My Kerala trip

So we 11 booked tickets for Kerala on March 3rd for April 1st- April 4th, or we thought we did, without knowing where we need to be. The waiting list; 221-231 on one of the busiest weekends of the year, Easter. With the day nearing, many of us weren't sure if we would be able to make the trips with projects and personal life trying to act as the spoil sport. With Arul Raj and Krishna bailing out at the last moment, 9 of us (Ram,Zaheer,CT,Me,Madhavan,Balaji,Nanda,Balaji and Prabhakar) finally managed to catch the Trivandrum express on April 1st at Chennai railway station. Or we thought we did. Ram, Balaji and CT decided to start the trip on high "spirits", and hence in order to buy them, they sacrificed their RAC seats in the train to come in unreserved in the next train. You guys!!! Not that rest of us complained anyway, the TTE was kind enough to give those seats to us. Btw, I believe that the train carried some of the most beautiful Indian women. My dear desi girls! You are soooo darn beautiful. muuuuuuuaaaahhhh.
Next day, we got down at a place called Changanaseri, some 25 km from Allepy. Deciding to be frugal, we took a government bus to Allepy or Allapuzha. After having an excellent breakfast, we waited for the Les Miss-erables. They came, and we were about to scold, and then they opened the bag to show the "bounty" and we went, "awww you guys!" From there, we had only one place to go. The one place where we always wanted to go after seeing Vinnai thaandi Varuvaya. The boat house.

Thanks to contacts of Krishna, we had a good deal on the house boat. To say the house boat was awesome is an understatement. It had a steering deck, 3 air-conditioned double bedrooms with attached bathrooms, a kitchen, and wait for it, a closed roof terrace with LCD tv, dvd player and a DTH connection. Then the other two heroes joined us from Bangalore. Harish and Krishnan. The party is complete...but our party has just started. Allapuzha is awesome guys. There is something about the sight with water all round and us in the middle. The afternoons and evenings were awesome, and we all were sharing good banter. Cooking was excellent; oh btw, we had in house cooks too. The evening was really awesome, and the sight of sun setting in the far west, was breathtaking. We decided to anchor around 6 PM. Some of the guys decided to jump into water (with life jackets ofcoz) for some swim. 8 P.M. and it we decided to watch...well wat else...IPL.

April 3rd. Day 2. 06:00 hrs. We came back to the place where we started, the aptly named "finishing point." Of coz, after coming there we all were scratching our heads wondering where to go from there, and Krishnan made the sweetest offer, "come to my home guys." Only that it was in Trivandrum. Did that deter us, hell no! We caught a 07:15 train leaving for Trivandrum, and reached there around 10:00 AM. There is just something about a home that is soooooo soothing. I mean, you can be in the greatest of hotels, but you can never experience the warmth and comfort of a home. Home food, clean water=> heaven. After a small nap, we decided to go to the famous Kollam beach, some 18 km away. The beach was awesome!!! It was picture perfect, with a lighthouse built atop of rocks, and ofcoz bikini clad foreigners. Zaheer, Prabhakar and I decided to get into the water, with Balaji staying away coz he had an headache, and the rest decided to get themselves comfortable, very comfortable. Time just passes when you are in water. The beach was shallow for first 5-6 meters, and I must confess I had the best time ever in there. After 6 we caught multitude of transport to come back to Krishnan's home. We all were starving, and er...thirsty, so we all decided to hit a restaurant. With Harish zeroing on me (as usual), I decided to keep silent :D At 00:00 April 3rd, we were all walking back to home, again without knowing where to go after this. Some of us opined to start to Kochi, which is at a 6 hr drive, immediately, and enjoy at veega land on Sunday. Obviously Harish was pissed at our decision, as he couldn't join us as he had to catch an afternoon bus to head back to bangalore. Pissed at us, he cursed , but we started to bus station anyway.

After a 7 hour drive, we came to Kochi.Man...was it hot. It was man-it's-so-hot-i-need-to-get-into-a-freezer hot. We booked 3 small rooms to keep our belongings, and then after a small breakfast we went to veega land, on two share autos. Veega land is definitely not the largest theme park, as it is advertised, when you consider the total area under use. But you can't beat the scenery. Situated on top of a hill, it gives an awesome 360 degree view the lush green nature. So after general merriment, we start back to rooms so that we can pack our bags and catch a 00:50 train at Ernakulam leaving to Chennai. Or we thought we could. Couple of guys, in between their banter, asked, "dude..if it is 00:50, shouldn't the date be April 5th instead of April 4th as printed on the ticket." To which the reply was "the train is starting at Trivandrum at 20:30 hrs on Apil 4th." But still with lingering doubt, we decided to confirm. Zaheer, Ram and I went to railway station to enquire, and the railway chick was like, "dude, you are late by 24 hours." A wise man once said, never underestimate a fat guy's curse. Damn you Harish!! We are like, laughing at ourselves on this situation, and then decided to have tea. Anywhere, anytime, any situation is fun when your friends are around. There is this scene in Jab we met where Kareena situation, after escaping from goondas in train station, will pray to God, "Hey bhagwan, ...ab yeh din bore kardo." We all were praying for the same. After that with no where to go, we went back to our rooms and decided to sleep. We woke at 5:00 am, went to train station, got 9 tickets to Chennai on Allepy-Dhanbad express, and then came back to Chennai central at 10:00 PM. Phew, wat a journey, what a trip!!!

Summer of 09 – At Kodaikannal

I’ll start with a corrigendum for the last blog. Trip to Munnar is not the best trip ever so far. My recent escapade to Kodaikannal with my partners in crime is THE BEST trip so far. We all, sans Zaheer who had one of his MBA exams on the weekends, started on July 3^rd from Chennai Egmore station. Unlike last time, we all had our tickets booked, even for the late comer Vijaykumar albeit in a different compartment. The train journey was incident free, which is a first for us!

We reached kodaikannal high road station around 6:30 in the morning, 1 hr late than the normal arrival time. Then we spent lot of time contemplating the best service to reach kodai town. After a small breakfast, we decided the best and economic way was to travel by bus, which we did on 8:45 A.M. Till we reached Kodai town around 12 PM, I don’t remember much. One thing I forgot to mention; this is one of the best ever planned trip we were on. Train tickets, room booking, cab booking etc were all planned in advance. And for the first time, everything was spot on like clockwork. After getting to the rooms and a quickly refreshing, we went on to local site seeing. IMO kodaikannal is much better than Ooty. Some of the places we visited were Guna caves system, pine forest, some lake and so many other places. We came back, had a hearty dinner and then some tv and then sleep.

The second day had a lot in store for us. Amazing day and amazing time!

We rounded the day off with a nice cycle ride around the lake. Cycling after ages!!! Brought back our school memories. None of our trips seem to end without a customary trek, and so there we were on the third day. A very long arduous and hot trek on perumal hills system, the highest hill system in Kodaikannal. Unlike last time, we packed lotta fruits, a LOT of fruits and climbed and climbed and climbed and …climbed. Around 2 PM when we were all feeling pinch in our stomachs, we decided to climb down. We reached the foot around 3:30 PM and found some place to have lunch around 4 PM. We rested a while in our room, and by 8:00 PM, we started to Kodaikannal hight road station. After having dinner at the same place where we had our first meal of the trip, we all boarded the train back to Chennai. This is pretty much a dumbed down version of many things we did during the trip. Actually only this much is left after all the censors. Rest everything is *bleep*, *bleep* and more *bleep*!

Munnar!!!

Not wanting to have another month without a blog, I have decided to write about the long pending subject of my trip to Munnar. It was one of THE most memorable trips I have been to so far. Awesome place, awesome friends. We started on April 30th from Chennai to Madurai (you may ask why we went there to go to Munnar, the truth is I have no idea). Everything was on adventure. Ours was waiting list in 60s when we booked and at the time of journey (Thursday 2 PM), it came to waiting list 10s. No grace marks here, so we had to get into unreserved. After two stops, we moved to ES, and slowly found ourselves with seats to spare. It was a long arduous journey, especially when there are no chicks around. We reached Madurai, settled ourselves in a nice hotel (by nice I mean it had TV) for the night. Oh I totally forgot, the dinner was exquisite! Nothing can beat Madurai food.
After a short (crappy) photo session in the morning and a great breakfast we started off to Munnar by bus. The bus journey was great, really fantastic UNTIL it reached Tamilnadu-Kerala border. After that the hair pin bends just came like T-Pain’s singles, and by the time we reached Munnar, we weren’t sure if our brain was still working.
We spent the whole of the Friday night trying to find a room in Munnar, which we did finally. After our dinner, we went on a short but wonderful trek to a nearby hill. I have never seen so many fireflies together so far!

Saturday was the day of the trip. We started off in the morning in a share auto, yes SHARE AUTO towards Lockehart gap. On the way, there was a very very beautiful tea estate. Just check out the pics! The trek to the top of the Lockehart gap was one of the most beautiful thing I have done so far. After reaching the peak and to look down, wow!...just WOW!
We came down, went back in share auto, went to a hotel, fought with the hoteliers, went to another hotel and had dinner, as usual.
The whole of Sunday was taken by the trip from Munnar to Theni, and then in waiting for the 7 P.M government bus to Chennai. Oh by the way, if you drop at Theni sometime, do EAT! The food is amazing there!
If I could phrase the entire bus journey from Theni to Dindugal, the next morning I wasn’t sure if my organs were in the right place. If you think that was bad, Harish had to change 6 bus to reach B’lore from Theni.
Enjoy the pics. Till the next blog, Adios.

India Jones and the holy grail (of noodles)

Pepere peeee. Pepepepepepe peeee. For the 50th post anniversary, 21st century Ox presents the first India Jones’ adventure.
0200 hours. Chennai, Tamilnadu.
The sudden sound of rock solo alarm put Jones out of his sleep. He was still not sure about his mission. He has never attempted like this before. He gave a long hard thought about it and decided it had to be done. For the sake of riazinity. He packed his back pack with a pair of dress for change, men’s essentials, a torch, towels and lot of money. With nothing to eat, he drank some water, and without making a noise, he moved down to start his bike. The engine roared, driving away the dogs and waking the platform warmers. He then picked up his fellow trekker and started for koyembedu for the rendezvous. He parked his bike in C.M.B.T and hopped in a car to head to Nagalapuaram, Andhra. It was a pleasant drive. In his job, he always knew that there is always a lull before the storm. This day is going to be no different.
0810 hours. Nagala, Andhra.
A voice inside in his head kept on saying, “travel light.” Oh wait, that was Peter, Captain CTC. So, Jones left majority of the stuff in backpack, save the torch, in the car itself. It mission such as these, it is imperative to stay under cover. He thought of fixing a mole onto his cheek. But not wanting to look like a dufus, he decided to go with a cap and a pair of sun glasses. Sleek move Jones, sleek.

After the group photo sessions, Jones started off to conquer the first hill. The trial was full of dense bushes and thorns. After 15 minute walk, the bush cleared and he was able to see the hill. It didn’t look ominous at first, but looks can be deceptive. After another 30 minute of walking and climbing, Jones arrived at the first rest point, a natural water bed. It was a beautiful sight with mountain water making a cute cascade out of the hill. Others freshened up themselves by dipping into water, swimming and diving. Initially Jones decided to stay dry, but with no anti-incense serum, he was running out of options. The water was treacherous. In five steps, he slipped 8 times. After a crane dip, he dragged himself out of the water. Mission accomplished. “Move ON.” That was Peter. Mission not-yet-accomplished.

0920 hours.
Jones followed the rest of Peter’s entourage in search of the next water bed. An obstacle on the way: a small vertical hill. Jones broke into a sweat. He hasn’t done that before, heck not even imagined it. He first climbed over a little rock formation, moved into the middle and then moved horizontally for about 6-8 yards and then the final descent over a 90 degree angle. He decided to pat his back for the achievement. Oh what the hell, he can’t move his hand over his shoulder. Occupational hazards.
After a looooooooong walk amidst rocks, thorns, bushes and heavy breathing, the group stopped for lunch. Maggi. Jones would have preferred a buffet lunch with unlimited appalams. But a skilled adventurer got to make use of the best of the available resources. After four servings, his appetite has somewhat subdued. Not wanting to perform nature call out in nature later, he half heartedly refused the fifth serving. After lunch, Peter gave us two ultimatums: go back, or climb the hill to see the water source and then go back. Jones decided to go democratic and asked the opinion of his body organs. The verdict was unanimous. “STAY you jackass.“

1420 hours.
Jones and a small group of people decided to go back to the base camp. His numb legs made many mistakes initially and he had to fall down three to four times. He may have, but his spirit didn’t. With new found determination (of going home! Mummy!!!!), he took calm and steady steps towards the second pool. We he thought he was moving faster than ever, Peter and rest of the group passed by after finishing their ascent. So much for moving fast!
1710 hours.
Jones was at the first pool. He looked down at people who were climbing down the hill. “Climb down??” he thought. “You got to be kidding me!” After failing to find inspiration to climb down, he decided to use his last resort, his secret weapon. “Just beat it…just beat it.” Singing it within his mind, he climbed till half way when he didn’t know how to move further. “Just beat…aah screw it…”, and he called up Dinesh who was down. “Can you help me?” Dinesh came up and give the places where to find notches to keep the feet. With his directions, Jones steadily moved again. For the last hurdle, he had to jump barefoot in knee deep water full of rocks. He did. That he wasn’t able to walk properly for 2 days after that is a whole different story.

2100 hours.
Jones was in the car, trying to sleep. But he was too tired to sleep. He just wanted to go home and take a bubble bath. Wait, he doesn’t have a tub in his home. Ah well, I think he just wants to dip his legs into hot water. But that was not to be for another 1 hour, as he and the rest of the gang had to wait for Peter who had gone on reconnaissance. No man left behind. The cars started after everyone had come back. On the way, they all stopped for a quick meal. It was not no quick in the end as people started to order omlette, half boil, full-boiled, cran, fish, chicken and kingfisher :D. Jones and his fellow trekker got out at C.M.B.T and then after dropping the trekker, he went to his sweet home.
0200 hours.
Jones tried to look back at his day. Oh wait, what was it? Ah, sleep. Thinking can wait. As usual.
---------------------------------THE END-----------------------------------------
Starring (in the order of appearance)
India Jones – Me
And others as others.

My latest trip!!

 

Guys, this is a sneak peak from my latest trip to bangalore-mysore with my dear friends. Check out my orkut album for more. And yeah! I wish you all a fantastic new year ahead!! Happy rocking!