Scotland
Nessie !!!! One of the words that I have grown up fantasising about ever since I started reading and understanding English ! For the uninitiated and ignorant lot, Nessie is supposed to be the lord of all he/she/it [ Am neither a MCP nor a misogynist !! So, why give the impression that I am one :) Play it safe buster ] surveys up in the highlands of Scotland. In precis, Nessie is the resident monster of Loch Ness, the largest fresh water lake in the United Kingdom. I was now about to come face to face with Nessie and add my perspective tidbits to the already abundant myths surrounding it thanks to Sanketh and his plans for Scotland over the May Bank Holiday weekend.
Day ???
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A strange phenomenon always preludes all of my "over-expectant" jaunts in that the days leading to them are always hectic and tiresome leading me to believe more than once that I might not make it at all. This tells me that I should never ever be looking forward to something like it is the last thing in the world for me to do. Unfortunately, the mind and the heart do not seem to speak the same language and it is always the heart which edges the mind to the finish in my case. You can get away with calling me lucky because I have not had to cancel any such trips as I tend to finish my part just in time for the trip ahead. Someone up there likes me :)) It was against this background that Sanketh hatched a plan to Scotland during the weekend. The signs were ominous this time round too what with the second phase of EV4E testing looming large on the horizon. I had to put in some extra effort during the week so that my plans do not go kaput especially when Nessie beckoned me !!! As it transpired, lady luck was kind enough to smile on me once again and I restored order again just in the nick of time. Five of us were off to Scotland after a frenzied bout of reservations with a sixth joining us almost at the fag end of our preparations. No prizes for guessing who the sixth was as it is a dead giveaway for those who know the person in question. It was more a feeling of "I will be left out" than a "I want to see it" that eventually tilted the person's decision to join us.
Day 1 - 29 Apr 2006
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Our "organising capabilities" or the lack of it were in serious doubt especially after the Switzerland debacle as regards account settlement. Previously on all the trips/treks that I have been to, I have been entrusted with the responsibility of managing accounts and I can unabashedly claim that I have been relatively successful. I have been so because of the like-minded group that we were. Unfortunately, barring Shridhar, I could not claim to know anyone on the Swiss trip on a personal front and as such I left it to providence and a few capable people to handle the accounts.
This being the case, some self-proclaimed "organised" people took over the reins from us "careless" folks ( Me and Shridhar ) for the Scotland trip. Come to think of it, we never had the reins anyway !!! So, we were stupefied when we were told that the reins would be taken away. So be it !!
The first step towards an "organised" trip was to hire a 6-seater taxi which would take us to the Bristol Airport from our dwellings at Bradley Stoke. We were to assemble at 5:00 in the morning at Shridhar's place at Orchard Gate with Me and Jayapriya walking in from Ferndene and Sanketh and Ranga from Woodlands Court. The first bungle happened even before the trip officially started in that Madame did not bother to leave her house well after the gong struck five. The excuse was a prosaic "Your watch is faster" !!! Imagination had reached its heights :) It did not matter much because the taxi operator could not arrange for a 6-seater for us and hence we had no choice but to wait for him to turn up. Anyways, a brand new taxi did eventually make its way to Shridhar's place and we set off.
Our first stop in Scotland was to be Edinburgh, its capital. I do not know why it is pronounced as Edinbra but then I have stopped trying to understand the nuances of English. All said and done, we reached Edinburgh at around 8:45 after spending a niggling hour amidst stony-faced air-hostesses :(
Our first priority was to reach the City Centre from where we could spin out an agenda for the rest of the day. We managed to find an airport-flyer which would take us right into the heart of Edinburgh in about 30 precise minutes. After squabbling about where and when we needed to have breakfast, we decided to descend into the Waverley train station which was right in front of the bridge where we were dropped earlier. It was to be Burger King this time and not McDonalds :)) We did try to lighten our load by conveniently dumping our luggage in a cloak room but we were destined to roam around with our luggage in tow at least for a couple of hours more if not for the entire day. It was then that someone in the group came up with a brainwave about checking in to our hostel Argyle Backpackers. This was a decent distance away from the City Centre and we had to board Route 41 from the Mound to get to the place. To get to the mound itself was a task as we had no idea where it was. Finally, it was Shridhar who found the place and we duly waited for the bus in the reverse direction. A couple of minutes later, we were on the right track and we dropped our luggage in the Argyle Backpackers Inn.
With the burden lessened, we came back to the City Centre and bought day tickets to travel on the ubiquitous open-top tourist buses which line the streets of Edinburgh. Our first stop was to be the famed Edinburgh Castle which came highly recommended from almost everyone who has been there. However, I did not want to expect anything extravagant as UK has thrown up quite a lot of surprises !!! We reached the castle precincts and bought usuriously priced tickets which would enable us to enter the hallowed inner areas. The inside has a huge platform with strategic points for cannons to gun down any enemy who dares to attack. These points now double up as viewpoints. The city of Edinburgh looks panoramically beautiful from atop the castle. Also, Edinburgh has a huge Roman influence in almost all of its huge edifices with distinct massive cylindrical pillars. Makes one almost utter the revered "Hail Caesar !!!" My history tells me that the Romans were not able to capture the regions north of the English Midlands as a result of fierce Celtic resistance and hence I was dumbfounded by this Roman influence. Anyways, my history is based on Asterix and some scattered references to Rome in my middle school education !! So, as usual, I might be wrong after all :)
There was a customary gun-salute at precisely 1:00 in the afternoon by way of a still-functioning old albeit polished-as-new cannon. A sizeable crowd had gathered to witness this age-old custom and immediately dispersed after the salute. We did roam around the numerous rooms in the castle which depicted the glory of Scotland and the sanguinary English attacks. Each region of the UK viz. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is a pesudo-nation in itself in that they have different customs/traditions and each one detests the other subtly. Have also been confused with considering the UK as a single entity because as it stands, the UK has significance only politically. In all other aspects, it is the individual nation which is recognised.
It was then time for us to get back to the other attractions of Edinburgh most notably the Whisky Heritage Tour !!! This tour takes us through time into the history of Scotch whisky and its humble beginnings and how it has come to be a major prescence on every party table across the world. We were given a customary welcome drink well before we were on our way through the tour. The tour itself was reasonably educational in that I learnt that Scotch Whisky is graded broadly on 2 counts - the region where it comes from and the ingredients it is made from.
Accordingly, you have :
1: Highlands, Lowlands, Islands and Spey Valley whiskies classified on regions
2: Malt, Grain and Blended whiskies classified on the ingredients
We were given about 25 ml of each regional "Water of Life" [ Whisky translates to that ] which me and Shridhar duly finished in a single gulp each. That was some achievement for a teetotaller like myself. It did have its effects later on during our stroll back when I felt drowsy and my eyelids just did not want to remain open :)
The next 2 hours were spent on the open-top buses again meandering their way through the streets of Edinburgh. On the way, we saw a beautiful sun-lit mountain which was hauntingly inviting but we could not make it as we were running short of time :( Shridhar and I almost made it to the "Edinburgh Dungeon" but were summoned back by the others to join them on a different route of sightseeing. We reluctantly went back and joined the others on another not-so-spectacular bus tour.
We had time and daylight to kill and hence decided to take a stroll in the huge park right in the city centre. Most of the group were in a straight fight with the flowers of all hues to decide who was more beautiful notwithstanding the fact that they stood no chance in a fight with mother nature :) Anyways, no harm in trying though I wouldn't dare to !! It was dusk time and we had to get back to our abodes soon. However, we still had not managed to find the place where Madame was to put up for the night. After a literal toil, we found a decrepit place with an equally debile staircase leading upto it. Madame's palace !! We had dinner at "Bay Of Bengal" which was a Bangladeshi restaurant shamelessly making use of brand "India". No complaints as the food was very much palatable.
After escorting Madame back to her place, we reached the Argyle Inn at around 11:30 in the evening. Wonder why each person of the male species becomes chivalrous when we sense a woman who is alone irrespective of whether she expects it or not !!! Guess that is a factory-fitted default trait :)
We finally hit the sack at around 1:30 after sneaking out for another round of Scotch :)
Day 2 - 30 Apr 2006
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I woke up at around 5:30 and set out on my walk around the Argyle Inn. Did not want to miss the sunrise for anything !!! I had a refreshing walk of about 2-3 miles in the early morning and came back to the Inn at around 7:00. We had to board a bus to Fort William at 8:00 and we were at the station well before that thanks to the punctilious plans made the previous day. We had to switch buses at Glasgow which was an hour's drive away from Edinburgh towards the west. We had a decent breakfast of Paninis and Burgers at Glasgow with my choice pretty much obvious by now. The latter part of the journey from Glasgow to Fort William would be a good 3 hour drive into the Western Highlands of Scotland.
The journey itself was not tiresome because of the fantastic and motleyed sceneries of the Scottish Highlands unlike the monochromatic ones of Switzerland. I do understand that comparisons are faulted but then Switzerland seems banal at times and ennui sets in more often than not after an initial bout of hysteria and "How Cute"s !!! Scotland was to be refreshingly different in that it had so many things to offer to peripatetics looking for a weekend getaway. The 3 hour drive was enough for some of us to go about furiously clicking on their cameras to capture mystic Scotland. I captured all of them with my natural lens taking in the beauty as it was without having to rely on an artificial lens.
We reached Fort William at around mid-day. Our first goal was to reach the Tourist Information Centre in the town square. Believe it or not, everything is closed down on Sundays here even the public toilets :( As it turned out, we had to take a taxi to our hostel, Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, which was a good 3 miles away into the woods. The locale was just about perfect with a lazy rill winding its way through the Nevis ranges right opposite our hostel. This is the stuff dreams are made of. I would imagine heaven to be like this when/if I eventually get there :)
The innkeeper was politeness personified and helped us arrange a taxi which would take us to Inverness via Loch Ness. The asked-for rental sum was reasonable according to him and we had no choice either !! We were ready to hit the road to Inverness at around 2:00. If we do not have a break journey, we would reach Inverness in about 80 minutes. Did we ??? Not a chance in hell !!! But then, Scotland was mesmerisingly beautiful and we did not want to miss capturing ourselves with the majestic and beautiful landscapes.
On the way, we stopped at a memorial for World War martyrs fittingly constructed on top of a hill overlooking the lush valley. After that, we stopped on the banks of a wonderful lake with me wanting to enjoy the view while the others wanted to display their photographic skills. Further ahead, we stopped at Fort Augustus which has a canal leading up to Loch Ness. Seemingly, this canal was in use commercially long before the advent of modern cars but it has now been reduced to a cruise for pleasure hungry tourists. There is a bridge which connects the road to the town which is opened to let the boats pass because of the low height. We experienced this age-old custom first hand and were delighted to be a part of it.
It was then Loch Ness all the way upto Inverness. Loch Ness is a huge body of water and as I quipped in one of my earlier travelogues, there has to be an alternate definition for a lake :) Picture this setting .... A mountain road curving its way through the dense forest ranges with a beautiful serene lake unwilling to vanish away from sight and the background of a wonderful mountain range with its peaks steeped in light fluffy snow. Man, Scotland is really enchanting !!! I was not disappointed one bit with my expectation of Loch Ness as here was a place in the UK which at last lived upto its hype. Thank goodness for that.
By the time we reached Inverness, it was around 4:30 and we decided we will not let the bile juice go waste any longer. We ventured out into an authentic Italian Pizza joint called Bella Italia to satiate our hunger. It was the first time that I had had an Italian Pizza and immediately had to acknowledge why it is famous the world over. The pizza just melted away as soon as it came into contact with the mouth. We also listened to an Italian song which has been blatantly lifted off and used in a Bollywood movie. And no Madame !!! Cannot accept that we heard a couple of Hindi words in the song. Just a figment of your imagination or it is high time you consulted a doctor :)
Inverness has nothing to brag about except for an oddly coloured pink castle. I have begun to detest the colour pink due to the hackneyed exposure that I have been subjected to. The view from atop the castle is indeed beautiful with a small suspension bridge across a smaller rivulet against the setting sun heightening its beauty. After being "castle"d, it was time to return to Glen Nevis. Come to think of it, "Glen" might not be a strange word to all ye Scotch fans and the word was everywhere naturally arousing my curiosity. Our driver told us that the word Glen actually means "Valley" in Gaelic.
On the way back, we were to get down at Loch Ness and try to catch a glimpse of Nessie by venturing into the castle below. Unfortunately, by the time we reached Loch Ness, the path to the castle was closed and a curt sign indicated that unauthorised visitors were not too welcome !! We had to satisfy ourselves with whatever we could see from the top. I do not know about the others but I was mighty disappointed. You bungling idiot, you !!! I promised myself an appointment with Nessie at a later point of my life. I will find him yet !!!
We reached Glen Nevis after paying a visit to a "Kithogiro" [ Kannada for broken-down ] castle on the way back. Vishal wanted to have a traditionally home-brewed ale and his want was about to go unanswered when we finally found a typical village pub. Lucky guy Vishal !! We found a corner where we would be undisturbed and Me and Jayapriya had coke while Shridhar, Vishal, Sanketh and Ranga had 2 rounds each of the best home-brewed ale in and around the area as one of the placards claimed. We had our dinner packed from Everest, an Indian restaurant, and reached our hostel at around 11:00. We then had dinner in the dining room and retired for the day at around 12:00 midnight. Shridhar caused me some anxiety by disappearing for a good half hour which had me scrambling around the hostel bare-footed. Thankfully, he came back after a bout of internet browsing, a kiosk which I did not bother to check. That is where Sherlock Holmes comes in. In one of his adventures, he reminds us "When you have eliminated all the impossibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, has to be the truth !!!". I did not imagine Shridhar wanting to check his mails at so odd a time and as it turned out, Sherlock was right again ....
Day 3 - 1 May 2006
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My morning walk this time was to be a morning trek in that I had plans of trekking up the Ben Nevis hill. It was teasingly beckoning ever since we set foot into the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel. Surprisingly, the entire group was eager to join me when I thought that they would be loath to the idea in chilly conditions. The day did not start too well and the law of averages suggested that the weather would turn worse any time now. It did catch up with us and it was raining persistantly which shelved our plans of a 5:00 am start. After going back to bed, I decided that we will leave at around 7:00 inspite of the steady drizzle for I did not know whether I would come back at all. We did leave at around 7:15 in batches during which time I crossed the ice-cold stream bare-footed just to ascertain whether I could do it or not. Why do I keep attempting this supposedly stupid moves ??? Guess I just love the attention that is heaped upon me when I do that :)
We then started on our ascent towards the summit which seemed eons away from the base. The trail was slippery and we could have ended up badly bruised if we took a wrong step. The grips in my AllConditionGear Nike shoes were pathetic to say the least and I knew that I would have a difficult time during the way back. Ignoring this non-ignorable fact, me, Shridhar and Vishal quickly made our way almost to the top after more than a huff and a puff. It did give us a stern reminder of our physical fitness or the lack of it. I have become a bloated buffoon after coming here with hardly any trace of physical exertion. Poor me !!! The others, notably Jayapriya and Sanketh, were just not able to cope up with the climb and stayed back waiting for us to return. The way back, as I expected, was indeed tricky as the rocks were slippery on account of the rain. Gravity also joined in on the fun and desperately wanted me to get to the base of the mountain using the shortest vertical path. It almost succeeded a couple of times when I had to recoup after a slip or two. Shridhar was the first to race down while I was the last. This was a race which I had no intention of winning as long as I could reach the finish post :) The others wearily returned back to the hostel while me and Shridhar had a nice walk along the banks of the stream.
We checked out of Glen Nevis at around 9:30 so that we could get to the Ben Nevis Range where we would encounter our first snow flakes in Scotland. This is a skiing resort in the winter and a cable car would take us about three-quarters up to the top. We had our breakfast before starting towards the top. Vishal and Sanketh had not been to a ski resort before as they were not part of the Switzerland trip and they were understandably excited whilst the seasoned campaigners amongst us could not fathom what the excitement was all about. As soon as we stepped out of the cable car, it started to snow and made our walk all the more exciting. There were 2 pathways of which we dismissed one after a small walk as it was descending downward while we wanted to ascend. The second path did seem to provide some hope but it abruptly ended at an ice-flyer station as only skiiers with appropriate gears were allowed to proceed further on. Disappointed but not disheartened, we trudged our way back to the cable cars and eventually to the base.
After a frenzied bout of shopping, it was lunch time once again before we boarded the bus to Glasgow at 2:00. We managed to find a number of right shopping merchandise and certain people just did not want to stop. It was to be Everest again and a lunch of Biriyanis was just the need of the hour. It was to be a 3 hour journey again to Glasgow from Fort William which most of us spent sleeping. I, for certain, literally dozed throughout the journey even though I wanted to see the landscape one last time :(
We reached Glasgow at around 4:45 and had at least a couple of hours more to kill for our flight to Bristol was at around 9:15. We had no option but to try explore Glasgow and its urbane locales. Glasgow seems to be a huge city and the first thing we did was to enter a shopping mall but our enthusiasm was short lived for it was no different from what we have at Bristol. We then walked out of the mall into the sidestreets and eventually settled down on some nice benches strewn around on a huge open enclosure.
Vishal and Jayapriya as usual want on their photographic spree and alerted us to the fact that we were missing a nice bridge. For a change, it was indeed right and we laid our eyes on a magnificent suspension bridge just beside the Bell's bridge. Huge structures seem to be more attractive, than they are, during sunrise and sunset especially when the rays reflect off their huge beams.
We had to go to the airport well in time to board the Easyjet flight out of Glasgow. A "n"th round of shopping followed at the airport and we did enter the flight after everyone was through with shopping. We reached Bristol at around 10:45 and Bradley Stoke at around 11:30. It was time to sign off for sterner battles ahead through the week.
All in all, Scotland was indeed a pleasant surprise and can rightfully claim to be the "best small country" in the world as one huge hoarding greets visitors with exactly that during their arrival at Edinburgh.
Thanks to one and all, especially Sanketh, for having provided me with 3 wonderful days. Adios Amigos until the next time we meet.
Shanks
Switzerland
"Na jaane mere dil ko kya ho gaya ... abhi to abhi tha yahi kho gaya" !!! So goes one of the most popular songs of Bollywood in recent years. What does it remind you of ?? You guessed right. It immediately brings to mind the verdant, idyllic, pastoral, serene landscapes of Switzerland through which SRK and Kajol literally sleepwalked into Hindi filmdom's hall of fame. Right, we will come back to business and start off with the wonderful time we had over the weekend in Switzerland. Just before I delve into the tale of the 4 days, let me start off with the harbinger to this one. [ Oh!! stop bugging us, will ya, eh ?? Not a chance :) ]
Day ???
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My friend Gururaj who has been in the UK [ for as long as he can remember ] gently reminded me of the fact that we would have a long weekend in April. This was about a month back. I told him that I would be game for anything as long as I am here. I say this because I was not sure whether I would still be here to make use of that. Sometime in the following weeks, I was told that I would be here at least until the 3rd week of April so that I could utilise the long weekend to the hilt :) This news was communicated to Guru in a jiffy [ probably even sooner than that ].
The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the Isle of Wight which is an island cluster to the South of England very near to Portsmouth. 2 of my good friends here at THBS, Shridhar and Jayapriya, were perenially busy with their work and hence I could not hope to even ask them if they were game lest they feel bad about being left out. This being the case, I carried forward with my travel bookings to IoW. It was during this time of one of our casual lunches that we came to know that 5/6 colleagues of ours were to make a trip to Switzerland. Out of the blue, 2 of my aforementioned friends also nodded their acceptance. That shook me right out of my slumber as that was the last thing I expected. I was now in a dilemma as to what option I should exercise. [ I hate these situations when I am forced to choose between 2 equally likeable options ] Having said that, I have always associated Europe with Switzerland and hence I did not want to miss the boat. Guess what happened next ?? The inevitable :) I made a flash decision that I would join the Switzerland trip and tickets/accommodation et al were booked in an alarmingly quick time. We were to spend 4 days in the serene Swiss locales and I was rubbing my hands with glee and expectation.
Day 1 - 14 April 2006
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It was not only the dawn of a new day but the dawn of the New Year for us Tamilians. What a day to start off the trip !!! Our EasyJet flight was out of Bristol to Geneva at around 7:15 and we set off from our houses at around 5:00. The flight journey was largely uneventful except for the majestic Swiss Alps in all its pristine glory just ahead of our descent into Geneva. A 11 year wait finally ended when I stepped off the plane into Geneva. I was in Switzerland !!!
There was no set agenda for the day as we were to laze around Geneva for a good 6 hours before we left for Interlaken, our next halt. I only realised later [ and painfully at that ] that "laze around" is a risky proposition because we walked like there was no tomorrow until our legs could take no more. [ Poor us software engineers !!! The only things that we use are our hands and mouth. How fabulous it would be if we did begin to use our minds and legs as much as we did our hands and mouth. That would be dismissed as Wishful Thinking ]
We had to buy a rail pass for the 4 days that we were to stay in Switzerland and we duly did that. The Swiss have a strange distinction between people who are below 26 and those who are above 26 in that everything is cheaper for the former. Waah !!! I was made to feel that I am no more young :( The next thing you know, they might even have old age homes for us unfortunate people :) We reached the Geneva City Centre from the airport through a typical Swiss double-decker train. Another first for me !!
Geneva borders France and is home to a huge lake two-thirds of which is in the French territory. We were to get to the City Centre and roam around the edges of the lake. Now, we should have a set standard and a quantifiable definition for a lake. As far as my understanding goes [ and it is very limited ], a lake is a water body surrounded by land. But this lake encompasses land rather then being encompassed by it. How can the same definition of a lake apply to both our dear Sankey Lake and the Geneva lake ??? Anyways, to think that this Geneva lake is not even among the 10 biggest lakes in the world !!! Swami was fed up of Geneva and its lake so much so that he took an oath of never ever wanting to visit Geneva and its omnipresent lake.
The initial group of 9 people split into two here with Satisha, Sharath, Santosh and Pramod walking briskly towards the lake. Our photographic travails left us behind and Me, Shridhar, Jayapriya, Ranganath and Swami were to fend on our own. The problem was that we had about 7 Digital Cameras, 1 Film Camera and 1 Camcorder. So, everyone had his/her own idea of a capture. How do we blame anyone for it ?? Its a free world remember !! Surprisingly, it was a blazingly hot day in Geneva which was just what I needed so that my limited photographic skills, despite a digital camera, are not ripped apart into the open.
Initially, we were to try the lake cruise so that we could get to the other side of the seemingly endless lake. But, time was at a premium and we decided against it. We strolled around on the banks of the lake and came upon a toy train, operating on solar batteries, which would take us around. We hopped onto it with the enthusiasm of juveniles and off we were. This train even had commentary in French and English. After this joyful ride, we got down at one of the vantage points to view the huge fountain right in the middle of the lake. I will not mention repeatedly that we captured photos of every place because if I did so, that would need a huge document in itself. Rest assured that everything which has a mention in here has been captured :) After a welcome drench, thanks to the fountain, we were back along the shores of the lake. It was then time for a quick bite and we tried to reach the UN building after that. After a long walk in the blistering sun, we thought that we had reached the UN. Alas, that was not to be !! It turned out that the building in question was the now defunct League of Nations. That did not stop us from taking pictures of it though.
The group of 9 was then reunited and off we went to the train station to leave for Interlaken where we were to retire for the day. We reached Interlaken at around 8:00 in the evening. We had our accommodations booked at Balmer's Herberge which was a miserable excuse for a dormitory. The floor in the upper deck was creaking all over keeping you on your toes. The only good thing about this place was it was "Happy Hour" at the bar by the time we reached. That meant a drink on the house for every drink bought. What an incentive !!! Some of the guys stayed back to make full use of the hour while me, Santosh and Jayapriya went in search of some food. Blame it on my luck but whenever I am on a trip here, the only place worth eating is McDonalds explaining the sorry state of affairs as far as cuisine is concerned. It was time to retire at around 12 midnight after the others had bread and butter for their dinner.
Day 2 - 15 April 2006
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Believe it or not but the whole of the first floor in this pathetic dormitory had a single toilet each for men and women. That coupled with the fact that there were around 40/50 inmates forced Shridhar to wake up at the eerie hours of 4:30 so that he could refresh himself without any issues. That done, he duly went back to sleep. I then woke up and after refreshing myself went on a walk so that I can catch the Swiss Alps at dawn. I was not disappointed and was treated to some lovely views. The complimentary breakfast was the only thing which rivalled the piteous dormitary. When I am at home in Bangalore, I have about 4 slices of bread before my breakfast. But here, breakfast meant 2 slices of bread which had a greater elasticity than a rubber band. We had to toil our way through the breakfast.
We left for Jungfrou at around 10:00. Jungfrou is the highest rail station in Europe and we were to change trains twice to reach the promised land once at Grindelwald and the next at Klein Scheidegg. Grindelwald gave us the first glimpse of snow and we welcomed it. After a short stint at Grindelwald, we were on our way to Jungfrou in a train which would wind its way up the imposing Swiss Alps. We finally reached the top after more than the customary OOHs and AAHs.
The weather at the top was bitterly cold. There is a famous Indian restaurant called "Bollywood" at the top. Unfortunately, it is closed between September and April and hence we had to make do with the sole open one. We were not too disappointed though because we had a decent meal of rice and curry.
After heeding to the rumbles of the stomach, we were ready to explore Jungfrou. There were 3 places worth a visit - a view point, an Ice Palace and an open space where we could let the kids in us out in the snow. The first 2 were okay with the Ice Palace having all kinds of ice sculptures. The third was where we could play in the snow. But, the weather chose just that moment to turn worse and we could not stay for more than a couple of minutes out in the open. This was the point where I understood the importance of a goggle in snowy land. My friends had warned me beforehand that a goggle is a must for Switzerland. But I could not even in my wildest dreams think of a valid reason for the same with my logic of "Why would anyone need a goggle in Switzerland where there is hardly any sun ?". As happens with me invariably, this logic too bit the dust ( or should I say bit the snow ). Nonetheless, I learnt it the hard way as I began to have a headache with the complete white landscape. Everyone of us bought a cow bell so symbolic of Kajol's parting gift to SRK and her silent expression of love in DDLJ. For all its hype, Jungfrou did not live upto it and I was silently disappointed. Frankly, we had had too much of snow for our liking. You can't have too much of a good thing you know !!
We then came back to Klein Scheidegg which was more like what we expected with all its skiing and snow-boarding etc. Anyways, we left for Grindelwald by the last train there was without Satisha and Sharath. They missed the train. Thankfully, they boarded the train to Lauterbrunnen and we were to eventually meet at the Balmers later that night. During our return journey back to Interlaken, we alighted one station early at Wildersvil so that we could reach a wonderful stream which was teasing us throughout our journey. But as things stood, we did not reach it and we trudged back to Balmers. After this "miss"adventure, we roamed around the City Centre and some of us stopped to shop. It was dinner time and we decided that we would eat at an Indian joint determined to search the whole town of Interlaken if it came to that. We did find one called "Indian Spice" but it was way too crowded and we decided to give it a skip. Believe it or not, it was McDonalds again :(( What did I do to deserve this ??? We then wearily lumbered back to Balmers and me and Shridhar rounded off the day with a couple of beers, a long walk and a longer talk. By the time we hit the sack, it was already the next day according to my watch.
Day 3 - 16 April 2006
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Shridhar again carried out his now familiar refresh and then sleep routine and woke me up at around 5:00. Although I might not endorse it, it did prove to be effective inasmuch as sleep was concerned. After about half an hour, I hit the road to get to the stream near Wildersvil which we so narrowly missed the previous day. I did not have an iota of an idea of how to get to the stream from the station. Nonetheless, after a relentless walk of about half an hour, I could hear the gurgle of a stream close by. To reach the stream, I had to deviate from the main road so that I could get into a less trodden path which would lead me to the stream. This done, I walked leisurely along the banks of the stream frequently on the lookout for a pathway which would lead me downward. I had to walk a further 20 minutes before I could find a small weather beaten path laden with leaves descending down about 50 feet directly into the rock strewn banks of the stream. By this time, I had walked into the thick forest with no one in sight and the road far behind me. All I could see was the forest and the stream and all I could hear was the typical sound of the forest and the stream. In short, Paradise !!!! I spent about 20 minutes on the shore and about 2 minutes in the icy-cold stream and then decided to walk back to Balmers. Now for the scary part. For quite some time now, I have been carrying a dislocated left shoulder which keeps reminding me of its presence at many an inopportune moment. It chose precisely this time to rear its ugly head again. There was one tricky patch which I had to negotiate to haul myself up and a small tree ledge was all I had to balance myself. When I used it, it duly gave way as a result of which I had to rely on my left shoulder to hold all the burden of my burly self. Unfortunately, it did not agree and promptly twisted itself so that I had to painfully climb down again. Also, it was pretty bad this time round as I could not get back to normalcy even after 5 minutes. This made me sweat profusely even in shivering conditions as there was no way I could grab anyone's attention. Damn, I was in the middle of a thick forest !!! Anyways, after a while, I found an alternate path through which I could hopefully get back. Thankfully, I did manage to climb up and reached Balmers after a largely uneventful walk back.
Our agenda for the day was the hugely popular Tremmelbach waterfalls near Lauterbrunnen and then Lucerne. We left at around 9:30 and reached Lauterbrunnen an hour later. A bus would take us to Tremmelbach. Now, the cascade at Tremmelbach is not overtly visible in that it makes its way through patches of rock giving us a glimpse every now and then. It was beautiful no doubt but as it happens so often, not worth the hype. Anyways, we did reach the end of it passing some strategic viewpoints on the way. Needless to say, all these viewpoints were taken over by over-zealous photographers wanting to capture their spouses/beaus/children on film. I wonder how many of them actually enjoyed the waterfalls through observation !! I could bet my life that there was hardly a number worth a mention. Different people, different priorities in life !!! No complaints. This was the place where we met Kamesh, our colleague on an extended honeymoon. He was following the reverse itinerary as compared to us. As for the waterfalls itself, I would settle for Soojipara and Athirapalli ( Wynad and Thrissur in Kerala ) any day. Am I being patriotic to the extent of ridicule ?? Call me a realist.
We came out into the open and then almost instinctively decided to venture into the freezing stream down below. It seems that a couple of them had attempted to cross it without success. Four of us - Shridhar, Me, Ranga and Santosh - did manage it with a couple of photographs as proof :) After that, it was back to Interlaken through Tremmelbach during which time we missed a train by a whisker. It was becoming a habit albeit an unwelcome one.
Once back at Interlaken, we went on a cruise along the huge lake towards the left of Interlaken. Now, Interlaken literally means "In Between lakes". Hence, it has one lake on either side ( West and Ost ). We took the West one and settled down nicely on the open stem of the vessel notwithstanding the fact that rain threatened to pour down anytime then. We also had a fantastic view of the Alps from the stern. After a leisurely cruise of about an hour and a half, we got down at Spiez. Swami was not complaining as he was fed up of the cruise by then. Wonder why he has an aversion to lakes :) Spiez was a nice place and the railway station was at an altitude which made life difficult for some of us as we had a walk a decent distance from the pier to the station. It was during this walk that I saw a complete rainbow for the first time in my life. Mother nature at her wondrous best !!
Our next stop was Lucerne which we reached at around 8:00 in the evening. Lucerne is in the thickly German speaking area of Switzerland and it was no mean task to ask for directions to our abode for the night. I had to do a literal jig in front of a driver to tell him how many minutes it would take us to walk to Lucerne Tourist Home, our retiral abode. For those to want to travel to mainland Europe, learning French or German is mandatory as English is very sparsely used. Time to learn a new language !!
Our hotel was fantastically beautiful with our balcony opening into the beautiful river that flowed through the heart of the city. After absorbing the beauty, some of us hunted down a pizzeria and had a vegetarian [ ?? ] pizza after an unsuccessful attempt at communication with the waiter there. The others paid a trip to one of the numerous pubs lining the City Centre and seemingly had a wonderful time :) We retired for the day at around 12 midnight.
Day 4 - 17 April 2006
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As is my wont, I woke up at around 5:00 and went on my morning trail. Jayapriya joined me this time round and we decided to walk towards a "palace-converted-to-a-hotel" called Gutsch which beckoned us. The trouble was this hotel was on a cliff and we had no idea of how to get there. It had a private winch of its own to ferry across its valued customers to the top but how would we get there ? We found a small alley which had steps leading to the top. Were we relieved !!! Dawn is always the perfect time of the day to gauge a city's beauty and it proved right again. Jayapriya huffed and puffed her way to the top after a couple of nice photographs. There was even a private forest just behind the hotel but due to lack of time we decided against a venture into it. We came back to the hotel at around 7:15.
We were to visit Mt. Titlis where we could supposedly ski. A train would take us to Hilgersvil after which we would reach the top through a maze of open lifts, rotairs and ice flyers. The Rotair is a wonderful innovation to the cable car in that the floor rotates so that we have a complete view of the picturesque Alps during our ascent. There was a signboard in Hindi too stressing the fact that it is the first-of-its-kind in the world.
Once at the top, we indulged in snowball throwing, petty games et al so that we could make full utilisation of the abundant snow atop. There is also a unique concept of tube-skiing at Titlis which is like a poor man's attempt at skiing. There is a small semi-circular patch of snow roughly around 50 metres through which we can hurtle down sitting on a tube similar to the ones used during swimming sessions. All of us tried our hands ( or should I say posterior ) at it and it was pretty much a success as far as safety was concerned. Also, we travelled for the first time in a ice-flyer which is like an open lift spiralling downward. It was a wonderful experience though Jayapriya was scared to the bones. We came back to the hallway after walking through the heavy snow trail and spewing jealousy at the innumerable skiers who were enjoying it to the hilt. Believe me, it is embarassing to see small children with the expertise of seasoned professionals when all you can do is applaud and marvel at their skill.
Lunch was a typical Indian buffet with rice and 2 curries. It was a welcome respite after all these days without decent food. Everyone seemed to finish his/her food, even Shridhar. Now that says something about it !!! After a satisfaction that we had seen everything that had to be seen, it was time to get back to Hilgersvil and subsequently onto Lucerne.
We reached Lucerne at around 4:30 and decided to take the 5:55 train to Geneva so that we could explore the city. Not many shops were open on account of it being Easter Monday and we did shop at whatever shops were open. A majority of us bought Swiss Chocolates and I finished mine right there as I had no one to get it back to :) Me, Swami and Ranga broke off from the group so that we headed towards the city once more. We did have a decent stroll and went back in time to catch the train to Geneva.
This was a good 3 hour journey through Berne from Lucerne to Geneva and it was picture time once again on the journey as there were quite a few stunning locales. We reached Geneva at around 9:00 in the evening and checked ourselves into Nash Rex, a 4 star hotel right near the City Centre. What a transformation from Balmers to Nash Rex over a 2 day period !!! After dumping our bags in the king-sized room, we ventured out to have dinner at one of the local pizza joints. It was French this time round and we had a jolly good time with the waitress trying to explain her what we needed and how much. It was during this time that I had one of my mood swings and thankfully Shridhar put me out of my misery after a stroll in the late night. Cheers Maite :)
Day 5 - 18 Apr 2006
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Our flight was at 10:15 and as such we were to reach the airport at around 8:30. This meant that I had about 1 hour to explore Geneva if I could wake up at around 6. I did that and just wanted to walk around when I saw a sign pointing to "Place des Nations", the United Nations. This was a surprise and God did not want me to miss the chance of a lifetime. It was about 15 minutes away on foot from our hotel. I reached the place and had a couple of photographs to prove my point. I was a contented man now !!!
We left for the airport in 2 batches one of which had a detour of Geneva by visting the UN, Swiss-French border on their way to the airport. The day we dreaded had finally arrived and we were back on our way to Bristol :( Anyways, we reached Bristol at around 11:30 and to make matters worse, had to reach office and start "working" !!! Imagine that ... I never thought that I would be struck with "Tuesday Noon Blues". But, here I was experiencing it first hand. All said and done, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Thanks to one and all for giving me this chance.
One final thought before I sign off. I wonder what gives the Swiss their identity as a nation ? Roughly about one-third of them is heavily French and the other two-thirds is German. To me, two of the foremost factors of national identity are religion and language. Religion has to be ruled out as most of Europe is Christian. In that case, the sole criterion should be the language which is not true as far as Switzerland is concerned. What then makes a Swiss a Swiss ??? Let me know if you find out !!!
So long,
Shanks
ShravanaBelagola
01 January 2006 - Shravanabelagola
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Starring - Shets, Mandi, Pungi, Kabira
Screenplay - Kabira ( Obviously any reference to the first person will mean Kabira ).
What a way to start the new year with and what a place to visit !!!
Here is how it all started:
I had to come back to India sometime during January for my work permit. I then struck a deal with my team that I could come back during the New year's eve if I could complete the work allotted. I somehow managed to "finish" the work well before the deadline what with the huge incentive of a visit to Bangalore looming large over the horizon. Anyways, I told Shets that I would be coming over on Sunday and asked him to plan something for the day. The catch was that most of the members were not in town that day and as such even if something was planned for the day, there would be limited participation as is the wont of the gang. Mandi was one of the guys who would stay back and in a fit of frustration asked Shets to plan for any damn thing with him game for it. The count climbed to 3 then with me, Shets and Mandi ready to "rock" ( pun intended ). Pungi was also goaded into making the trip as his father could take care of the business for the day. With Pungi came his Sumo also which meant that we need not make any alternate travel arrangements. All said and done, the only thing yet to be decided was the eventual destination :))
I wearily trudged down to Bangalore in the wee hours of the new year and tried as I might, I could not grab even a wink of sleep. I felt that the day would turn out to be nothing special as there was no word from Shets about the plan. Finally, I heard the welcome ring of the phone and Shets it was asking me to be ready in about a hour's time. Where were we headed ???? Search me !! He told me that Pungi was ready with his vehicle which came as a bolt from the blue as that was the last thing that I expected. No offence meant, maam. Sumne thamashege :))
Shets also told me that Mandi wanted to go to Yediyur and that his parents would also accompany us on the trip. I was frankly disappointed at this mis-judgement from Mandi as we could not be our normal ( indecent ) selves with family. But, we were okay with it and we had to try hard to remain "good boys". Mandi was his usual late self and I called him up after he was more than an hour late from the scheduled meetup time. Shets and Pungi had already come to my place by then. It was then that Mandi told us that he would be coming alone. This was another mis-judgement from Mandi as he should not have told his parents that they need not come especially when they were looking forward to it.
It was then that we had a brainstorm as to what our destination should be. I came up with Mekedatu and the Maddur temple that we donated money to. We collected the details from Tiski about the same and were almost decided about the place when we had a change of heart and consensus was that the Maddur temple should be visited by a majority of the group and not a fragment as was the case now. It was to be Yediyur then combined with a possible visit to Shravanabelagola.
We started on our way to Yediyur then with Rao as our driver. Shets had not had his breakfast but we thought that we would have the same after darshan at Yediyur. Moreover, lunch time was nigh and there was no point in having breakfast then. We stopped at a roadside bakery and had a vegetable puff each. We reached Yediyur and were immediately greeted by a huge swarm of devotees waiting to pay their obeisances to Lord Siddalingeshwara, the presiding deity at Yediyur. We did try to stand in the "queue" but it was clear that it would take us a minimum of an hour to get to the sanctum sanctorum by which time it would be too late for us to visit Shravanabelagola. However, we could see the idol from about a distance of 50 feet and we dutifully bowed our heads satisfied that we had had the darshana.
Lunch was the next item on the agenda and we made our way into a Dhaba which was near a huge lake just beside a bridge. The ambience was scenic and the food also was pretty decent and our meal consisted of some Roti, Curry and Curd Rice. After this rather sumptuous meal, off we went to the shrine of Bahubali, the embodiment of nirvana.
The road was not as worse as we imagined it to be and we made our way to Shravanabelagola through innumerable paddy fields and agricultural lands, lush green after the advent of the fantastic monsoon that season. Pungi also tried his hand at driving a couple of km after which sanity prevailed and he handed the reins back to Rao, our driver.
Now, history has it that Bahubali was a prince who had a tiff with his brother and turned to Jainism for solace. He gave up all worldly possessions denouncing them as evil and started his penance standing upright and eventually attained "moksha", the supreme release. It was Chavundaraya, the minister of the Ganga dynasty, who decided to construct a structure befitting Bahubali's stature. He decided upon a huge monolithic structure, which is still the tallest of its kind in the world, to be built atop Indragiri. Indragiri and Chandragiri are twin mountains at Shravanabelagola with Chandragiri containing temples in honour of the Jain thirthankaras and Indragiri being the abode of Bahubali.
Climbing the inexhaustible number of steps to reach the structure is an arduous task in itself as Mandi would readily vouch for. We did manage to climb them and reach the place with Mandi visibly tired to the hilt. But the climb was worth it as the statue is as close as it gets to making an exact replica of a man. Even the "minute" details have been taken care of and with finesse at that :)) In essence, the art of sculpting cannot get better than this. After covering Bahubali at all angles possible and with proof that we did visit the place, it was time to get back. Pungi was the one who was the most happy of the lot as this place is one of Jainism's most sacred places and it was his first time here. He wasted no time in calling up his folks back home and telling them that he was here.
Chandragiri was our next logical step but Mandi was in no shape to make the climb as he was turning over a new leaf that day. But, he was not doing the right thing as you cannot refrain from doing anything drastically. Any process can only be gradual with the fossil fuels being a prime example. Anyways, we decided not to force Mandi into the climb and me, Shets and Pungi started the ascent. This was a steeper climb and we could see that some soothing compound was laid on the rock so that summer does not take toll of anyone's feet. We had a look at all the temples at the place numbering around 24, one for each thirthankara. Shets and I tried our hands at marriage brokering with Pungi as the potential bridegroom. But none of the brides was worth a look, let alone a second one :(( We then decided that we will flaunt our wares sometime later and at a different place.
After the descent, each one of us had "Elneeru" which was the need of the hour. It was time to get back to Bangalore and off we went on NH-13 again. We stopped at Channarayapatna on the way to have snacks and what a wonderful idea it turned out to be. We had a fantastic plate each of Thatte Idli which satiated our appetites. On the way back, we had a nice music session by all of the team. Finally, it was back to Bangalore after a hard day's work. On the whole, this was an unexpectedly nice outing thanks to all who made it possible.
Lonar
I will have to make a startling revelation to start this account with. India is home to the third largest hyper-velocity meteor impact crater in the world and this fact only came upon me a couple of months ago. If it is not startling enough for you either by way of having known the fact earlier or just plain disinterest, blame it on my assessment ( of you, of course !! ). This reallywas a slap square across my face as I prided myself upon my geographic skills no end reaffirming again many of my friends' opinions about me being a temerarious individual :))
I dearly wanted to visit Lonar and its rich history from the moment I heard about it from my former teammate here at BMC. We decided that we should pay this place a visit come what may. This friend of mine "was" a zealous trekker and had had quite a number of exciting treks. I need to point this out in the past tense because he too has become a victim to that glorious [ ????? ] institution called "wedlock". ( Wonder why the latter half of the word reminds me of a hapless individual behind bars !!!! ) One fine day, Amit ( that is his name ) met me in the canteen and casually asked me whether I am "game" for Lonar. Of course, I was !!! [ Imagine someone asking Sachin Tendulkar whether he is "game" for a"game" of cricket. The comparison may seem rather obnoxious but Ijust wanted to make my state-of-mind clear ].
And so it was that a golden opportunity to be amongst one of the geologically most important places in India presented itself on a platter. It was then thatI decided to pull along two of my friends who were equally "outgoing fanatics" or so I think. [ Sorry Guys, if you are not :) ] One of them was my room-mate Karthikeyan and the other was Jyothi with whom I only had online acquaintance "courtesy" [ or is it curse :) ] of being part of a trekking [ more of a biking ] group.
We were to go to Lonar with an amateur astronomy group called "Jyotir Vidya Parisanstha [ JVP ]" which is the oldest of its kind in India. I became a member of this group before long so that I could listen to some of the lectures on astronomy. But as it turned out,this added to my "rich" collection of duds which start out rather well and peter out rather tamely shortly thereafter. Guess my attention span is so ridiculously short that I would be better off working on nano-technology:))
Day 0 [ 21 January, 2005 ]
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The much awaited day had dawned and I was dearly looking forward to 10:00 pm which was when we were scheduled to meet near Anand Mangal Karyalaya for our eventual journey towards Lonar. Initially, me and Karthik planned to reach the place on Karthik's bike and find a suitable parking lot somewhere nearby. ButMadame Jyothi had other plans and insisted on us "escorting" her :) What was funny was that neither I nor Karthik had met her which made the task of identification quite difficult. We decided that we will meet opposite SonyWorld with all of the cinematic "secret code" junk being dismissed out of thought. Instead, we agreed that she would be aside a red Scooty near Sony World which will make things easier. This done, we reached the agreed-to place bang on time which was a mistake as one of Karthikeyan's favourite lines says "The most thankless aspect about being punctual is that there is no one to appreciate it !". Anyway, Karthikeyan had missed his dinner which was a blessing in disguise for we could while our time waiting for the others to turn up. The others had trickled in by the time we returned and it was nice that the group was a "healthy" [ pun intended ] mixture of middle-aged and young people. The bus held us back for another half an hour and it was around 11:00 pm when we started. As is usually the case, there was a mads cramble for the front seats which was understandable given the make of the bus with a night journey to boot. It was no wonder that we landed the last remaining seats, needless to say in the rear. We were finally on our way to Lonar and that is what mattered to me !!!
Day 1 [ 22 January, 2005 ]
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Dawn saw us reaching Aurangabad after seeing a "spectacular" sunrise along the way. Lonar was still some distance away in the district of Buldana bordering Madhya Pradesh. We had our accommodations booked at the only hotel worth its name, MTDC resort, a state run resort. This resort is strategically located bang opposite the huge crater that Lonar is known for. My first impression of the Lonar Crater was that of awe and curiosity. It was almost as if there was a huge circular vacuum of nothingness amidst a beautiful landscape. What it instantly conveyed was that this circular piece of land has been left incomplete by nature in its hurry to decorate the environment with hillocks all round. It also seemed to indicate that the "nothingness"is in fact all pervading because of the lone reason that we are not able to perceive it and what we cannot perceive cannot be either gauged or estimated for either its greatness or otherwise. Guess that is why the black matter is accorded its due respect by physicists the world over !!!
Anyway, let me come back to story-telling :)) 2 dormitories had been booked for us, one each for the men and womenfolk. Both these dormitories had 2 sections inside separated by a common passageway with 10 beds in each section. We were to meet for breakfast at around 10:00. Now, the next section might make for interesting reading but believe me, it was not the least bit interesting and I almost ended up giving both the organisers and the resort manager a piece of my mind. What stopped me in my tracks was the thought that if I gave them both a piece of my mind, I would end up losing whatever little I had of it :))
Water proved to be the premium commodity here as all of us, me in particular,were to realise shortly. Never in my life so far had I to make do with so little water for my bath as I did that day. It was almost as if I could number the water droplets in my bucket. Try as I did, the water stubbornly refused toflow out of the tap and I had to literally wait for 20 minutes before I could"scrub" the lather off my body.
Disappointments aside, we were ready to break-our-fast at exactly 10:00. Prior to this appointment, my curiosity had got the better of me and I could not resist a visit to the crater site. I tried to capture the magnificence of Lonar through my camera but somehow a personal visit seems much more rewarding than these screen captures. Put it down to my plain amentia in handling the camera but nonetheless nature's lens seems much more powerful than the lens created by man !! Breakfast for these guys meant a couple of Laddoos and a helping of Chivda with the option of having more of these thrown at us. Man, I have had more options for my breakfast appetisers than these :)) After a"fastbreak", we were ready to explore Lonar.
We gathered on the rim of the crater and the vast blue expanse of water far down below seemed to beckon us with open arms. The Crater had a diameter of 1.8km and a depth of 132 mtrs while its age is approximated as 50,000 years. One particular point worthy of mention is that even the mud around Lonar, for a radius of 40 km, is magnetic and we were party to a demonstration of the same.After a couple of "oohs" and "ahs", we descended down to the base of the crater. This was a particularly tricky patch for the elder people in the group as it was mud lined and hence slippery. I took the voluntary responsibility of an old lady aged about 65 years. This lady seemingly had been part of NCC for 15 years and was a retired principal of a Government School. Her husband was a retired scientist from Bhabha Atomic Research Agency( BARC), Mumbai and he was Karthik's responsibility. During the course of our descent, we also met an Indologist ( a person specialising inIndian Archeology ), a Gynaecologist, a Surgeon couple to name a few. We were in august company and were the only ones who had nothing to dote about :((
As soon as we descended, we visited an ancient 13th century temple. This temple is built of huge stone pillars all of which are magnetic and legend has it that these pillars have not been brought in from elsewhere, as is usually the norm,but have been made out of stone from the crater's premises. The Indologist then went on to explain the startling similarities between the temple's inner architecture and the cosmic Universe. It did seem to make sense at that pointof time but now, its back to my normal state of ignorance :)) There are a totalof around 5 temples, all of them constructed in HemaDanti style, within the circumference of the Lonar Crater and we were to traverse a thickly wooded path to reach each one them. Lonar crater also houses the "Black faced Macaw" ( locally called "Hanuman Langoors" ), an endangered species of monkeys and we could sight quite a number of them. During this course of our "pilgrimage", we also took time off to test the salinity of the water in the crater. It was literally a "Litmus Test"instantly transporting us back in time to our school days. The water was highly alkaline with a pH of around 11 and the litmus turned blue. Please do not test my chemical skills as to whether an alkali turns a litmus to blue or red but it did prove to be alkaline at that time. For that matter, I am also an Electronics engineer :))) The whole circular journey of around 5.5 km took us around 3 hours to complete and we also paid our obeisances to the presiding deity of Lonar, Lonar Devi, during this course of time.
After a sumptuous lunch, it was siesta time :) This rest brought to life all our aching muscles and we were ready to visit the DaityaSudan temple. This temple, dedicated to Vishnu, is supposed to have been built in the 10th century. What is remarkable about this temple is that it bears a striking resemblance to the Belur/Halebeedu temples in Karnataka built by the Hoysala rulers. It also houses an idol of Lord Surya supposedly gifted by a generous SriLankan king. Also, this is seemingly incomplete which also explains its present state of near-ruin. I distinctly recall from my childhood days aboutbeing told that an incomplete temple is inauspicious according to Hindu Dharma.What I cannot fathom is "Why the hell should an archeological marvel be condemned to irrversible destruction because of its incompleteness?". Come to think of it, how many of us are really complete human beings ?? Aren't we accorded the same affection inspite of being otherwise ???? Why should there bea distinction of sorts ??? Is this the rebel in me speaking out ?? Aw, come on now !!!! Am I not entitled to an opinion !!!!
If you think that is all we had to do over the first day, think again. The fun had just begun :)) We were to assemble at 7:30 for a session of star gazing with the aid of a really huge reflector telescope. This was a first for me as the closest thing I had come to a telescope prior to this was a set of binoculars :)) The night sky was clear which led to a fantastic view of"heavenly bodies" of the sky [ :)) ] We were able to see the spiral dirt ring around Saturn and also the huge craters on the moon. Wait until I meet these love-sick poets who keep referring to a pretty face as"Chaand-Jaise-Mukhda" !!!! We also were shown a couple ofConstellations and the Saptharshi Mandal which is a cluster of stars. Man,Astronomy would have made a more interesting and better career :(( Now, for the most interesting part of the Lonar trip. It is believed that on full moon days,the huge Lonar lake dishes out a picture-perfect reflection of the moon which usually happens around 3:00 am. Before this expedition, we were to listen to a NASA research doctor who had chosen the Lonar Crater for his doctoral thesis.He did succeed in keeping a majority of the group enthralled, though some people would beg to differ :)) Dinner was served at 10:00 and after a cat-nap we were to proceed to the crater base at around 01:00 am. The night was chilly and it required a herculean effort to venture out into the open. We were subject to at least 3 false calls during the course of the night and each time I got back disappointed to say the least. Finally, at around 04:00 am, we could see a faint reflection of the moon in the lake which was more than an excuse for some of us to get back to the soothing comforts of the bus. This was the moment I had been waiting for but unfortunately my body did not think so and matter ruled over mind once more :(( We returned back to the resort a weary bunch at 05:00 am.
Day 2 [ 23 January, 2005 ]
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We were rudely woken up at 07:00 am with a promise of a visit to Ellora as a successful decoy. I woke up in seething anger and was ready to start by 08:00am. Thankfully, the water did not play truant this time around :)) Our agenda for the day was : Chhota Lonar, a famous Hanuman Temple, Mehkar temple andEllora. Chhota Lonar is a smaller crater possibly created by a small fragmentof the huge crater that hit Lonar. This is actually used as a cultivation land as the water close by is no where near as saline to that of Lonar.
The Hanuman deity inside the temple is supposed to be self-formed and is typically flat which explains the local belief that this idol is that of a decumbent Hanuman. The next destination was to be Mehkar which is around 22 km away from Lonar. This non-descript town houses an equally decrepit temple ofLord Vishnu in all his splendour. According to me, the idol in this temple is the most beautifully crafted sculpture in the entire world. The idol when brought to life would be an ideal example of how god envisaged man to be when he first decided to create the human race. Let me summarise it by saying that it is seen to be believed that such a master craftsman existed.
We were then treated to lunch at a wayside restaurant which served one of the most delectable Rajasthani cuisines. I had never had a typical Rajasthani lunch before and was game enough to try it out here. It did prove to be a smart move as the lunch we had that day was simply delicious. Wonder why it tasted the way it did. Was it plain hunger, newer dishes or just genuine taste, I will never come to know !!
Ellora was still uppermost on our [ read Jyothi's ] minds as we left the restaurant for Aurangabad. I and Karthik knew all along that Ellora was just a ploy to rouse us out of our beds that morning. Anyway, it would be a bonus if it did materialise :)) It was around 05:00 by the time we reached Aurangabad which left us hardly any time to explore Ellora assuming that we would reach it by another half an hour. Eventually, it was announced that we would not be going to Ellora after all and instead have a look at Bibi-ka-Maqbara which houses the tomb of "one of " Aurangzeb's wives. We were not entirely disappointed as we knew that Ellora and Ajanta merited a trip on their own but Jyothi was close to being shattered.
Bibi-ka-Maqbara is supposed to be a memorial dedicated to his mother by one of Aurangzeb's sons. It has a "close" resemblance to the Taj Mahal when seen from a distance what with its four minarets and a massive central dome. Italso has a namesake garden leading up to the tomb. But once you reach the tomb,you begin to realise why this is more of a hype than hope. Vandalism has taken its toll, ALAS ONCE AGAIN, on a historic monument. Why don't people realise that such religious edifices are not a "worthy enough" platform to profess their cheap love for one another ???? The tomb itself is built in the basement with a circular balcony above serving as a viewpoint. Coins of all sizes and denominations are liberally spread around this tomb making a mockery of the phrase "Rest in Peace". This was when we had to forcibly endure one over-zealous woman who was bent upon explaining the history of the tomb :))
We left for Pune at around 07:00 pm which meant that we would reach Pune a little after midnight provided that we did not rest on the way. As it turned out, we had to break for dinner which delayed our Pune arrival. This prompted the organisers to promise everyone that he/she will be dropped as close to their abodes as possible. We were pretty thankful for the same and dozed off with recurring dreams of the wonderful 2 days that we had just been through. It was 02:00 am when we were finally dropped at Pune.
Day 3 [ 24 January, 2005 ]
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Monday Morning Blues was a near certainty given what we experienced over theweekend. But I guess, with due apologies to Keats, "Monday by any othername would feel just as lousy" :))
Lonar Statistics
------------------
Crater Age - 50,000 years
Meteor Length - 60 mtrs
Meteor Weight - 20,00,000 tons
Meteor Velocity - 25 kms per second
Crater Diameter - 1.8 km
Crater Depth - 132 mtrs
Thanks,
Shanks
Harishchandragad
Exit all pretenders to the throne ; Enter the EMPEROR of all trek locales. If ever there is something called a "Trekkers' Paradise", then this has to be it. That was/is my feeling after my experience at Harishchandragad last weekend. I will briefly surmise the precursor to this sojourn of mine and thesubsequent happenings thereon.
Trekkers : Ritin, Krish, Sarthak, Kiran, Yogesh(2), Nitin, Mukund, Shankar
Day ??? :
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There is this adage in one of the Indian regional languages that "A Bee will eventually find its way through to a Rose bush". At the cost of sounding pompous, I will go ahead and quip that me being eloquent in a handfulof regional languages, I have forgotten the language of origin of the adage :))This being the case, it was a matter of when, not if, I will come across a group of trek enthusiasts in Pune. Not suprisingly, I heard about a group called "PuneTrekkers" which appealed to me on 2 counts:
1: Generation advantage, in the sense that all of the guys are in the same agegroup as me.
2: This is a hyper-active group which will help me in winding up my Pune stay much earlier than I thought as these guys are on treks practically everyweekend :)
I became a member of this group before long and was just waiting for these guys to plan a trek to Harishchandragad. I had heard a lot about this place from one of my team-mates and one of his favourite quips was "If you are a trekker and are in Pune, then you should plan a trek to H'gad. Else, please refrain from referring to yourself as a trekker !". Now, if that does not rouse your spirits, nothing else can. Hence, the moment the trek was announced in the deluge of group mails, I was among the first to confirm my prescence for the same. The D-day was decided, after a long spate of ayes and nays, to be 29-31October.
Day 0 ( 29 October 2004) :
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The day started off rather gloomily with overcast skies and a slight incessant drizzle which irritates you no end. This however did nothing to dampen my spirits as I had been eagerly looking forward to this day for almost a month then. We were to start at 11:30 in the night from Shivajinagar and were to meetat 11:00 pm. One of the organisers had mailed in a long list of things to be brought along for the trek. This resulted in me tagging along a backpack which looked like I was in for a long vacation. Being a not-so-inexperienced trekker,I should have known better than to have done it. ( But those who know me better will vouch for the fact that I keep fumbling with these subtle details. Poor me!! )
I also was scheduled to shift my house over the weekend and as a precautionary measure, transferred a majority of my "possessions" to the new place.This was essential as I knew I would be in no shape to shift them in their entirety after I return. My erstwhile room-mate dropped me to the Shivajinagarbus station at 11:10 pm. ( I shudder to think what will happen to me without mycircle of friends !! ). Here Mukund, my colleague (and companion for the next 2days), met me and we waited to meet the rest of the group who were about to join us. The funny part about this whole matter was that we had not met any ofthe other guys and had no conceivable idea as to who/how these guys were. I and Mukund decided to wait at the place where we were supposed to meet. It was then that we saw 3 others who also were trekkers by mere sight. We introduced ourselves to the trio of Sarthak, Yogesh and Yogesh. Sarthak told us that there were only about 4 more who would join us and the grand total will be 9.
We subsequently met Nitin, Krish, Ritin and Kiran to complete the group who were about to undertake a major expedition in their trekking careers. It seemed that the others knew that we were to start at 1:30 am and only I and Mukund were kept in the dark about this. I had bring in all my reserves to control my (in)famous temper as regards this tomfoolery. Ic ontrolled myself only for the fact that I had met this group only then and I had to anyway spend the next 2 days with them. It did prove to be a great company for the next 2 days.
It was then that someone in the group had a fantastic [???] idea that we were better off travelling in our own rented vehicle [ How about that for a oxymoron?? ] than depend on a ramshackle State Transport Bus. This seemed a good idea at that point in time as we were still in doubt as to whether there was any bus at all. After a forceful consensus, we hired a Qualis which was to take us to a place called "Kubi Phata" which was the nearest roadhead to the basevillage for H'gad. Now, I have never been a fan of travel by Qualis as it tends to be uncomfortable more often than not. It was no good this time also and my dislike was reinforced once more. [ But then, why do I still keep travelling ?? Beats me :)) ] We, with our huge reserve of luggage, hauled ourselves into the Qualis and started our journey at the unearthly hour of 01:00 AM. I had a few catnaps in between the mad din that was our group before we were finally dumped at Kubi Phata at around 04:30 AM.
Day 1 ( 30 October 2004) :
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H'gad's base village is called Khireshwar and is at a "close"distance of 5 km from Kubi Phata. We were to reach this place before we mounted an assault on H'gad and its grave sister peaks. The road which leads to Khireshwar from Kubi Phata is a picturesque one in the sense that it is lined on one side by an unlimited number of verdant paddy fields and the huge expanse of the backwaters of a dam on the other side. Man, isn't my country beautiful!!! This being the case, we hardly noticed that the road was in a deplorable condition and was not in the least bit motorable. After a stroll for an hour,we came across a small path which led towards the water body. This was to be our point of rest which eventually doubled up as a point of refreshing ourselves. It was at this point that the first signs of daybreak was creeping in on us from the eastern sky. We had a wonderful view of the sunrise from this point made more enjoyable by the fact that the sun was playing "Hide andSeek" with both the Mountain and the fluffy Clouds.
It was time to move on so that we could reach the apex before high noon. No sooner had we resumed our walk than we saw a rugged Tempo Trax stubbornly making its way to Khireshwar. We decided to hitchhike the rest of our journey to the base village and with full hope stopped the vehicle. To our utter delight, the kind soul that was the driver, agreed to drop us to Khireshwar.What was more suprising about this hike was that the vehicle was a Government one. This was a not-so-classic case of one of the Government officials"taking us for a ride" which we hardly minded and actually enjoyed. [Pardon the Pun. It was intended anyway :) ]
This brought us to Khireshwar, our base camp. We had piping hot tea at awayside inn to ensure that we kickstart our trek in the right frame of mind.This done, we were finally ready for Harishchandreshwar temple, Konkan Kada andthe innumerable other scenic offerings that H'gad was famous for. Filling our hearts with hope and a sense of excitement, we set off towards H'gad through anarrow pathway which would lead us to it. This path led us right through the omnipresent paddy fields which was a fine start for us. But a popular proverb goes "Well begun is half done". This would prove to be right as I lead you further through the remainder of this day. We met some villagers dutifully tilling their lands on the way and were cautioned about the path we were about to embark on. We were also offered their guidance as, inspite of being localites, they were also prone to getting lost most often. This was thetime when our collective Ego ( or is it adamance ) came dazzling to the fore and we decided "What is a trek without a certain degree of excitement?". This was to prove our undoing later.
Early signs were not that bad and instilled in us a false sense of security.After a walk of about an hour, we came across a fork in the path. It was all too familiar to the popular poem "The Road Not Taken" ( the only difference being that the poet was thankful in the end that he had chosen the less treaded one and we were not !! ). We took the path which seemed to be a deviation from our eventual destination but no one grumbled and so we set off.This path was one of the most arduous for the sheer reason that it was lined all along with dry thorny bushes which resulted in many of us being gashed.After a relentless walk of about 30 minutes, the path seemed to become steeper and the trek made more difficult than it actually was by the paraphernalia we had tagged along for our cooking expedition atop H'gad. The only guy who seemed nonchalantly at ease was Krish aka Flash Designer. He was our only hope as every one of us looked up to him in case we were either lost or tired. Special mention must be made of Sarthak here as he was the one who carried along the cooking gears for the majority of our ascent. Our job was made no easier by the Sun who chose precisely that day to remind us that he can be merciless if he so chooses. After a small bout of rest, we continued and reached a point which seemed to be the end of our ascent as we could not see any way ahead. Trust Krish to come up with something daring and he did not disappoint us. He managed to find a small path which seemed to embrace the cliff in a minute curl. We did not know whether we could find an easier way ahead but then we had no choice (or did we ?? ). We followed Krish and, by sheer luck and a certain degree of gumption, reached the other end of the cliff. There did seem to be a way ahead after all. Krish's decision was vindicated but was only transient, as were to find out later. During this part of our ascent, none of us had noticed that wewere slowly but steadily moving away from our eventual destination. But then,most of us, barring Krish, were too scared to do so. Anyway, we knew that we had to make it to the top and were determined to do it. This meant that we had to creep and crawl our way through a dense undergrowth of bushes. These bushes had strong roots which was our only hope as we were without support in their absence. This travel ( travail ?? ) through the bushes brought us to a certain place which was about 15 feet wide and we beheld a single behemoth of a boulder ahead of us. This rock was at least around 60 feet tall and seemed to signal an end to our ascent. Well, it almost did !!! Krish came up with a superlative idea that we only had to scale the rock and we would be through to the correct path. All of the others were loath to believe that due to the experiences tha twe had just been through. All was not lost at this point as we found a path about 2 feet wide which held a flicker of hope for us. I strongly had the urgeto return back the same way we came up but then I had to pay heed to what the group thought. Of course I had to and there was nothing noble about it as it was the group that mattered. We thought that there was nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying our luck with the path. Believe me, it was scary and one wrong step could spell "Disaster" with a capital"D". Every one of us made it through cautiously but we met with another impasse at the other end of the path. This left us with only one option and that was "tread" the narrow path again but without hope this time round. Luck seemed to be with us for a second time and we successfully completed the detour. We had our lunch at this point which seemed to be a good idea as we could rest our bodies and minds for a while.
After lunch, it was time to get back through the same path. I, Sarthak and Kiran had a certain degree of trouble with a tricky patch of rock. The others had made their way through it but we could not do it that easily. We did manage to cross it after a couple of hair-raising experiences. It was that this point of time that we came across a path which would be what a mountain stream would use when in full glory of the monsoon. What a wonderful idea it turned out to be !!! After a trek of about half an hour, we encountered another deviation inthe path. Believe it or not but we took the wrong path again. Our cupboard of luck had run bare after our experiences earlier in the day :)) This wrong path led us to a precipice which seemed to drop down vertically. We could see the villagers whiling away their evening far down below. Astonishingly, we established a communication between us and them and the wind seemed to aid theconversation. We were guided to the right path by these villagers from a distance of about 10/15 km. Oh, How I wish this could happen in our"civilised" cities where I can barely hear what my neighbour says !!! We had to climb down in a hurry as the sun was slowly on its way down in the western sky and it was getting dark. We finally found the right path and we could safely climb down the rocky path in another hour. The feeling of elation in everyone was palpable to the extent of ridicule. It was wonderful to be alive again :) Krish displayed steely nerves on more than one occasion and was instrumental in helping the group descend without any mishaps. Thanks Krish forbeing such a sport !!!
After the descent, it was time to make our way to the village and decide on further course of actions. We made our way through the paddy fields and came to a small rill which seemed to be an ideal place to rest. It was almost dark at this point and it was then that we binged on the Methi Parathas and Chapathis that the group had brought with it. Mukund and I had decided to go back to NarayanGaon which is where Mukund is from. After about an hour's rest, we made our way back to the village in pitch darkness. If you think the adventure was over, think again. We were literally travelling round in circles through the paddy fields and could see the Kalyan highway far ahead of us. It did not seem wise to head that way as we were not sure if we would hit the right path. Nitin had brought with him a contraption which emitted a queer but powerful sound. Itwas put to its fullest use that day and we held it in all directions so that we could hope for a response. The village dogs responded to the noise with loudbarks and our prayers were answered :)) We headed towards the direction of the barks and lo and behold, we reached the village. The first house we reached belonged to the one who had cautioned us earlier in the day. It was no wonder that he gave us all a stern "I-told-you-so" look. It was impossiblefor me and Mukund to return back as were already late and were no position to walk a further 5 km ahead. So, we decided to stay back in the village. Also,the house-owner decided to rent out his place on a nominal fee for the night.Krish, Sarthak and the others prepared a fantastic dinner of Pav Bhaji and Rice for us. Initially, we thought that we would sleep on the porch outside the house but the night was bitingly chilly. Yogesh and Sarthak daringly spent thenight outside while the others cosily spent it inside the house.
Day 2 ( 31 October 2004) :
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We woke up at around 6:00 in the morning and we were provided with some piping hot tea by the hosts which enlivened us no end. It really was heartening to seethe villagers exude warmth to someone who were gross outsiders to them. This seemed to suggest that the age-old concept of "Athithi Devobhava" was still alive and kicking at least in the rural hinterlands of India. Me and Mukund set off on our way to NarayanGaon at around 7:30. We trudged along the 5km mud path to Kubi Phata wearily and reached the same in about an hour and 15 minutes. Our mode of transport to NarayanGaon was a goods carrier slightly smaller than a lorry. Mukund's place is about 5 km away from NarayanGaon and we were dropped at this place about an hour later. Mukund led me into the paddy fields which was surprising as I could not see any residences anywhere in the vicinity. Finally, we came to a junction and I could see Mukund's home majestically rising up bang in the middle of the tilled lands. Mukund then showed me his huge vineyard which stretched as far as one could see. It was with this wonderful background that we made it into his place at around 11:00.
I had a refreshing bath at around 12:00 noon in of the many bathrooms in Mukund's home and Mukund also was done in another half an hour. I met some of Mukund's relatives and also his mother during this time. Lunch was being prepared for us and it was served at around 1:00 pm. I have never preferred Chapathis for Lunch but Mukund's mom was a fine cook and never before had I had so many Chapathis for Lunch. The Lunch befit a king and I had one of the most satisfying lunches outside my home that day. Mukund, please thank your mom for me !!
Those who know me well would know that the next logical step after lunch would mean a siesta for me. I did not want to break the tradition and prove them wrong. ( Pretty considerate, Am I not ? ). After a good nap of two hours, wewere ready to leave for Pune by 4:30. Tea was prepared for us which was a fine way to sign the day off. We reached NarayanGaon at around 5:15 and boarded a rickety bus for Pune which would eventually reach Pune at 8:30. Mukund's brother had come to ShivajiNagar to pick him up and we had a glass each of Sweet Lime juice. I then set off towards my house and reached the same ataround 9:00.
Karthik, my erstwhile room-mate, helped me immensely in shifting my luggage to the new house. I was dreadfully tired by the time I was done through the day and went to sleep at around 12:00. I could not grab even a wink of sleep,inspite of my darndest efforts, the whole night.
Later, we ( read Mukund and I ) came to know that the others had spent their day swimming in the vast backwaters of Khireshwar and also visited some ancient temples around it. Nice way to spend your day, right ?
Day 3 ( 1st November 2004) :
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It was back to "Monday"ne activities aka work :))
Thanks Guys for providing me with one of the most joyous and daring experiences of my life. It was a wonderful group with absolutely no frills whatsoever. I am definitely game for the next assault on H'gad and any other treks in the future. Nice to be part of such a fun-loving and adventurous group.
So long:))
Regards,
Shankar
Sudhagad
Hi,
I am just back from an exciting, to say the least, trek on Saturday [19-6-2004]. The trek was to a place called Sudhagad which is about 120 km. away from Pune in the district of Raigad. Our base village was to be Thakurwadi which is a tribal hamlet.
We started from Pune at around 6:15 a.m. in a Swaraj Mazda. The early start was warranted because of the reasonable distance and the time it would take us to reach the place. The route to Sudhagad would take us via Lonavla and Khandala,the twin hillstations on the Sahyadri ranges. The misty ambience of these 2 places added to the fervour already palpable in the group. Add to this the incessant trickles of rain and you have a perfect recipe for a great weekend getaway. Cold weather and Hot beverages are always inseperable and so it was this time round too and each one of us had piping hot tea which really enlivened us.
After a lot of twists and turns ( in the road, mind you, not in the tale ), we reached Thakurwadi at 11:00 a.m. In the time between 6:30 and 11:00, we had seen a lot of lush green countryside coupled with a couple of failed attempts at Antakshari, the perennial timepass. This showed that the group was simply in no mood to waste its time and cameras of all kinds were clicking away furiously at the breathtaking views that the Sahyadri had to offer.
A slight drizzle welcomed us to Thakurwadi which was just what the doctor had ordered for some of the trek freaks. The others also did not seem to mind the trickle. The imposing sight that was Sudhagad beckoned us with a challenge to conquer it. I was told that this is a relatively easy one and is hardly exerting but did it prove me and my source wrong !! Food packets were handedout to all the people so that "each one on his own" would prove to be the order of the day. This is a familiar sight in our BMC treks and this one was no different and did not need to be either.
As is my wont, I started the trek by myself without waiting for the others to join in. Hell, I wanted to make the most of the trek so who cares ?? Meenakshi joined me in my endeavour and we were soon off with our sights firmly set on the peak which almost seemed a speck on the horizon. Meenakshi soon tired himself out after the first breather and I was on my way alone. I was soon joined by one other avid trekker and we both agreed that a "longstop" was detrimental and we should keep on moving albeit at a slow pace.I seemed to follow my instincts whenever I came across a fork in the path and my instints did not desert me. However, at one point, I thought that I had lost my way as there was only a steep cliff to climb and I did not know what lay in store for me at the top. I anyway decided to push my luck and climbed the cliff. What I saw then really took my breath away as the plains of the rural countryside on one side and the majestic peak of Sudhagad on the other lay in all their pristine glory. This really strengthened my belief in my instincts and it was instinct all the way for the rest of my ascent. During this time, I had lost the other "avid trekker" to exhaustion and I was all alone once more.
After the first milestone was done away with, we came across a rusty iron ladder which was dangling precariously in the strong gust of wind which was blowing across Sudhagad. But faced with no alternative, we had to reach the next leg of our journey through this very ladder and the climb was suprisingly exciting.This brought us to the beginning of the second leg of our journey which was the most picturesque of them all. This leg would lead us to the ramparts of the ruined fort from where we would continue our journey upward. I was awestruck by the verdant surroundings and the constant splash of water on the rocks added to my joy. A lone jungle shriek would also occasionally be heard breaking the grave silence that we were subject to. I marched on relentlessly through the omnipresent shallow streams of water and innumerable shrubbery and was the first to reach the base of the fort. This being the case, I thought that we had reached the destination once we climb the steps to reach the fortified innerregion. It was during this time that I came across a girl with wonderful spirits. She was the cousin of one of BMC's employees and had accompanied us on the trek. I did see her on the bus when we started but did not give her any heed. This girl, Daisy, had slowly made her way to the front of the trekking group and she alongwith Meenakshi were among the first few to reach the base of the fort. I was out of breath after the arduous climb and wanted to reach the top as early as possible and be done with the climb. We then struck up a conversation and these 2 ( Meenakshi & Daisy ) would prove to be myc ompanions for the last leg of our trek. The path to the top of the fort was laden with steps which were dangerously steep making one feel that they weret here to make the climb harder beguiling their means of existance. However, me and Daisy made it to the top rather tiringly and Meenakshi followed us soon after. It was then that I learnt that she was a first timer which immediately increased my admiration for her.
We were overjoyed and also disappointed once we reached the top because it had been only a short climb in terms of time and distance. However, both these feelings were shortlived as one of the trekkers trudging behind clarified that we were only half done and the strenuous part lay above and ahead of us. Now,this last leg might not be huge in terms of distance or altitude but it was certainly the most difficult as most of us were sapped of energy. Far as the summit seemed, I wanted to scale it up as early as I could because a longer rest time tends to make me cramp which did happen eventually. Daisy andMeenakshi were also game and agreed to accompany me on my [senseless ??] jaunt.This part was a visual treat as we could see a number of rivulets and runnels lazily winding their way through the countless plain fields far down below. It almost seemed that these scenes were straight out of a Rembrandt or a Da Vinci masterpiece. We also had to cross a number of cascades which were slowly makingtheir presence felt.
We had 2 alternatives to making it to the top, one of which was the oft-treaded and normal way. Yawn !!!! It was the other path that set my pulse racing as we could make an otherwise dull day really light up.Meenakshi had not had a bath that day and in his over-enthusiasm to have one, almost committed harakiri. Th egrips in his shoes were not helping him either. Both Meenakshi and me drenched ourselves totally in the gush of water which was as refreshing as they come. Itwas then that we had to make a decision as regards the path we would take. My decision was final and I had to goad and coax Meenakshi and Daisy into coming with me on the treacherous path. Oh, how we enjoyed it !!! During the course ofthis path, we came across a wider opening of the fall and it was "playwet" once more. This path was difficult without being risky. It was then that I decided to try something extravagant towards the ascent. The source ofthe waterfall was about 15 feet high from that point. There was a single ledge,of about 1 foot square, half way from the top. This would serve as a foothold for us to climb aboard or so I thought. I was pondering about my supposedly crazy [ courtesy Daisy ] move whence I realised that I could not hope to climb with my bag on. This was so as I was overdue for a cramp and could have one anytime now. I left my bag behind in a small cuneus in the rock and we decided we will come back for the bags after the climb, if we managed it. My first goal would be to reach the ledge and balance myself steadily on it so that I could mount a final assault on the cliff. This was a tricky affair as I was unsure about the rigidity of the ledge as regards the rocks. I relied on my instinct,once more, and somehow managed to place a foot onto the ledge. What lay ahead was the more difficult part!! I had to place my other foot on a foothold about half a foot square and which was 2 feet away from the ledge and about a foot higher. This foothold was awash with water as the cascade had precisely chosen this one to make a splash on its way down. This meant that the foothold might prove slippery as a result of algae accumulation. I, for a moment, decided to abandon this venture but then I could not give up without making an honest attempt. I went ahead and decided to run my luck bare and managed to balance myself on the second foothold. All this while, the cliff above served as a grip which was continuously slipping away. I hauled myself over the cliff with some effort and more trouble was yet to come my way. I could not hope to standu pright once I reached the cliff courtesy of a very low hanging tree branch.This meant that I had to duck under the branch as soon as I reached the cliff which meant that I had practically no time to recoup myself. I eventually did manage all these things with a bruised forearm to show for my efforts. I did not mind it one bit because of the satisfaction and relief that the adventure brought with it, satisfaction for having scaled the cliff and relief for having remained a single piece in the aftermath. Meanwhile, the others had made their way to the top and were a wee bit surprised as to why we had not made its ooner. I called one person across to show him the path we had chosen and he was dumbstruck by it. The task was not yet complete and Daisy and Meenakshi were yet to attempt the climb. Meenakshi was not game for the climb and Daisy decided to go for it. She could make it with a little help from me and the other guy mentioned. Brave Girl !!! Meenakshi was then literally pulled over almost after he had pulled himself out. We had made the climb and successfully at that !!! I had to go back the easier way to retrieve our bags. Although I have tried to capture the adventure in words, the experience per se isinexplicable.
The climb had brought us to a huge plateau which was deemed fit for us to have our lunch. We were among the first to reach the plateau and hence we had a little more time to explore the plateau. The end of the plateau provided us with some breathtaking views and I could see a small path descending into the valley about 10 meters below. I wanted to enjoy the view with nothing but space between me and the Sahyadri. This being the case, I climbed down below and almost realised my wish when a bout of cramps hit me with a vengeance. I could not lift my leg one step let alone move ahead. I badly needed some rest and a couple of gulps of water. I had had neither for the past half an hour which took its toll. Daisy was watching me from the top and volunteered to bring me some water. I did not want her to come down as it was a trifle slippery. I had to rest forcefully and I was writhing in pain but the Sahyadri had a soothing effect. She eventually could not resist the temptation and came down to have a view with a bottle of water to boot. After about 10 minutes, Daisy was summoned up by her brother but I still could not walk. I had to stay down for a couple of minutes more. This brought Meenakshi down and he insisted on staying with me. After a while, I felt that I was okay and wanted to climb back again. But no sooner had I taken a few steps forward than I was cramped in the other leg.I asked Meenakshi to carry on and I rested myself. It took me another 5 minutes to overcome the cramp and I could get back under the worried gaze of Daisy. The whole group then had lunch and it was time to rest.
We still had to see the palaces and the lakes that Sudhagad was known for.Imagine lakes at such an altitude, yet there were and plenty of them at that.The first one that we came across was not that neat and we moved on in search of cleaner ones. We came across a thickly wooded foliage path a few meters awayfrom us and it seemed to lead us deep into the forests. I was the first one into it and we came across the skulls and bones of cattle roughly strewn across the forest floor which silently spoke about the presence of carnivores in the vicinity. An ancient temple lay just ahead of us and the presiding deity was typical Maharashtrian in its appearance. The palaces that we had heard of were nothing but huge sheds with asbestos roofs. Oh, how so royal !!! We carried on and saw a beautiful lake which was mesmerisingly inviting due to its cleanliness. Needless to say, most of us were into the water and had the timeof our lives as a result of which the lake was dirtied in no time. The sudden spurt of rain also added its share to the excitement and dirtying of the lake.We could also see the ruins of what had once been the interiors of the palace.A few people went about the ruins and spoke volumes about what it might have been in its heyday. Our ascent towards Sudhagad was to culminate in the lake and it was time to return as Pune was still a good 3 hours away from Sudhagad.
The journey back did evoke fond memories of our ascent and we missed our"adventurous path" this time round and took the normal path below.Daisy was my sole companion on the way down and we were the first duo to reach the base. During this course, she threatened, albeit helplessly, to fall over a number of times which had me on my toes all through the descent. We rested for a while on the rusty ladder with the wind howling in all its glory. The group wearily made its way back after a good half hour of our arrival and we left Sudhagad for Pune at around 5:30 pm. We had a stopover at Pali on the way back.Pali is famous around these parts as one of the abodes of AshtaVinayaks aroundPune. The temple is solely built out of wood and it was not surprising when the deity was flat and wide as I was used to these by now. We had wonderful tea ata roadside stall and made our way back to the van.
We were entertained to some wonderful mimicry by some talented guys from Chennai on the way back and did not mind the 3 hour journey back to Pune as a result.We reached Pune at around 9:00 pm leaving us with one whole day to recuperate and be ready for "Mo[a]nday". On the whole, it was my best experienceof a trek so far.
Regards,
Shanks
Mahabaleshwar
Mahabaleshwar travellogue
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Day 0 : Thursday -> 08-04-2004
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Ceding to my persistant pestering, Karthik agreed to talk to the others in his team on a probable outing for the long weekend ahead of us. I had collected information on about 4 places where we could while away our weekend. Karthik managed to nail one person in his team namely Meenakshi Sundaram who agreed to accompany us on our jaunt. My first impression of Meenakshi was that he was the perfect man for any "toothpaste" ad and the quaint smile never once left his lips. It was initially decided that we will leave for Khandala ( made immortal by the Aamir/Rani duo ) on our bikes and try to return back to Pune before dusk. Armed with this approval, we decided that we will meet at our (read Aundh ) place at around 6:30 am. Events then took a strange turn and we (read Karthik and me ) were interrupted on our journey home by a call from Meenakshi who told us that Mahabaleshwar would be a better place and we would rather go there by a taxi as the weather was unrelentingly hot and biking to Mahabaleshwar would not be anyone's idea of a weekend relaxation. Meenakshi also told us that one of his friends, Guhan, was keen on joining us for the trip. Now was the tricky part for we had not made any arrangements for our travel to and eventual stay at Mahabaleshwar. I did not want to miss a godsend of a 3-day weekend and was determined not to let it go by without anything to show for it. A neighbour of ours ( Sameer ) is a localite and any of our queries about Pune or its surroundings are immediately directed towards him. He delivers the goods more often than not and this time also he went about querying his coterie as to the availability of any transport vehicle. This futile search of ours ( read Sameer and Me ) ended at the unearthly hours of 1:00 am with the prospects of our weekend at Mahabaleshwar very thin. Sameer told me that his inexhaustible armour of contacts had one final weapon and we would ring this fellow up in the morning. I went to bed a very weary and disappointed man.
Day 1 : Friday -> 09-04-2004
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I could not grab even a wink of sleep the whole night and was waiting for daybreak to occur whence I could give Sameer a ring. I was ready and raring to go at 7:00 am. I then called up Sameer and jolted him out of his deep slumber.We managed to find the man and he told us that he would be at our place by around 9:00 am. I then woke Karthik up who relayed the message across to Meenakshi and Guhan. They were to wait at our BMC office at around 9:00 am. The taxi ( a brand new Indica ) eventually turned up at our place at 9:15 am and we were on our way to what we thought would be a summer paradise. Alas, that was not to be !!
I and Karthik had not met Guhan before and I was my usual sceptical self as to what kind of a person he would turn out to be. My suspicions were laid to rest as soon as we met him and Guhan came across as very much a"our-kind-of-guy". This gave me great hopes for the next 2 days. We started towards our destination at around 10:00 am. Mahabaleshwar was about 120km. away from Pune and the journey would prove to be a good 3 hour one. We hada break in between for tea and it was here that my "one goof-up per trip" came to the fore and I forgot my cap behind. I realised this when we had travelled a further 20 minutes from the restaurant and we made the needless( not for me :) ) journey and I reclaimed my priceless cap.
This set us back by half an hour and we reached a place called VAI which is at the foothills of the Mahabaleshwar ranges. Vai seemed to be an education bastion around these places and we saw a horde of college students making their reluctant way back home. Our sight was restricted to only a single breed of these college students :) [ Obviously Yaar !! ]We then made our way to Panchgani through the winding ghat roads. Panchgani is supposed to be one of the most picturesque spots around these places. More on this later. The omnipresent toll booths set us back by around Rs. 100/- before we could enter Mahabaleshwar. No sooner had we entered Mahabaleshwar than we bought a bunch each of "fresh" strawberries and mulberries. It was devoured within no time with the taste nothing to do with the time taken. Wereached the market hub at around 2:00 pm and decided to have lunch at the first available restaurant. This proved to be a damp squib as we did not like the"costly" food that was on offer.
After lunch, we had to scout for our accommodation for the later part of theday. [ Remember that we had not made any arrangements ]. A decent room with 4 beds was offered to us at the "paltry" sum of Rs. 1600/- which we duly declined. It was the same story elsewhere also and we decided to come backto the accommodation later. [ Cross the bridge when you come to it ] A historical place called Pratapgarh was to be our first stopover. This fort was the chief bastion of the Maratha chieftain Shivaji and we expected it to look like one. But the fort was desolate and almost in ruins crying out for help in restoring its rightful lost pride. It looked as if the government was oblivious to the condition of one of its great monuments. We had to climb the ramparts of the fort in scorching heat which was very surprising. Come on now, this place is supposed to be a hill station but it was nowhere near it. Anyway, we climbed to the top of the fort and saw some breath-taking views of the Sahyadri ranges.This made me think as to why a fort had to be built in so inaccessible a place? Guhan was pretty annoyed with the whole concept of the fort and was cursing us no end for having fooled him into the trip. All in good spirits, no harm meant :))
We returned to Mahabaleshwar at around 5:30 pm and immediately set about looking for our accommodation. We settled for a ramshackle hotel which had itsname as "Palace" with the rent amounting to a princely sum of Rs.1000/- per night. Also, Mahabaleshwar has a foolish policy of a 9:00 am checkout which means that even if you checkin to the hotel at 6:00 am , your one day stay ends at 9:00 am. A novel way indeed of fleecing tourists !!
Our first day sightseeing was to culminate in a place called the "SunsetPoint" which was a 10 minute drive from the market hub. When we reached the precincts of the place, we were greeted with a long line of tourist vehicles lined on both sides of the narrow road which led to the spot. We somehow managed to find a parking space some distance away from the spot. There was no question of us grumbling here as parking space was at a premium. TheSunset Point was teeming with people of all kinds and ages and we were distinctly lucky on two counts. One was that we found a great viewpoint to viewthe sunset. The other was that this viewpoint also doubled up as a viewpoint toview the suave females gathered to view the sun set. We had an eyeful of bothof these but the actual sunset did not live upto its hype. It was here thatKarthik and I were astride a horse for the first time in our lives and what abeauty he was. He stood tall amongst other pretenders and we fully utilised the gazes that were thrown at us.
It was to be shopping for the rest of the day/night. Of course, shopping comes with an added attraction of being able to see the wonderful crowd that turns out. The main shopping area consists of a single street with all kinds of wares being displayed. We had a wonderful time here and Meenakshi and I built up a wonderful rivalry over who buys the most handbags. Ultimately, both of us bought quite a handful of them. Guhan also bought a little hammock for his niece for a decent deal. Karthik was to be a poor bystander whilst we were onour buying spree. Karthik somehow managed to find a hawker who sold his favourite "Double Omlette". The threesome had their share of"Double Omlettes" while I satiated my hunger temporarily with aVadaPav. It was during one of our numerous walks that Karthik and Guhan almost managed to grab the attention of a group of females who were equally interested in us or so it seemed. Dinner beckoned us at around 10:30 pm and we had one ofthe most horrifying dinners that we could (not) hope to have. Anyways, the dinner itself was made bearable by the sight of a girl from Bangalore having beer. We were to see more of her the next day.
The day was to end with a round of dessert and a nice one it proved to be.Karthik's idea of a dessert was different and he bought a bottle of beer to round off his day. We went back to our room and I was the first one to go tos leep. Karthik and Guhan saw to it that the beer was emptied and then dozed offwithout bothering to turn the television off. Can they be blamed, no Siree !!
Day 2 : Saturday -> 10-04-2004
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The day dawned bright and clear and I was the first one off the bed at around7:00 am. The group was fit and raring to go at precisely 9:00 am which was the need of the hour imposed on us by the irksome checkout time. We had breakfastat a reasonable hotel and were on our way around 10:00 am. It was during this time that we met one of our colleagues who had come over with 2 of his otherfriends' families. We did not know about this to start with and were staring atthem as we would at anyone with a churidhar on :) It was really embarassing to get introduced to the one whom we were really staring at.
To start the day with, we went to Old Mahabaleshwar which is the abode of Lord Mahabaleshwar. This temple alongwith the Panchganga temple nearby is an anciento ne and the Panchganga temple is supposed to be source of at least 5 rivers which originate there. Quite a historic one, eh ?? The "Lingam" here at the Mahabaleshwar temple is flat and is supposed to be formed naturally.
Our next agenda for the day was to view the 6 sister view points the king of which was a place called "Arthur's seat". This place again was agog with people of all hues as a consequence of which we were unable to find a parking space near the actual scenic spot. We grudgingly trudged towards the points and were treated to some lovely views of the Sahyadri ranges. I agree that the views are fantastic but to present the same range from about 20 viewpoints with each being earmarked as a tourist attraction requires a marketing genius at one end and a gullible fool at the other. Gullible fools that we were, we patiently went through the motions of looking at the viewpoints with a detached mind and an aching body. I should however quip thatArthur's seat was the best of them all for the sheer reason that it descends into a precipice from an extended platform into an almost vertical angle towards the valley below. One had to admit the fact that this place would look majestic when the monsoon makes its way here. But then this place is supposed to be a hillstation, right ?? The viewpoints that we covered were Elphinstone'spoint, Bombay point etc. among others. We saw so many points that I am unable to recollect even a few of them.
After this "point"less journey of ours, Mahabaleshwar had one more point in its kitty which was enroute to the market place. We did see 2 morepoints before this one of which one was peculiarly named "Savithri"point. God help me with the reason for the same. We had a fine glass of Lime Juice and a GolGuppa at this place, the taste of which was enhanced by the heightening fury of the summer sun. It was here that Guhan tried his hand ( or should I say leg ) at riding a horse. This limping stallion looked a pale shadow of its former menacing self but it was still better than the rest. Guhan was not prepared for the gallop and he immediately let out a cry of fear asking it to stop but he managed to regain his composure and had a decent stroll ( or so we believe ).
Panchgani was to be our final frontier at Mahabaleshwar and we reached the place at around 2:30 pm to have lunch at a popular eatery there. A bevy of some nice looking females made their way into the restaurant and chose to sit bang opposite me. I made a mention about this to Karthik and Guhan and almost immediately begin to rue the same for these two practically turned round on their backs and began to enjoy the clatter of the gang. The girls then let out a stern "anything-wrong-with-you-guys" gaze which stopped our activities. We then decided to "ignore" the gang, albeit hesitantly,and were on our way to view what Panchgani had to offer other than what it had just now. Panchgani, in the course of half an hour, had already offered more than what Mahabaleshwar had offered in about a day and a half :))
Panchgani is home to the second largest plateau in Asia only behind Lhasa inTibet. This was probably the finest point of our trip for all we could see was land far and wide on top of a mountain which was 4600 ft. high. We chose to walk through the vast spaces of land to see what it was all about. There were 3more (view)points on this plateau. There was also an over-hyped "CaveRestaurant" which was only marginally bigger than a normal monsoon pothole which lines up many of the city roads in India :) This cave raised many expectations when we were about to make our way into a dark corner. But all our expectations went kaput when we came out into the open about 5 seconds after we descended into it. Disappointments aside, we came across many adventure sports being organised on the plateau above and it was only the cost of these rides which stopped us from enjoying them. The "Beer" girl mentioned earlier came to our notice for the last time here. We had had enough of herthrough the whole day.
After all these mega hypes, the group wanted to return home as early as possible when I told them that we had missed on a cave which was about 10 km.away from Panchgani. I managed to have my way and off we went to Rajpuri caves.We reached the caves through the winding roads of rural India and were probably the first and only outsiders to have ever ventured into this. These Rajpuri caves were a great disappointment but then Mahabaleshwar had taught us to take all these in our stride. A hermit who literally lives in the cave showed us a blocked passage which was supposed to lead one to Mahabaleshwar.
We had come to the end of our trip to Mahabaleshwar with this and we wearily returned back to Pune at around 10:00 pm and had a good night's sleep.
The trip would have turned out to be a nightmare if not for the company that we had. Thanks Guys for making the trip better than it actually was.
Pearl Valley
Pearl Valley
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Date : 26-November-2003
Day : Wednesday
Occasion : Id-Ul-Fitr
Tourists : Nagaraj, Sunil, Balakrishnan, Radhakrishnan, Raaghu, Praveen[Pungi],Shankar
The day dawned bright and clear as is so typical of Bangalore at this time ofthe year. We[ I ?? ] finally managed to shake off Glory.[ It does explain thebright and clear day, doesn't it ?? ]
It was decided that half of the gang would meet at my place at around 8:30 am.This group's punctuality left me staggered for I was counting on my pastexperiences and could only get ready by 9:30 am. Sorry Guys for the faux pas!!!
It was 10:30 am by the time we reached Radhakrishnan's place while the agreed to time was 9:30 am :((
We finally set towards the "Pearl Valley" hoping it would be a grand finale to Nagann's farewell.Alas, it was not to be, though we came quite close to it.
The approach road to the place was horrendous and was a slur on the name"approach road" because it was more of a pothole filled with road at certain places.[ Notice pothole and road interchanged. Confused ?? So was I :))] The road took us through a village which resembled a Pakistani stronghold.This frightened us initially and then courage returned when we put our Demographic skills to test and realised that Karnataka did not share a border withPakistan. Brilliant, eh ?
Anyway, we reached Muthyala Maduvu aka Pearl Valley at around 12:30 pm.Guess what??? We were finally lucky this time around as we were treated to the sight of 3 gorgeous figurines as soon as we reached the place.This set high expectationsfor the remainder of the day.
We were supposed to climb down approximately 300 steps to reach the promised land.In all our boyish enthusiasm, we sped through them hoping to see a gushing cascade.The shrill roar of enjoyment from a group ahead only heightened the curiosity.The wait was definitely not worth it and all our wild imaginary thoughts wentkaput once we set our eyes on the pathetic sight that is known by the name"Pearl Valley".This reminded some of us of a similar experience wehad had at Suruli Falls.Guess who was the culprit then also? Yep, Yours Truly!!! This set me thinking as to what a poor judger of places I was slowing turning into.
We were however determined to take home with us atleast a semblance of good memory from this place.This made us decide to trek up to the source of the"water(hardly)falls".The trek was not a smooth one as it was lined up with thorny shrubs along both sides of a narrow trail snaking upward.Radhakrishnan & Sunil decided to take a fast & quick path towards the summit which was to prove their undoing reminding one of the adage"You have shortcuts only on Windows". [ Pardon the plagiarism of a popular proverb ].The rest of us finally caught up with them though not on particularly pleasing terms as Radhakrishnan hurt himself badly while sliding down involuntarily.
We finally managed to reach the source of the cataract.The view from above was as terrific as one could hope to see.We had a nice time here and it was here that the foundations of a "Non-Profit club" was dug.The gang was looking out, and with success at that, for casual pairs wanting to hide themselves away from sight.Sunil then tried his best to drown Radhakrishnan notwithstanding the fact that the water level could not drown even a rat lying flat on its back.It was nice to have some time to ourselves away from the mad din that Bangalore has come to be.
We left at 2:30 pm after a nice drink[ Interpretations left to the imaginationof the reader :) ] and some hot stuff.We later had Lunch at a wayside restaurant which did not seem to be a good idea.Guess who suggested the place??? We had a fight with the bearer for he threatened to spoil a day which was kind to us until then.
Bangalore beckoned us with open arms at around 5:00 pm and it was back to our abodes.
The gains of the trip in decreasing order of importance :
1 : A superb day out with the gang. [ Hopefully not the last :)) ]
2 : Formation of the "Non-Profit" club.
3 : Unveiling of Sunil's motives.
4 : Testing my limited driving abilities.
Finally as is my wont, a note of thanks to all the people involved especially toNagann who accompanied us inspite of a bout of fever.Hopefully, I am not belittling anyone's commitment through the above innocuous statement.
Thanks Boys !!
Wynad Trip
Day 0 -> 20-June-2003
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After a long and dreary set of discussions [ or the lack of it :) ], thecoterie of itinerants decided to take on the Kerala Monsoon head on regardlessof the heavy rains in the region.Call it sheer coincidence but we had 2cancellations this time round also.Notwithstanding the usual trait that hascome to be associated with the gang, we decided to move along and have a nicetime.It was decided that we will meet at the boarding arena at around 8:30 p.m.[ no "sharp" here :)) ].The sleeper bus we had booked [ thanks toGlory & Sunil ] was to take us to Sultan Bathery which was to be our baseover the next 2 days.There was some confusion here with respect to our base as the driver of the bus told us that we were to go to Kalpetta which was a good30 Kms away from Sultan Bathery.This was however eventually settled when we [read Poornima ] called up the Hotel and confirmed its location.This task was successful despite Poornima's earnest attempts to confuse the HotelReceptionist.Anyway, after all the initial hiccups, we finally set off towards Wynad and its pristine offerings.
Day 1 -> 21-June-2003
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The sole chatterbox in the group [ ???? ] woke us all with a rude jolt at the unearthly hours of 03:00 a.m. when we were only expected to wake up at 03:30.[This might seem to be a small gap but the value of this gap of sleep would only dawn on us on Monday & the rest of the week]. The whole group eventuallywoke up showering [ albeit under their "bad" breaths ] the choicestabuses on [ who else ??? ].
A slight drizzle greeted us on our arrival at Sultan Bathery.This immediately set me worrying as to our agenda for the next 2 days.Thankfully, the rain was only in trickles.We managed to find out the location of the "HotelResort" with more than a little help from certain automen.[This was indeedbaffling as automen are the last bunch of people whom you would expect to helpyou out in your search ].Now, the name of our Hotel did mislead some of themembers as "Hotel Resort" did not seem to resemble a Resort from anyangle.Having said that, it was not bad either as we [ read I ] have had farworse experiences.We met the manager and I spoke to him, in what I thought wasMalayalam, about our accommodation.Sign Languages did the trick here as heseemed to understand what I said further reinforcing my ability [ or the lackof it ] for linguistic juggleries.It was decided that we will leave the Hotel by 8:30 a.m.
Try as we might, we could not grab even a wink of sleep in spite of our bestefforts.The gang was up and raring to go at exactly 8:30.I could not believe myeyes [ nor any other sensory organs for that matter ] with the transformationthat had come about.We then met our Driver/Guide/Companion for the next 2days.His jeep was anything but spacious but we had no other alternative.[ ordid we ??? ]We had breakfast at a reasonably good "KANNADA" Hotel and set out on our endeavour for the day.
Our first stop was to be "Soojipara" waterfalls.This virginwaterfalls is not very accessible and we had to cross some very treacherousterrain to get to the place.And were we rewarded ???? yes siree !!!!! This cascade has to be one of the most beautiful and dangerous ones I have everseen.The water was gushing out at such an enormous force that it would beliterally curtains for anyone brave [ or foolish ] enough to venture anywhere close to it.We had a few photo-ops here and we utilised it to the fullextent.While we were at it, we were latently being sized up by one of the mostparasitic beings ever to set "claws" on the face of the earth.These blood suckers are more commonly known as "Leeches".Almost all of us were subject to attacks this time around unlike the last time when I was the only target.This petrified the girls and Akila in particular.Now Akila being terrified is nothing new to most of us and we ignored her frequent gasps ofterror as that was the only way out.This was the first place where Nagaraj wasted no time in reminding Glory and Sunil about BSNL's superior reach toAirtel's.This was to become a routine affair until the time the twosome couldget back vengefully which was when we reached Kozhikode.More on that later.
We then had lunch at a decent place.We [ read Poornima ] had devised an ingenious plan of not wasting food with which we ordered a plate each ofwhatever Vegetarian food was available.This proved to benefit enormously aseach one of us could order whatever we wished.After we were done with thelunch, we went to a Horticultural Farm somewhere in Ambalavayal which was adecent distance away from Soojipara.This farm had nothing to offer what witheven its blatant offerings of "706" varieties of Roses.We werehowever looking for other varieties of "Roses" which were ararity.Not even Nagaraj's goggles could help us out with this.This farm provedto be big disappointment as were so much of hope after our first waterfallouting.Disappointments aside, we set out to Edakkal Caves which was to be lastspot for the day.In the meantime, the rains had no plans of ceasing anddiligently followed us everywhere we went.This did not deter the enthusiasm ofthe group and we had no plans of giving up.This place, supposedly the abode ofa hermit, is around 2 km of trek away from the parking lot.Initially we were faced with one more disappointment when all we could see was a small cavernatop the Hill.This taught me not to jump to early conclusions as we were to seesome spectacular sights enroute our way to the actual caves.A guide wouldaccompany us to the caves as we had to conquer slippery footholds cut into therocks.This is no mean task as everyone would vouch for it.I really appreciatedthe zeal of the girls here as we [ read the guys ] are anyway used to it.Wewere really taken by surprise as we saw Stone-Age inscriptions inside the cavesin a script called "Brahmi".Some miscreants had defaced the rockswith some queer inscriptions of their own.Alas, when are they going to learn????? Akila was offered an alternate route of getting back down but she dismissed it with some vigour.We also had some photo sessions in this place.
We returned wearily to our bastion at around 5:30 p.m. and promised to meet again after an hour and a half.It was during this time that Raaghu remembered [thankfully at that ] that he had to get some dressing on his wound.Thispresented me with a nice opportunity to hone my Malayalam and we trudged out tothe nearest hospital.We had a really good time with the nurses there, a factwhich Nagaraj was to rue later.We left for dinner at 7:00 and thought we mightas well have a stroll of Sultan Bathery.We had a decent stroll and headed backto the "KANNADA" hotel and had a hearty meal.We finally retired forthe day at 9:00 and no sooner had we reached the hotel than we hit the sack.
Day 2 -> 22-June-2003
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I woke everyone at 04:15 and we were ready to leave by 5:45 after everyone had had a cold shower.Our agenda for the day was Thirunelli temple, Pookot Lake andMuthanga Wildlife sanctuary.We first headed for Thirunelli temple which isabout 60 km away from Sultan Bathery.The route to this place is studded with lush green forests on either side of the road which was almost an illusion tome.We stopped midway as we sighted some deers and wild boars in their carefreeselves.We reached this temple at around 8:00 and were immediately awe-struck byits splendour and misty mountain backdrops.We went inside and were stopped inour tracks by a board which curtly said "No Admission".This broughtout the ugly urbane self in me to the fore and I asked Poornima to ask an old lady nearby as to why we should not enter.I was immediately slapped squarely on my face by an answer in one of the most perfect English Accents I have everheard [ yes by the old lady herself ].After this I stopped putting my feet intomy mouth and we were treated to a good rhythmic beat from one of Kerala'stypical drummers [ or whatever they call them ] for the next hour.We had a superb darshan in this temple which is one of the finest I have seen.Specialmention has to be made of Glory here as she stood patiently with us without noteven an iota of grumble.Thanks Glory !!!
We then left for Pookot lake after our breakfast at Thirunelli.This proved tobe a disaster as the monsoon decided to play a cruel prank on us.I apologise tothe whole group for this fiasco.The drive was however good and we also saw anaccident which was thankfully not serious.A flat tire also added to ourmiseries as we reached Pookot at around 12:00 noon.I vehemently refused thepopulist suggestion that we go boating and we decided not to take the riskwhich was anyway worthless.We had a superb cup of Coffee/Tea which was akin to nectar given the cold circumstances.We then left Pookot at around 1:00 after werealised the futility of the wait for the rain to subside.We returned to SultanBathery and had lunch at a restaurant which also served Non-vegetarian foodwhich was the need of the hour for certain members.This was to be Sunil's finest moment of the trip as he was given more than an eyeful by one ofKerala's [ shall I dare say ] figures.Everyone knew that Sunil was going totreasure that moment for the rest of his life.
The Pookot disaster also had a bearing on our plans for the day and we wereunable to visit the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary.I promised to myself that Iwill return to Wynad someday and have a grand[er] time there.
We finally vacated the Hotel at around 3:30 and reached the KSRTC bus-stand at around 3:45.We had to go to Kozhikode to board our train which was again mymistake.One of the drivers sent the whole group into a frenzy by claiming thatit was next to imposible for us to reach Kozhikode in time to board the train.Iwas adamant that we will not hire a private vehicle as the fare would beexorbitant if he knew that we were helpless.I also knew at the back of my mindthat we should be able to cover the 90-odd km distance in little more than 3hours.Anyway, we boarded the bus after an assurance from the station master [what an unlikely source !! ] that we should hit Kozhikode by 7:15.The route to Kozhikode from Sultan Bathery is one of the most picturesque routes that onecan hope to see.We saw nature in all her glory on this route.This brought out the children in us and everyone in the bus was amused at our histrionics and gasps of astonishments at the wonders of nature.We finally reached Kozhikode at7:00 which was a huge relief to everyone and me in particular for my stubborn reluctance of not hiring a private vehicle.We bought some food packets fordinner that night and almost devoured the entire stuff within 1 hour of boarding the train.The group went to sleep at around 9:30 dreading the day thatwas to follow after all the excitement of the last 2 days.
Day 3 -> 23-June-2003
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This day would not have found a mention here but for the peculiar route thatthe train followed towards its eventual destination.The train was literallytoying with us for 2 hours before we were dropped at Yeshwanthpur.I solely takethe blame for this stupid decision.Ashok was in jitters because he had anExamination that day at 12:00 and inspite of all this delay problems managed toclear the exam.Hats off, Ashok.
A special thanks to Raaghu & Mahesh for being the wonderful blokes that theywere.I was a little apprehensive initially about whether they would be able to gel with the team.But gel they did and how.
Thanks again to one and all for making the Wynad trip memorable for more reasons than mentioned above.So long till we meet the next time.
Munnar Trip
Herein I present my account of our Munnar trip about 4 years back :)
Day 0 : Bangalore
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After all the chaos with regard to the platform number and the train name , wefinally managed to meet at 20:45 and the train chugged out of Bangalore at21:00 which was remarkable given the "punctuality" of the IndianRailways.
Day 1 : Coimbatore, Munnar
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The caravan reached Coimbatore at 05:00 and inspite of Akila's groans and grunts, we took a local bus to Ukkadam which is Coimbatore's answer toK.R.Market.Here we had coffee which in fact was superb given the conditions.Wefinally left for Udumalpet which is a good 2 hours journey from Ukkadam.Noprizes for guessing who was complaining.We did reach Udumalai around 08:00 andwe had breakfast in batches.We finally boarded a bus, which was creaking allover, to our eventual destination at around 08:45 . We were distinctly unluckythis time around not to have a glimpse of any wildlife even though we travelledvia Chinnar which has a reputation of widlife prescence at all times of theday.Finally at around 12:30 we reached the tea estates of Munnar.
We dragged ourselves to the Hotel Misha Holiday Homes and put in a word forSaravana's vehicular histrionics.After all the routine activities were doneaway with,We were ready for Lunch at around 14:30.Amidst all this, I had had atalk with Saravana explaining the places we needed to visit.The majority of thegroup had lunch at a superb restaurant, the consequences of which will be described later.
The group then left for a small sightseeing trip during which time we covered 2-3 viewpoints ,Pallivaasal Waterfalls and the International Blossom Park.ThePallivaasal falls was a sight to behold and we had a jolly good time whilst wewere there. I, Nagaraj and Sunil trekked to the source of the falls and we werenot disappointed for having come through a slippery trail.We spent about 1.5 Hours at the place and got back to the Blossom Park and we were bitten by theNostalgia bug what with all the Swings, Hammocks and Beautiful flowers allaround, not the human kind ,mind you.We wearily went back to Munnar and we haddinner of good quality unlike the afternoon.It was time to retire at around21:00 and we signed off the day with a good sleep.
Mani and Mani were our escorts during the day.
Day 2 : Munnar
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We were supposed to have left for the sight seeing tour at 6:30 but as is sotypical of the group , we did leave at 8:00.It was during this time that Vinoddid indulge in some comical act of his own to leave Mani frightfullyfeared.Mani was again our escort for the first half of the day.Our first stopwas Nyamakkad Falls which is in a private estate.We had to go down to reach thefalls.We had a decent time here and wanting to have more resulted in mebecoming a haven for Leeches of all kinds.Akila's prayers were answered!!!
After this, we left for Eravikulam National Park which is the last abode of theNilgiri Tahr.The journey was a horrendous one made more torturous by theprevious day's lunch.Anway we reached the park and we had a good jog and theTahrs did not disappoint us and we had a look at one of the soon to be extinctspecies .This is the place where we finally had a glimpse of a group of females and we were pretty thankful for that.
We then finally left for Lockham falls which was the best of them all.To reachthis beautiful cascade, we had to trek through the dense Undergrowth and thetrek was worth the journey.We had a good time here and we had plenty of photoops here.The journey back did prove an enigma to atleast four of us and I andPoornima luckily found the way back.Renga and Akila were not so lucky and theyseemed to have lost their way.This made me and Ashok go look for them and in ascene straight out of a Hollywood Potboiler, we managed to find them after wecried our throats hoarse.
We got back to Munnar and had lunch.Akila was feeling queasy and had to bedropped back at the Hotel with Renga as the Guardian , an experience which bothwere to miss later.After the Lunch, we left for The Echo Point and it was here that the more openpeople in the group disclosed their beaus' names.We then left for Mattupattidam and the ride of a lifetime was beckoning us.We had a fabulous experiencewith the speed boats and Poornima and ATG were the prime targets or so it seemed.
After all the experiences we left for Thekkady with our souls filled with Munnarand its scenic offerings.
We reached Thekkady at about 23:00
Day 3 : Thekkady, Madurai
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The suprabhatam at the nearby temple forcefully woke us at around 05:00 and wewere ready for the boat ride.Now, Thekkady is a Tiger reserve and we were torealise only later what the "Reserve" means.The boat ride was worthyfor all the reasons it should not have been.The tigers and elephants were so"Reserved" that we sighted none of them.Anyway, we had a nice view ofthe wonderful Artificial Lake and the lush forests.
Madurai was to be our next destination but somehow a bad instinct prompted me toask Mani to take us to a place called "Suruli" Falls.The journey tothis place took us through the Heartlands of India and I could sense themurderous gazes I received from all the people in the group.This was the oneplace which stuck out like a sore thumb amidst beautiful fingers.
We reached Madurai at around 17:30 and had a good look at the Meenakshi Templewhich lived upto its name of being a huge temple.We reached the station and hada grand dinner packed, thanks to Akila.The train left at around 19:40 and wereached Bangalore at 06:40 .
Day 4 : Bangalore
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The mundane activities start and its back to "busy"ness.
