By this time, someone had lit some wood and made a "campfire". Though we had wished for the fire during the night itself, it was not unwelcome now. We gathered around it and warmed ourselves up. And soon we left that place to go to the top of the peak. Though we had already visited this place the last night, now we could clearly see what all was there. The small temple, the statue of Nandi. I found a nice, almost flat rock and I slept on it. Within seconds I was asleep. But within minutes someone woke me up to tell me that we had to leave. So disappointing. It is so much fun to sleep on a rock with your backpack under your head!!!!
Our initial journey was through the bushes that have grown around there. And I was still thinking about the huge rocks we had climbed while coming. Ascending part was easy, but descending wouldn’t be. Then we reached the place of that small tea tent (or tea shop). The right turn at this point would take us on the path that we took while coming. But our guides turned left. We were taking totally different way, and I was happy about it. The path was good, and under full sunlight, we had no trouble in trekking. As we trekked, we could see the Kalavara Halli (Halli = village in Kannada) lying at the bottom of the hill. We could see vast land filled with rocks, and beyond that the Bangalore city. And soon we were back at the temple from where we had started our trek. Pongal and tea were waiting for us. Though I didn’t eat anything, I had a tumbler of tea. So refreshing it was!!! After all the trekkers reached, we boarded the bus and our return journey to Bangalore had begun.
And throughout the trek, not a single leech bothered us!!!
And we were already thinking of what to do after going back. Thomas suggested that we go to Coffee House on MG Road for our midday snack. I immediately agreed. Where else on MG Road would you get snacks that you can eat to your heart's, mind's, soul's and stomach's content and still pay a bill in 2 figures? I convinced Murugesh and Suraj to join us. Thomas decided to ride pillion with Murugesh, which would be his first bike ride in India.
So we went to Raghavendra's apartment where we had parked our bikes, and went to Coffee House, filled our bellies and went to our homes.

Kemmannugundi

2007-08-06T06:25:00.001-07:00

6th August 2007

Another month, another journey. This time to Kemmannugundi, in our own Karnataka. And this one was without Ramesh and Shivanand, who are usually there on the road with me. It was with a totally different bunch of people. We were seven guys this time, Praveen Madhukar, Conrad, Allen, Nithesh, Bejoy, my brother Roshan and guess who? ME!!!!
Conrad, Allen, Nithesh and Bejoy were so excited about this trip that Conrad would call me everyday to ask about the arrangements. Bejoy had already applied for leave for Saturday. Never before have I seen such an enthusiasm!!!
I had contacted Babu from Kemmannugundi (whose contact I got through another friend, Prathibha). Babu had made arrangements for a jeep to roam around (his own) and a big room in a guest house.
So on Friday morning, these four guys came to my place soon after the clock struck 6. As Roshan and I had woken up just five minutes before, it took us some time to get ready. As usual, I never pack things until five minutes before leaving!!! After much getting cursed by these guys (obviously!! They had to wait for some twenty minutes!!!), we left my place at 6.30 AM, had breakfast at Domlur (obviously, at Shanti Sagar) while waiting for Praveen, and once he came, we were on the road.
Through MG road, Minsk Square, Mekhri circle, Kavery Theatre and Sadashiv Nagar, we reached Yashwantpur. Thence it is a straight road (Bangalore to Pune road) to Tumkur. We stopped for tea at Arsikere. Praveen saw a rooster and a buffalo and somehow managed to go very close to them and get their snaps. Both these animals, though initially shy, posed for the photographs. Then we headed towards Birur, stopping occasionally. Allen had brought a box of chicken curry which we finished within two minutes, somewhere on the way.
From Birur, we took the diversion to Lingadahalli. It is a narrow road, with fields of corn and sunflowers on both sides of the road. Though the road is bad, the scenary is really eye-catching. At a distance, on one of the hills, we could see a falls. Though I am not sure, I think it is one of the earliest steps of Kalhatti Falls (coincidentally, last Sunday's Times of India had an article on this!!). I have been told that this Falls falls in ten steps. Anyway this place was pretty far from where were. We stopped and went into a sunflower field. Ugh, the farmers had put big branches of thorny plants. After crossing this barrier somehow, we went into the fields. Luckily the people working in those fields didn’t chase us away. We also found a tamarind tree and ate a few too. So after a photo session, we were back on our bikes.
Soon we were climbing the ghats towards Kemmannugundi. We took a diversion (1 km only) to Kalhatti temple, to see a part of the falls. A badly maintained place, with people making money in the name of God. You have to pay for bike parking (2 Rs) and even for keeping your footwear (1 Re). It is pretty disgusting to see plastic bags, Coke/Pepsi bottles and paper cups stuck between the rocks. I wonder what these people do with all the money they get!!!
We were still 20 km from Kemmannugundi, and we were about two hours behind schedule. So we were off towards Kemmannugundi. We reached there at 2 PM, met Babu, had our meal at the canteen in the guest house which he showed us and went into our room. It was a decent one. With eight cots and two toilets, it was worth its rent. That is 600 Rs a night. Then Babu came with his jeep and we headed towards Hebbe Falls.
Babu had no problem in driving to Hebbe, though it was raining heavily, visibility was about 10 metres (at 4 PM!!!) and the road was, well, non-existent. Babu said the temperature was 4 degree C, but I don’t think it was that low. But I am sure it was below 10 degrees. When the rain reduced, we stopped, had a photography session and continued towards Hebbe. The ride itself was mindblowing, with misty greenery all around and some faint tall figures that looked like trees, it was a perfect horror movie setting, said Praveen. At one place, Babu took the jeep to extreme left to make way for an oncoming jeep and our jeep's left tires got stuck in the muck. Though we volunteered to get out of the jeep, Babu said it is not required. Then he put the gearbox in 4-wheel mode and accelerated. The jeep moved as if it was a normal road!!! It was the first time I was actually seeing the power of a jeep. Loaded with eight people, it came out so easily from that ditch!!!!
At a certain place, Babu stopped and told us how to trek towards the Falls. Within a few minutes of our foot journey, we came across an overflowing stream. Though initially skeptic, we crossed it. The water was thigh-high. Within a few ten metres, another part of the same stream. Cross that and in few moments, another part of the stream!!! Deciding that we would turn back if we had to cross the stream again, we crossed this section too. I felt this was the toughest part of the stream to cross. By the time we crossed this, many of us had fallen into water. Bejoy fell at least five times I think!!! But we could not afford to let Conrad fall. In his bag were all our cameras, mobiles and wallets!!!
And now we could hear the deafening sound of the falls. Soon it was in our sight. HOLY $#%&!!!! I had never seen such a magnificent falls before!!!! Water was falling from about 50 metres, and after hitting the rocks, the water droplets would fly horizontally for quite a distance. We stood with our backs to the falls and spat. And our spits were flying for at least three seconds before falling!!!! There was no way I could take photographs using my camera. However, Nithesh the brave man took out his mobile and recorded a video of the falls.
After some time, were heading back to the jeep. Crossing the stream sections, we reached the place where Babu was waiting for us. Got rid of the leeches using salt, and now we were climbing up towards Kemmannugundi. It was getting dark and clouds were closing in. the fog was thick and visibility was reducing. But no rain. So another photo session. And we reached our guest house at around 6.30. Babu said it ok to go to Z-point, but we weren't really interested. We were tired. Babu said he can arrange for non-veg food and drinks (both of which aren't available in Kemmannugundi). So we asked him to get some chicken curry, chapatis, vegetable curry, rasam and of course, whisky (Royal Challenge).
While waiting for the food and drink to arrive, Praveen took out his Gudang Garam (for those who don’t know: an Indonesian cigarette made not just from tobacco, but also from other spices, such as cinnamon, cardomom, cloves etc. Available in Manipal for pretty less price) and we warmed up with that. Then Allen took out his half bottle of Signature (whisky) and soon we were warming ourselves up pretty well. Then our food and whisky came. By this time Bejoy was fast asleep. And we were troubling Allen all the while (as usual).
After a decent meal, we were off to sleep at around midnight. The meal was a candlelight one. The power was there only for a couple of hours or so. So most of our mobiles were off. It seems that the power comes there only for a couple of hours everyday. So little power for a place that is so close to Karnataka's first hydroeletric power station!!!
Sunday morning, it was time for us to pack our bags. After finishing packing by 9, we had breakfast (pulav and poori). And after settling the dues, we headed towards Chikmagalur. This is one of the best rides in my life. Not a very bad road, mist all around, visibility getting lesser with time, cold that is determined to make you numb, raindrops that are slashing on your face like needles, water that is shrinking your skin and still it was a fun to ride. It is risky too, with a green hill on one side of the road and a green cliff on the other. For about twenty km, hardly any humans could be seen.
After a climb, we came to the junction of the Kemmannugundi main road and Bababudangiri road. We had no intention to go to Bababudangiri, as we had no time. So we went through the ghats and entered the Chikmagalur district, had some tea. Praveen said tea was never so much welcome in his life. Quite true was it for all of us!!! We held the glasses tighly in our hands, hoping to get rid of the shrinks on our palms. Continuing, we came to another junction. We took the road that went up towards Mullayyanagiri. This road goes almost to the peak of Mullayyanagiri. The peak is 1925 metres above sea level. When we were riding, two guys followed us on their bike. When we came to the end of the tarred road, we stopped our bikes. It was raining heavily and the cold was unbearable. All of us were shivering from top to bottom and we had no way to warm up ourselves. Water had seeped through our jackets long ago and more and more water was flowing inside our jackets. If I had squeezed my jacket, I am sure at least ten litres of water would come out!!
The two guys also had stopped with us and they were discussing among themselves whether to go to the peak or not. Their conversation seemed very artificial, as Praveen pointed out. Also, they were telling us to climb the peak giving the reason that it was the first time we were coming there and that they've been going there for twenty years. And also that no one would steal or harm our bikes. All these words of theirs made us realise that they had sinister intentions. So we decided to go back. And in a few minutes, we were back on the road to Chikmagalur.
We entered Chikmagalur, and the road to Hassan took us right through the busy area. We could not find a non-veg hotel, so we continued towards Hassan. Do you know, even Chikmagalur has a Nilgiri's supermarket!!!! And we saw plenty big brand names on the shop boards.. My oh my!! I didn’t know Chikmagalur was this improved!!!! The only time I had been there was more than ten years ago!!! I had always thought that it is one hilly place full of estates.
The road to Hassan is very good. Neatly tarred and well maintained. We reached Hassan at around 2.30. through out our trip, rain gave us company. In Hassan, we stopped at a hotel for snacks. By this time we were totally drenched. The place where we sat in the hotel was filled with water, as if it had rained inside the hotel.
The rest of the trip was eventless. And we all guys drifted apart. By now the rain had stopped completely, and it was getting dark. Allen and Conrad had gone way ahead. Then I stopped once for refuelling. When I got back on the road, I met Praveen riding alone on his CD 100. then I caught up with Bejoy and Nithesh. Once I reached Yashwantpur, I had lost contact with all the other guys. I reached home at about 9, had a quick bath and then slept until today morning.

Bike ride to Yercaud

2007-06-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Hi folks.
I am back again, from another road trip.

Let me begin. Ramesh and I decided a few days ago to go on another roadtrip, as it had been a whole five months since our last trip (Coorg one). So we called all friends. Ultimately, when the Saturday of the trip arrived, only four guys were ready: Shivanand, Gurunandan, Ramesh and I. What stops us? Not even heavy rains.
Though we guys had decided to leave Bangalore by 6 AM, as usual, it got delayed by a few hours. So we guys met up at Silkboard junction at almost 8 AM. Ramesh on his Pulsar, Guru on his Splendor, Shiv and myself on Shiv's Pulsar. It was cold and slightly drizzling. Perfect weather that we wanted. There was already enough traffic on Hosur road towards ITPL. Plenty trucks. I had already got some warnings from friends/colleagues about the number of trucks that ply on that road. We had to be extra careful in those slippery conditions.
Soon we entered the TN border and we were at Hosur within an hour. It was raining and the water was brown, probably because of the pollutants thrown into the atmosphere by all those industries there. Our jackets, clothes and bikes turned brown, thanks to this rain.
As Ramesh and Shiv had not yet had the pleasure of having breakfast, we decided to stop. We couldn’t find any decent hotel on the Hosur main road. We didn’t want to go into the town, so we stopped at a roadside hotel. After three rounds of breakfast (consisting of vada, dosa and bulls-eye; again reminding me of the phrase "I love vada"), we were off again, towards Krishnagiri.
This stretch of the road is the 2nd best road I have ever seen. No junctions, and no way to take U-turns. On the way, we found a monkey lying in the middle of the road, probably hit by a vehicle. Guru decided to help it. He lifted it and brought to the side of the road. However, he couldn’t save its life. Something tragic here.
We continued, and crossed the toll-booth at Krishnagiri. 2 wheelers need not pay any fee here. After riding over an hour, we reached Dharmapuri. This is another small town through which the main road goes. But by this time, the 4-lane road had reduced to 2 lanes. And the traffic was a bit heavy too. The process of widening the road to 4 lanes is still under progress, and might take a few years for completion (few years because it is not a short span of road that is being widened. Widening is going on right from Dharmapuri till Salem - that's 100 km!!!!).
After getting over a traffic jam in Dharmapuri, we continued further towards Salem. This part of the road goes through the ghats. Somewhere here, Shivanand asked me to ride, as he was tired. And I rode the bike for the rest of the day. The view from these ghats is mindblowing. You can feel a change in the climate. However, the menacing buses (that connect Bangalore, Hosur, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Salem) soon bring you to reality. Over the ghats, roads aren't in good condition for a few small stretches, and repair work is going on. You gotta go slow. This rule doesn’t seem to be applicable to these buses though!!! Not much different from Bangalore, isn't it?
By this time, the 3 bikes were in 3 different locations and no one had any idea of where other two were. Ramesh was riding very cautiously (hardly exceeding 60kmph!!!) and was far behind us. So we waited at a police checkpost over the ghats. Here we shared biscuits and water. And then we continued towards Salem.
Soon we were at Salem. A small city, you can say. We had our lunch at a vegetarian restaurant there. After spending some time relaxing, we continued towards Yercaud, which is about 30km from there. After we found the milestone that said '21km to Yercaud', the climb towards the hill station began. It reminded me of Agumbe in Karnataka. Salem's weather was hot, and now we could feel the sudden change in the temperature as we climbed. The road is narrow, but well maintained. There are quite a few hairpin bends. But hardly any places to pull over and relax. And as you keep climbing, you find a few boards showing you the altitude of that location.
At one of the hairpin bends, Ramesh skidded and got slightly injured. The bike got injured more. So when we reached, we found out one place where the guy repaired the bike to some extent. We couldn’t find any fullfledged garages there. There are quite a few fuel stations though. And yes, petrol is about 3 Rs per litre cheaper in TN compared to Karnataka!!!
The hour hand was approaching 5, and we had to find a place to rest our heads at night. After all this riding, we deserved a pleasant sleep. There are quite a few good resorts there. We started enquiring in all these places. We were hoping to find a cottage for ourselves. Cottages are so cheap there. Before taxes, a cottage rent starts with 1000 Rs per day!!! I felt it was pretty cheap. Sadly, luck had played a villainous role on us here. We couldn’t find any cottage. Leave alone cottage, we couldn’t even find a single room in these resorts. There is a 3 star hotel there, called The Grand Palace, at the top of a hill. But we didn’t want to try our luck there. We are poor bike riders you see.
Finally, we found a spacious room in a place called KONGU RESORT. No no, it is not a resort at all. It doesn’t look like the businessmen here really know the meaning of 'resort' and 'cottage'. The real resorts have real cottages, so even these small hotels (there are at least 30 such hotels!!!!!) call themselves resorts and cottages!!!!! The Kongu guy turned out to be a very stingy one. He refused to give us more than 2 towels. He didn’t even give us soap and drinking water.
Time was ticking. But it wasn't dark yet. So we thought we'd explore this place as much as possible, leaving as less as possible for the next day. We had already spent quite a time looking for a room. There are quite a few 'tourist spots' around, and none are far off, if you have a vehicle. Again it depends on the resort you are staying in. there are resorts that are quite far off from the centre of Yercaud.
So we decided to visit Pagoda Point first. It is at the top of a hill. And it gives a scenic view of the whole Salem city. The winds were pretty strong and it was drizzling. We had some butta (corn ears) and some fruits here. No warm items (bajji or tea) available here. After spending some time here, we decided to go to Lady's Seat. This is in another direction. On the way we found a board that read 'ornamental lake'. Curious, we went to see what it is. Huh!!! Just another lake!!!!
I must say, no point in going to see different lakes here. Nothing great about any of these lakes. We have plenty lakes in Bangalore right!!! The difference is, Yercaud lakes ain't that polluted yet... There is one lake at the centre of Yercaud where you can hire boats or go on a boat ride.
Anyway, we were least interested in boats, so we went towards Lady's Seat. It is another high point from where you can see the Salem city. The view is not much different from the view of Pagoda Point. However, here some roadside shops sell hot snacks like bajji. So we had a few rounds of banana bajji, chilli bajji and onion bajji. Guru went further to check out the Gent's seat, that is a few metres higher than lady's seat. He said the view is almost the same as from Lady's Seat.
By now it was dark, and we had to return to our hotels. Guru went ahead. Rest of went together. And when we reached the centre of Yercaud, we realised that we had lost our way and had taken a different route!!! No sign of Guru. After waiting for a few minutes, he appeared, from a totally different direction!!!! He had drifted too much farther from our original route, and taken a completely different route!!! Luckily we were all safe...
After packing up some food and water, we went back to our room. I wanted to take bath. The hotel owner said the geyser is on. Ramesh told me which is the tap for hot water. I kept the tap on and waited till eternity. Hot water never came. Cursing the hotel owner, I took bath in that cold cold water.
Then we had our usual chat, while sipping Black Dog (no points for guessing what it is!!!). Then supper. Luckily the hotel owner hadn't missed out to give an extra bed. Soon the other three guys were snoring. But these folks didn’t allow me to switch on the fan. I didn’t feel that it was very cold outside. I actually was feeling pretty warm. It was around 11 PM then.
When I woke up at 8.30 AM, Guru and Ramesh were already awake. And they had discovered that the hot water tap was not the one Ramesh had told me about the previous day. So Guru got a chance to bathe in warm water. And I was cursing Ramesh all the while.
Then Guru left to visit Shevaroy Temple, which is at the top of another hill. Meanwhile, we 3 guys finished our breakfast of poori and vada (again vada, huh!!!) and were ready to leave. After Guru returned, we packed our bags. Then we went towards Kiliyur falls. WHAT A BAD IDEA!!!! First of all, after parking the bikes, there is a trek for half an hour. The path is pretty bad. On one part of the way there is a fence. And the fence has not only barb wires, but also a strip of iron with sharp teeth on it (like a hacksaw). The path is steep and if you fall, the first thing that comes to your mind is to grab whatever is available. And what is available, the hacksaw teeth!!!! Luckily we managed to stay away from the fence (fulfilling the intention of the fence-builder, who owns the other part of the land). As we continued, we found a few huge trees across the steep path. I somehow managed to climb over the trees and cross them while the other guys used the small gap under the trees to go to the other side. Before crossing the trees, we even had the idea of returning, because the steep path was too irritating. But then Guru had already thrown his slippers to the other side before going under the tree. So he had to go to the other side anyway. We too went. And after going down further, we reached the falls. It was a major disappointment. I think my pet dog can pee more than that water.
HAHAHAHAHA, I am just kidding. I don’t have a pet dog.
Immediately we decided to return. And now it was a steep climb. A very tiring one, as we guys, except Ramesh, aren't used to exercising :-D.
Somehow managed to reach the top. Immediately all of us lied down on the road for ten minutes, trying to get our breath back. Then we returned to our "resort", took our luggage, and said good-bye to Yercaud. Time for 20km downhill ride. Guru and I (I was riding Shiv's bike all the while you see) switched off our engines. Ramesh didn’t. soon the gravity helped us cruise at more than 40 kmph, FREE OF COST!!!! I had to start the engine in two places, to overtake a bus and a Tata Sumo filled with a few drunks. We didn’t want to take any risk while overtaking.
And we were at Salem again. Back to the hot climate. The dust in Salem is strange. The particles are really huge, and you can feel them hitting agaist you when there is a wind. They make real noise when they hit the helmet!!!!
We stopped at Hotel Green Park (really good hotel) for our lunch. We had not done anything great with our food so far. So we (except Guru, who is a vegetarian) ordered all types of non-veg available there (sea-food in the form of crabs and prawns, pork, chicken and mutton). The quantity was really huge. Quite different from the general custom of serving less quantity and charging less. Here the charge was more and quantity was more. And the table (actually meant for six people) was filled with food. There was no more space. But soon the contents of the plates disappeared. Though we couldn’t finish all, we actually managed to eat almost twice of our usual quantity!!!
Now the ride back. As usual, Guru led the way. Just before Dharmapuri, we saw Guru waving at us. He said he asked a police officer there and found a new route to Bangalore that would save us 20km. So we returned via Palacode and Rayakkottai. But we missed the fun of that Krishnagiri-Hosur highway. After a pleasant ride through the villages and small towns of TN, we reached Hosur at dusk. Guru went off ahead to his house. We 3 guys dined at Bommasandra and went to our respective houses for a hot hot hot water bath and a pleasant sleep.

Mumbai Trip To Attend Wilson's Wedding

2007-02-08T02:59:00.000-08:00

It was the 1st of February. Dawson and I reached kalasipalya at about6.45 pm and we boarded the bus. Finally the bus left at 7.30.. And soonthe first trouble started.. A drunk passenger, who was in his mid 20s Iguess, would ask for stops every now and then for vomitting. Finally,after other passengers persisted, this fellow was asked to go by thenext bus. Once he was out of the bus, the journey was smooth.Then the bus crew played the movie BABUL (starring Big B, Hema, Salman,Rani, John and others). Stopped somewhere outside tumkur for dinner, themovie was not yet over then. There we bought a few lays chips. That"bugger" charged us 3 rs extra, saying that it is their charge over MRP.Such illegal things happen, and we can't even protest.Then the movie continued. I learnt that the moral of the movie is 'donot use your mobile phone while crossing the road' and 'do not cross theroad without looking on both sides and making sure that the road isempty'. Perhaps, if you follow such a rule, you will never be able tocross a road, in Bangalore at least!!!Soon after the movie was over, Dawson and I had slipped into deep sleep.I woke up next only in the morning when the driver stopped forbreakfast. After stepping onto Maharashtra soil for the soil for thefirst time, I had a breakfast of idli-vada with tea.Then the journey continued, with GURU being played... Much more pleasantit was, compared to the movie we were forced to watch the previousnight. The sad thing is, I couldn't enjoy the scenic beauty of thenature (on the Mumbai-Pune expressway) because I couldn't stop myselffrom watching GURU.Finally we entered Mumbai. We alighted at Sion and hired a taxi to DadarEast Train Station. Amogh Gokhale told us that he'd be there in half anhour. True to his time, he came exactly 55 minutes late, and soon wewere on a train to Thane. From Thane station, we hired an autorickshawto Amogh's house. And once we reached his house, we were welcomed by twosleeping beauties: Amar and Kishore.We had a typical Marathi lunch at Amogh's house, cooked probably byAmogh's grandma (and servant Lata, of course!!). We were quite attractedtowards Amogh's niece Anushka (who has just started walking on twolegs). The cute little doll seemed afraid of me initially (so sad, boohoo).Soon (not really!!!) we were ready to go to attend Willy's ROCE. Somehowwe woke up the sleeping beauties and forced them to get ready. We leftat around 7.30 PM for the taxi stand. Amogh and Kishore went together onone auto, while Dawson, Amar and I hired another. Somehow we 3 lost theother 2, and when we reached the taxi stand, those guys were already ontheir way to Jogeshwari (where Wilson's house is). And our taxiwalarefused to take us through the city, citing that he gets pain all overhis body by pressing clutch and changing gears way too often. He offeredus to take from some highway outside the city. Like idiots we agreed.Finally we reached at 10 PM to Willy's place. After getting the firstCHOONA (510 Rs fare for the taxi), we entered Willy's house. The rocewas on the terrace of the apartment complex, so Willy was there. We wereoffered Vat 69 by Willy's brother-in-law (Willy's sister Wilma'shusband). Couldn't resist it. After having two rounds, we went and metWilly and rest of the guys who were at the terrace.As midnight arrived, it was a sweet surprise for Sanveer. His birthdaybeing on 3rd Feb, Willy had arranged a cake for him to cut. The momentSannu saw the cake, a pleasant smile appeared on his face. It lastedonly for a few moments. Once he realised how his next half an hour wouldbe, that smile disappeared and his face turned into a painful one. Andwe sang as he cut the cake. Once the cake was cut, we grabbed him, askedhim to take off his kurta, and celebrated his birthday in true MITstyle, much to the astonishment of the elderly guests..And then we 5 guys hired two autorickshaws back to Thane, to Amogh'splace. After travelling more than an hour on the traffic-less (read andunderstand in the Mumbai context), we reached Amogh's house at around 2AM. Soon we had slipped into sleep, after much argument about who willsleep on the 2 beds, and who will sleep on the floor. Poor Amarrequested us, "please consider me to sleep on the bed man.. US returnedman..".. So he slept right below the A/C. the fan also was turned on tothe maximum.In the morning, when I woke up at 6.30, my nose was blocked. Luckily thefan and A/C both were off by this time. I slept again, to wake up at 10.soon (again, not really!!!) we were ready to go out. It was the time forlunch. We left at 12.15 from the house. We requested Amogh to take us toa place that is neither cheap, nor very costly. Well, I guess we shouldhave mentioned the phrase "for our standards". We didn't. so we landedup at Moni's. For Amogh, it was cheap, but for us,,,,,, not really!!!After having a nice meal, we went for a round into the city, and also toa small round in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. After a susu at suicidepoint, we went back to the house. Dawson and I went to make a fewtelephone calls (to friends and relatives in mumbai). When we returnedabout 45 minutes later, we found the sleeping beauties. Somehow we wokethem up and got them ready for marriage. Dawson and I got ourselves intofullfledged suites, while Amogh wore a blazer. Kishore and Amar wokeformal clothes, and we left from the house at 5. The nuptials weresupposed to be at 5.30 at Vidyavihar. We managed to reach there 10minutes later, to find that the mass hadn't started yet. Soon the massstarted, and Dawson and I were into praying mood. And mass went on.. Itwas kind of boring for other guys until a lady (bride's 2nd cousin, wegot to know later) wearing a backless gown and an artificial tattoo onher right shoulder, came and sat 2 rows in front of us..From then onwards, we had one heck of a time. Amar, who was carrying asony cybershot professional camera, zoomed to the extent possible,taking the photographs of her uncovered back and her tattoo..After the mass, we had to wait for an hour for the party to begin, asthe next mass (the regular Sunday mass) had started in the church. Andwhen the party began, again it was boring time. It was time for thebridal march and the bridal dance.. And none of us 15 odd guys had anyfemale partners.And none of us morons were even bothered to ask the ladies around.Probably because we were already discouraged by the fact that the mostbeautiful lady in the party hall (another lady with spaghetti straps)was already married.. Of course, she wasn't with her husband, but shewas with her in-laws.. So discouraging!!!And there were other ladies too, and even the MC was asking us to goahead and ask for females... We didn't bother.. We ignored the MCbecause that @@$%#$@# had called us "lonely single boys" earlier.. Allof us were planning to whack the MC..After the bridal dance, it was the time for the bride to change fromwhite to red, and it was the time of us to get some tonic.So we went to the bar near to the church.Unfortunately, no place in the bar.Fortunately, the bar belonged to mangaloreans.. Tulu speaking..Still more fortunately, there was space in their attic.Unfortunately, the attic was their storage area..Fortunately, there was a table and a few stools and a table fan.Unfortunately, the fan didn't have grills.Fortunately, none of us were interested in the fan.So whiskey and beer flowed... In fifteen minutes, we were back to theparty hall..Just as we reached, the 'baila' began with the song 'maria pitaashe' ofremo being played first..Then we started off suddenly, and went on and on and on.....And then when the bride returned in red, again another small dance, andthis time that 'bouquet throwing' happened..It is the usual trend during weddings that groom and bride are encircledby ladies moving to the left and gents moving to the right in 2different circles (get the picture?).. Then the lady throws her bouquetand whichever lady catches it is considered as the next bride.. Samething is done with guys when groom throws the bouquet.. Not bouquetreally, but a small piece of flower that the groom wears on the leftcollar of his suit (guys don't carry bouquets during weddings!!!)..So this lady, pamela joseph, caught the bride's bouquet and me, rohanjohn fernandes, caught the guy's flower..So the MC anounced that we are the next couple.. And asked me to kissher..I did!! (on her cheeks though ;-) )..Then there was one birthday boy among us.. So we made him cut the cakeright in front of the whole crowd. And then gave him bumps..Our cameraman (the guy with professional camera) also kicked.This actually irked one of the ladies (the mother of another guy amongus) there who couldn't understand why a meagre cameraman was kicking..The kicking part should be done only by the friends.. Apparently, sheeven wanted to go and shout at him!!!(she told all this to her son the next day and he told us this)..The problem was, the camera guy being a hindu, wasn't wearing a suit,while all of us were wearing.. And his professional camera added fuel toher ire!!!After the party, we went back and slept off..Sunday morning I got up early and with another guy, went to borivli..From there, the other guy went his way, and I went mine..We 5 guys actually left from home together.. Went to some kunjvihar inthane and had misal paav... It was so spicy that its after effects arestill there in me!!!Dawson had already left for his aunt's house in dombivli.And I went to my aunt's house and she served me with rice, fish curry,fish fry, veg cutlets, and soup..Then she took me out to a shopping mall, and bought me a pepe t shirt, apepe jeans and a t shirt for my bro.. And also she bought short pantsand sweets for me.. (she is my dad's elder sister, and has no kids.. Sowe are her kids ;-) )..Bindaas ;-)Meanwhile, dawson and another guy kept on informing me about the delaysof our flight (which ultimately departed two hours and a quarter laterthan scheduled).At 9, I left borivli for airport with another friend who stayed inborivli itself..Reached the airport, and met another 2 guys also.. Including dawson, whonever went to dombivli even after his uncle went to dombivli trainstation to pick him up!!! Apparently there were no fast local trains, soslow local trains were overcrowded and delayed too.. Got out of the airport at 2, after our luggage took over 20 minutes to reach us..

Walked into the restaurant inside the airport. I had mixed fried rice, and the rest had chicken biryani. After sharing and rekindling MIT memories, we hired a prepaid taxi and went to our respective houses.

THE END........

A bike ride to Coorg and back

2007-02-08T02:58:00.000-08:00

Another long weekend was coming up and I didn’t want to stay in Bangalore. I didn’t want to go to Mangalore because I had just returned from there 5 days ago after a 2 week vacation. So, as usual, Ramesh and I thought we'd ride somewhere. Our options were Coorg, Madumalai, Yeracaud and Wayanad. When I asked everyone I knew, 2 of my other friends, Shivanand and Ashith (who stay together and work together), said they'd join. Then Shivanand's colleague Bala too joined us.Bala and I stayed at Shivanand's house overnight. Though our initial plan was to leave the house at 5 AM, it was past 7 AM when we really got out of the house!!! I had got up at 5 AM itself, after a short 2 hour sleep (note: I had to attend a bachelor's party the previous night). Made some egg bhurji. There were a few dried chapatis which we somehow managed to swallow with egg bhurji.I had to leave my bike at Shivanand's place (though I had a full tank of petrol) because of Shivanand's Pulsar 150 DTSi and Ashith's Pulsar 180 DTSi.We joined Ramesh at MG Road-Kasturba junction (as he had to come from Kundalahalli). As we were waiting for Ramesh, Ashith went ahead to fuel his bike. As he rode alone, leaving the 3 of us, when Ramesh arrived, we 4 went to Shell fuel station to catch up with Ashith. Because we 4 had settled in 2 bikes, Ashith's bike became the good carrier for the rest of the journey. Each of us was carrying a backpack. Ramesh had a rope, and so we tied up 2 bags on Ashith's bike, and carried the rest.We crossed Hudson circle at 8 AM. And we were speeding on Mysore road. Bala riding pillion with Shivanand, I riding pillion with Ramesh, and Ashith riding alone. I would say that the bike Pulsar is very unergonomically designed for the pillion rider. The seat is narrow (to give sleaky looks), giving lot of problems for people like me who are most graciously and most generously blessed by our creator. Luckily, so far no bad roads, and not much traffic. Except a lot of trucks going on the rightmost part of the road with high speed (relative to trucks, of course!!), and of course the numbness crawling into the pillion riders behinds, we had no problems.So we stopped somewhere in between. 3 of the guys wanted to take leaks. And I, the evil guy, took their photographs. Bala decided not to take a leak because of me :-)). Then we stopped at the usual stop-point, Kamath Lokaruchi. Refueled ourselves and continued further. And reached Srirangapatna soon. After enquiring with some people, found the bypass (to go to Coorg without entering Mysore city) and continued on it. When we reached Hunasur, we realized that we have no place to stay. We were too lazy to arrange one so far. I had a few numbers given by a couple of colleagues. When we contacted them, they said they don’t have space for 5 guys, but gave further contacts. One person had space for us, but at the cost of 3,500 Rs per night!!! Forget it!!! Then Ramesh called up to the place where he had stayed 3 years ago (what was he doing so far!!! He was thinking that we wouldn’t like that place.. Which we proved wrong later). As this man, Mr Poonacha, had space for us, we decided to go there. He said he'll give a dormitary kind of area. It didn’t sound impressive, but we thought it's ok for 1600 Rs per night for 5 people.We couldn’t take the Nagarahole route, as bikes are banned from going on that road (idiots!!! Just because the route goes to forests, they don’t want bikes to go). So we went through another route (I don’t remember the order in which the places came, so I am not going to tell you. If you want, I have the visiting card of the landlord at whose house we stayed :-D). Bought DSP Black on the way, as we couldn’t get any Scotch or even malt whiskey (for those who don’t know, it is a whiskey). We stopped for lunch (at Gonikoppa I think). Had little bit beer, lotsa pork chilli and chicken (awesome it was!!) and continued further. Soon we arrived at Iruppu falls. We decided to go to the falls before going to the house, because we knew we wouldn’t have energy to go out of the house. We had to purchase the tickets from the forest office there (some minimal fee). The forest officer was nice enough to let us leave all our baggage there. After walking .75 km (it is written there, and the path is not good at all. I mean, they've put cement and all and have made a nice path. I wanted those natural, stone and grass filled paths that tear your exposed skin), we reached the falls. It is very shallow and you can easily play in the water. You don’t even have to fear about getting drowned. But none of us had any mood to get into the water. After spending some time, we went to our guest house.And lo and behold!!! What a suite we got!! A huge hall with a sofa and 8 well-cushioned chairs, a big table, lot of books (who cares!!!) and decorations inside. The 3 sides of this room were filled with windows, through which we could see Mr Poonacha's estate outside. The sleeping room had a double bed and a single bed, had attached toilet (western)/bathroom. What more did we want? Nothing. We didn’t want the tv, we didn’t want to be connected to the external world. All the guys except me had Hutch connection, so were completely eliminated from the rest of the world (most obvious, isn't it?). I had a range of just 1 stick.. Just in case, you know...Chandru (the servant for Mr Poonacha) served us with tea. I don’t want to talk about its quality, do I? (of course, we were charged for the tea!!). Chandru said dinner would be served at 9 PM. So we got refreshed and opened our DSP Black. Chandru got us some Haldiram's snacks, Kinley soda and glass tumblers (only the last one was free :-D). As the whiskey started mingling with our blood and go into our brains, our brains returned to normal. We got a few bright ideas which would help the langauge of English and also the world soceity in a big way. For example, we replaced the word EMPLOY with that "four letter word dreaded by our elders, but is most common during swears" and made sentences. Words such as employment, employee, employer, unemployed, employable were all twisted and turned to give new meanings. Ideas such as having one employer with many employees and all were twisted beyond your wildest thoughts!!! Can someone help us put our thesis over the internet, please?Then Chandru called us for dinner. Oh man!!! Did we ever dream of having such a food?? First of all, everything that's on the table is unlimited. Pork in Coorg style, chicken masala, some peas curry, cabbage curry, sambar, chapatis and rice!! Everything more delicious that the other. We had thought that we'd lose 1 or 2 kgs during this trip, but now we realised that we would gain so much!!! After a sumptous dinner, and payasam (unfortunately, was the last one to have, so I got only 1/4th of a cup), we retired to sleep (but not before discussing further on the topic).Next morning, it was poori, dosa, bhaji and chutney for breakfast, with tea/coffee. I think we 5 guys ate 50+ pooris and 10+ dosas easily. I actually lost count of pooris after 12 :-)). Then Mr Poonacha suggested that we go to see the Tata's tea estate. He gave directions and soon we were in front of Tata Tea Estate. This part is called Glenlorna Estate. As the main gate was closed and no one was there to open the lock, we had to walk about 2 km to reach the factory. After getting permission from the factory manager, we went into the factory. A worker there took us all around and explained the process of making tea powder from the leaves. It is such a simple process, I didn’t expect this!!!! Then we bought lots of tea powder from there and went back to our guest house for lunch.We had asked for simple veg food for lunch. And there was simple veg food: 4 types of veg curries (cabbage, okra, dal, beans), chapatis and rice. And kheer for dessert. And then after lunch, we went to Nagarahole. We went till Kutta by bikes, and hired a jeep from there to go till the safari point. During safari, we started discussing about deer and mathematics (deer being so common there). I mentioned that there are so many deer because deer multiply very fast. Someone said, then we'll ask the multiplication table. Then I said, it is difficult for deer to calculate 1234 X 9234 because they don’t have fingers, unlike humans. So Shivanand came up with this bright idea that deer have only hooves and they can't move their hooves. So they calculate everything on base 4, one for each leg (hope you guys remember base 4, base 8, base 16 calculations and all). Then the disussion continued and we were laughing until the bus driver screamed at us and asked to to keep quiet.After a useless safari (got to see 2 peacocks, a few bisons and lots of deer; the deer there was like the street dogs of Bangalore, except that the deer bite only the vegetation and not the small children), we returned to our base. On the way I got this bright PJ: what do you call the waterfalls inside Nagarahole?? NAYAGARAHOLE.. HAHAHAHAHAWe reached our guest house at 7 PM, much earlier than we had thought. We had only little bit of whiskey left. Mr Poonacha suggested us to try the grape wine and banana wine prepared by his wife Beena. We tasted it and immediately purchased a bottle of each. Within a few minutes, we were drinking that in our rooms, together with chilli bhajji and tapioca chips (of Komal's Mangalore. They gave this to us probably because they got to know that 3 of us were Mangaloreans).Then time for dinner. Just like the previous day. Only the vegetarian curry was different. This night we had energy to roam around. So we stayed outside the house for some time, enjoying the cold weather. We wished we could stay there longer, but we had to return the next morning. And so we left that place after a breakfast which was very similar to the previous one, except that there were no pooris. Only dosas.We went to Balamuri on the way. Had some beer and fish and some bhelpuri. And then stopped at Kamath Lokaruchi and then reached Bangalore at around 8 PM, after riding 604 km all in all.Thanks to God, nothing went wrong seriously throughout our journey.

Kumara Parvata Trek

2007-02-08T02:56:00.000-08:00

Date: somewhere towards the end of September 2006.

The excitement started when Prasad sent an email to us informing that KMA would be conducting a trek to Kumara Parvata from 30th September 2nd October. Well, a three day weekend. So 5 guys agreed. And then 2 guys dropped out, including Prasad.But by then Prasad had taken us (Ramesh and me) to KMA office and got us trekking backpack,a sleeping bag and a mat.So we gathered at Majestic at 9.30 PM on Saturday night (30th). Well, Ramesh was there an hour earlier. I, struggling in the BMTC route 171 from Koramangala, arrived in shape exactly at 9.30 PM. Raghu joined us there.Altogether we were 21 people, including 3 ladies. We left Bangalore by 10.30 PM inside a tinbox (that is, a 3+2 seater bus) of KSTRC. We reached Kukke Subramanya at around 7 AM, stopping twice for tea and bonda on the way (hmmm... The food at first pitstop was awesome!!)..After breakfast and a brief introduction, we started the great expedition of 5 km through the forest, with leeches all around. For me, it took about 3 hours and a half I think. By then, most of the guys, including Ramesh and Raghu had reached to BHATTA's house. Yeah, I forgot to mention about this house before. This house is at half way to Kumara Parvata peak. So, you have to trek for 5 km to reach this house. This place is called GIRIGADDE (meaning mountain field in Kannada). If you don’t expect any facility here, then this place is damn good. You have toilets (Indian style, of course!!!), a bathroom, and some place to rest your head.And yes, they serve food as well; breakfast, lunch and dinner. It costs them a lot, so they charge you. They have to carry all the ingedients for food all the way from the bottom (Kukke Subramanya) in the same path that we trek on. Since I know the Tulu language (the local language around there), I spoke to them. Apparently, the demand for food is so much that, during peak seasons they have to carry 25 kg rice every morning from Kukke to their house!!!! And they do it in 1 hour!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we struggled with our "less than 10 kg" backpacks!!!! Beat that now....Though they serve just rice and sambar, when you have trekked for 5 km, that food is manna for you (for those who don’t know: manna means the food that God gave the Israelites during the exodus). Yessssss.... You are closer to heaven at this point. At about 800 to 900 meters altitude, you are really almost a km closer to your maker!!!!After food, we stayed there itself. Most guys used "pakistan", as I found all of them occupied for long times. Unfortunately, there is no water in the bathroom. You'll have to bring from the toilet taps and fill in the buckets. Still more unfortunate, there is only one mug for all the toilets. So, if you are using one toilet, others will have to wait for you, even if the other toilets are free!!!!And at this evening, Ramesh decide to smuggle out the two quarters of DSP Black he got from Bangalore. So Raghu, Ramesh and I crept to a nearby hillock and finished off the two bottles in about half an hour. We drank directly from the bottle as we had to glasses. Nope, I had no problem, I am used to it (though it was always a malt whiskey I consumed this way before). Usually I put ice, but here it was cold enough and so ice wasn’t required!!! Raghu and Ramesh would have found this a bit uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the trio enjoyed it, I must say.It was evening by this time, and I took cold water bath immediately (to get rid of the smell of this grain whiskey with additives). Water was chilling, and I was shivering all the while during my bath. Then all the guys (and the 3 ladies) sat inside the BHAT's house and had some chats (=take the English meaning of CHAT here). Before this, other blokes were playing anthakshari all the while. I think some of the blokes were sitting elsewhere and chatting.Then came the part where the BHAT's family's male members sang some hymns for Hindu Gods (as this was the festive season). Then dinner, and then sleep!!!Oh man, what a sleep we had. Well, I could not get sleep quickly because we guys really had to squeeze in to accommodate all the blokes and so I was "compressed" between two guys. Also, a few guys had fallen asleep already and where snoring so loudly that our man Ramesh lost his mind, and turned to sleep upside down, with his face at the feet of Raghu!!! Here, some of the guys were unlucky, they had not gone to KMA office in Bangalore before the trek, and so they had no sleeping bags and sleeping mats. We somehow adjusted our sleeping mats, but they had to sleep without sleeping bags.And then I fell asleep somehow, thanks to the tiredness. Then I heard some noise around. I woke up and saw the clock: 5.45 AM. Duh, I wish I could sleep longer, but no, we had to trek another 5 km to reach peak. So got up and had CHITRANNA (which our BHAT's family prepared for us, so early in the morning!!), and then started our trek to the peak. Neither I nor did Raghu or Ramesh carry any water, as we did not want to carry any burden.The initial part of this trek was easy, going through not-so-steep path. Then as the path started getting steeper, my mouth started to get dry. And some guys mentioned that I might because of previous day's DSP Black. How the hell did they know??? Obviously, they all had got the smell from my mouth. My bath hadn't helped me :-((Then most of the guys left to come slowly and went on. Well, I had no water, I was accomponied by only one person and I was thirsty. I had a brilliant idea, I started sucking the dew from the plants!!! It really helped me. I also should mention that some guys gave me water.And so after climbing for hours, we reached a place where there was a small MANTAPA. A couple of ladies decided to stay there itself and not climb up. We somehow managed to convince younger lady (who is a student) to come. The other lady had problems with her foot and decided to stay back. By this time, I had gained full energy and I started off with Ramesh and Raghu. All this while, the path was surrounded just by grass, and so there were no leeches. And now we had to enter the forest again. We did, and got "leeched". In between, found a stream, drank plenty of water from it, got rid of the leeches and climbed up the stream for some time (mind you, this was dangerous!!!), and reached THE PEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MAN, WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT!!!!!!!!!!Here we had some more food, which some good guys had generously carried all the way for all of us. And me the great, took off my shirt in that cold cold misty mountain peak while many others were still shivering!!!!We could not spend much time there, as we had to rush back to BHAT's house, lunch and return to Kukke to board the night bus to Bangalore. So we left from there. In between it was just Ramesh and myself together, and most of the other guys had disappeared. Some had gone ahead and most were lagging much behind. Ramesh and I were just looking for that MANTAPA we had found while climbing up, and expecting that once we find the MANTAPA, it will be just another hours journey. And then........... We reached near BHAT's house!!! HOLY SMOKE!!! WE NEVER GOT THE MANTAPA!!!!!! WE HAD LOST OUR WAY IN BETWEEN WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT UNTIL WE REACHED THE DESTINATION!!!!!!!!!!! THANK HEAVENS, WE WERE SAFE!!!And then we had our lunch, packed our bags and started the next journey: 5 km downward trek to Kukke. Before leaving, I went for a long long TAPASYA to PAKISTAN and spent a lot of time there. Only after I returned, Ramesh went for his TAPASYA. He too took a long time. So by the time we were ready, most of the guys had already left. The time was 4 PM, and the darkness would crawl into the forest by 5 PM. So finally 5 of us left: Reshma, Sujan, Raghu, Ramesh and myself. In between, Raghu and I picked up speed and even overtook some guys who had left from GIRIGADDE some 20 minutes before!!! We two reached Kukke and got to know that in one particular lodge, they let us bathe for 25 Rs. We sat in a small hotel and had tea. By this time we were in full range of mobiles, and could call up home. By this time Ramesh too arrived and we went to Anugraha lodge for bath. We also bought slippers and it we knew we could not wear those wet shoes any longer.After bath, Ramesh and Raghu went to the temple, and then we 3 guys had dinner separately (as other guys were still waiting for a few more people to return). And then we joined the crowd, boarded the KSRTC RAJAHAMSA bus to Bangalore. I fell asleep soon, and got up once in Sakleshpur to visit the pakistan there. The next time I got up, we were near Majestic. And finally I reached home at 8 AM, and slept for two hours. Then I left from home at 11, and due to the non-availability of buses, reached office at 12.30, and did some work, and started typing this travelogue. And I finish it now.