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For the first time in life, witnessed snowfall. Milky white. Its soft and beautiful. Grass looks even greener with snow. Almost near Nirvana.
The tan is slowly starting to fade. Its been more than 3 weeks since I’m back from that heavenly place. But as usual this time also, a bit late to write about it. All the snaps in place in Flickr, but just a bit careless about WordPress!! 
. Every Sunday I thinks of finally posting something, but again get lost watching several episodes of Friends, back to back. Today was no different. But anyway finally posting it. The 4 days experience will be too hard to forget. So just wanted to jot down some points and free advices!
Day 1 (29/09/07)
* Reached g0A by 12.00 PM and took a taxi look around for a place for our heads.
* Found a place somewhere near Miramar beach. It was a dirty beach that time, but should be fine by now.
* Used the bathroom well and had lunch at a restaurant.
* Ventured out around 4.00 PM to go for a stroll along Miramar beach, which we didn’t find quite interesting.
* Took a town bus to Mandovi river near by, which is famous for its boat rides. Bought map of Goa for 20 bucks.
* Booked ticket for a 5 of us and boarded the boat. I don’t if “boat” is the right word to use. It was a big one.
* That one hour was fantastic. We’d beer and Brezeer inside. Danced to the music. Clicked a lot of snaps. hmmm yeah some hot chicks were on board too!!!
* We came out from the boat, a bit hazy.
* Came across a PIMP outside from whom we heard this line. “Sahab, Ladki chahiye kya raat ke liye?? Mast maal hai mere pass!!!”
* I’ve no idea what we’re looking like that time, but sure had great fun when one of us asked him, “Bhaiya, ladki leke kya karenge???”.
* Well that was a tough question for him to answer and the fact that we’re laughing our hearts out to that question, made it worse.
* Had a big discussion about that pimp, since most of us met a pimp for the first time!! Many ideas started budding up in our hazy and lost minds as we’re walking all the way to Panjim market.
* That was a Saturday night and the Market looked not much alive.
* As far as I remember, there was goddamed Cricket matched going on between India and some other damned country.
* Went to a church standing tall in the market, which I think every visitor goes to and clicked some snaps; one of which my current profile picture in Orkut!!
* Had dinner in Bar+Restaurant.
* Reached Miramar beach somewhere near 10.00 PM and found many couples coming out from the darkest areas of the beach!! Probably playing some kind of dirty games. No idea. U go and find out man!!
* We’re in hotel room in next 30 minutes and were too tired, so slept like donkeys.
Day 2 (30/09/07)
* We’re up by 9.30 in the morning. Had our breakfast and planned the entire day for North Goa.
* Took bikes on rent. One Passion, one Splendor and one Activa!! Thats all we could find after 2 hours of waiting. Filled them up.
* I’d the map with me and was the guiding star for them. So we started heading North.
* It was a fine Saturday morning and we’re cruising on nice Goan roads.
* Our first target was Sinquerim beach and then Fort Aguada.
* Sinquerim beach was a cool place. We found some crowd there. Clicked some snaps then headed towards Fort Aguada.
* I’ve no idea if that was the place where “Dil Chahta Hai” was shot at, but the place was pretty neat. The view of the sea was wonderful at some of the places. All of us became photographers there. We started clicking almost anything that was even slightly interesting and posed for snaps too. Yeah we became models for some time there!!
* While coming out of that fort we realized that all of us wanted to pee really bad. It was hot and we had lot of water on the way. And the worst thing is there no place to let go!!! Ahhhh!!! There were people all around. Ritesh was badly afected!! Anyway we did on our back in the Jungle!! Yeah, the really Indian way. On the road itself.
* The next target was Calangute beach. Yeah I know. If you’ve ever been to Goa, you must be quite excited by now.
* Calangute beach is one of the most hippiest beaches in Goa. Finished lots of Budweiser there. Had a tattoo done on my right arm. By that time my arms were pitch dark out of sun tan.
* Watched all the chick around and had lunch at Jerry’s place.
* Went up more North and reached Anjuna beach. Another hippy paradise in Goa. But we couldn’t find anything interesting there.
* So headed up more towards North and reached Vagator. It was better than Anjuna. Clicked a lot of snaps. Headed towards Baga beach after that.
* Baga was a cool place again. Its almost like Calangute. Lots of beach side shacks can be found there. Beer was everywhere. I could find a lot Firangi’s reading books over beer!!
* Spent our entire evening at Baga beach. Returned back to Calangute beach by 8.00 PM.
* Spent some time at Calangute again and went back to Panjim market and treated ourselves with a pure vegetarian Goan Thali. But believe me that “Solkadi” tasted awful.
* Were back in room right after.
Day 3 (01/10/2007)
* We’d planned this day for South Goa. But it was a bad day. Everything was a mess on this day. We headed towards South thinking about Palolem beach.
* Palolem, which was more than 50 KMs form Miramar was quite far place to reach. Still we headed towards south. Reached Margao somehow.
* We were stopped by police which fortunately was just a routine check.
* Found ourselves in a big traffic jam in Margao. Were very hungry but had a very bad breakfast that morning.
* After all these mess ups none of us were in a mood to see Palolem beach. We started thinking about Norht again. North Goa had really impressed us. We’re forced to turn or bikes NORTH.
* North was calling us bigtime. We’re ready take the pain to go.
* We traveled all the way to Arambol beach which was I think more than 70 KMs form Margao. But we made it and it was worth it.
* It was the most beautiful beach we saw in Goa. All of us jumped in to the see. It washed off all the pain from such a long travel on such shitty bikes. Clicked a lot of snaps while in the sea.
* All of again became beach photographers and models. Check out some of the snaps!!! They are hotttt..
* Headed back to Panjim market again. Had a Punjabi thali dinner this time.
* Haunted the market for wine, as the very next day was Bapu’s B’Day and unfortunately its a dry day.
* Went into fairly good looking wine shop and shopped for some good Goan Port wine and whites too.
* We were all too tired from biking, so it was time to sleep.
Day 4 (02/10/07)
* We’d no plans for this day. But we’re checking out from the hotel and we returned our bikes. So had no options.
* Asked the proprietor of the hotel for advice. And booked a taxi to visit Donna paula and Old Goa.
* Donna Paula was good. But that day was especially humid and we were sweating a lot.
* Next was Basilica of BOM Jesus. It has a huge altar. Its beautiful. Believe me. I was almost lost clicking snaps inside it. Then one more church and museum. The architecture so wonderful, that you cannot stop yourself from clicking snaps.
* It was awesome. Then we visited 2 temples and had lunch.
* Then it was time for a final visit to Calangute for the last time. Had another tattoo done on my left hand. It was a Batman this time.
* Headed back to catch the bus back to BLR. The thought of it was itself depressing, but had come back anyway.
Finally forgive me for spelling mistakes if any and wait for another post on Do’s and Dont’s. Go Goa!!
I just don’t know why I get late in posting things. I’ve no idea. I think laziness or may be moodiness. Now I’ve got the mood after drinking a couple of beers and breezers. That too at 1.00 AM in the morning! Anyway this post is about Pondicherry, which I’d visited a couple of weeks back. This time it was me and Chirag. Till Friday evening there was no booking done. When we called up the travel agents found that nothing was left for Friday. So had to do it on Saturday, which also had dependency on availability of tickets. But didn’t want to waste the weekend when we’d a plan. So booked the tickets immediately for Saturday and reached Pondicherry by 5 AM on a Sunday morning. Bus journey was painful in that Non AC bus. Chirag had a lot of complaints about mosquito bytes. The time we got down from the bus several auto wallahs started following us. All of them promised us to take to a good hotel. But don’t believe them. They’re all wolves in sheep’s skin. All big time bastards. One of them robbed us of Rs. 40 for only 1.5 KMs. And got us into a dirty guest house. Since it was around 5.30 AM, we took a little rest. Headed out to discover Pondicherry around 8.00 AM. Had our breakfast. Nothing special. Typical South India breakfast. Dosa and Idly vada. I wonder sometimes how do the South Indians get all the necessary nutrition from such food. We’re told in Bangalore that, bikes are easily available. Quite untrue. Don’t go by such advice. We found a Pulsar only after wandering 1.5 hrs in the market. Anyone you ask would tell you to go “Straightaaaa..”. They don’t say “straight” as its normally said. But they say stretch the last ‘a’ to make it sound like ‘aaaaaa’. Straightaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……….. Ok okay. Finally we found a old Pulsar, but was quite fit for the need for the moment. So took it for a rent of Rs. 150 and fed it with 2.5 ltrs of petrol, which was enough for Pondicherry. Must confess here, there nothing much to see in Pondicherry except for European/French architecture. That was when I realized that one should read blogs before making a plan for such trips. And thats the reason probably I’m posting this. My first advice would be, don’t go to Pondicherry for its beaches. One was dirty and meant for fishing and another was entirely laid with stones. So beaches are just for a lazy stroll. Spend some time in the French colony. Its worth spending some time at. European architecture can be found every where. Of course Tamil is the default language in the area, every street name is written in English and French too. Not a problem for foreigners and the other Indians also. We went into the Aurobindo ashram. Quite serene place. One more thing people in Pondicherry are very nice. At least thats what we noticed in the whole day that we’d spent there. Roads sometime suffer from traffic jam but road rage was absent. Everyone seemed quite happy and cheerful. No tension at all. And chicks!!! My god…. I’m an atheist. But they’ll force you to believe in God. But I still maintain that I’m an atheist. But chicksssss………. I saw one girl I don’t think I can forget her face ever. She was a goddess man!!! Chirag and I though, its worth taking a snap. But one thing I forgot. Turning off the FLASH. Fuck man. Chirag slowed down the bike and clicked the button. And suddenly what happened was a bright light got fired from my Canon hand canon and everyone was looking at us. Quite embarrassing. Huh.. Couldn’t really help it. Forget it man. We had to push the bike to its limit after that accident!!! Lol. Hadn’t booked the return ticket. When we’d discovered that there was nothing much to discover in Pondicherry, It was time we did it. We booked our ticket online at a cyber cafe on the same Sunday evening. Liquor is dirt cheap in Pondicherry. Thanks to the no tax rule there. Liquor shops can in fact be found at every 100mtrs. It surprisingly cheap. I don’t know about prices in Goa, where I’m going at the end of September!!!! Yippiieeee.. Thikin of buying a Goa T-shirt form Tantra or Offbeat. Chirag bought a 2ltr jar of whiskey bottle. I bought a small bottle of red port wine and a big bottle of white port wine. Both of them turned out to be very good. Ended the day with diner and went back to our shitty guest house. In the morning headed off for bus. When we showed our printed E-ticket in the KSRTC counter the lady there couldn’t believe her eyes that it was a real ticket. Anyway thanks to KSRTC the driver recognized the ticket. Got into our “Airabath” AC bus. Reached Bangalore somewhere around 3.30 PM. Visit to Pondicherry is good for one day only. Don’t plan a stay lasting more than one day. You’ll probably run out of places to see there..
Snaps : http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegdevil/tags/pondicherry/
Landed in Bangalore last Monday evening. 11 days of long vacation at my native place. I guess a bit rare in IT services industry. 65 unread mails in the client mailbox and 150+ in the official one. Had to clean em up. No excuses. Laziness is evil! Hard work for three days. Today sick leave just don’t wanna go to office. Or may be just to post this. Ate home cooked food and prasad from Iscon temple almost like a pig. Went to college on a holiday; Just to recollect where we used to sit and what we used to do.. Sikhar Chandi.. A small trip down the memory lane. Met some old friends. Clicked a lot of snaps. Brought sweets to the “no sweet” land. Mission accomplished.
Snaps : wwww.flickr.com/photos/vegdevil
After a long depressing period of 9 months, I’m going home again. 12th July is the day that I’m waiting for. For 11 day I’ll be eating home cooked food and lots of sweet, which seems to virtually non-exsistent in the South. And the sweet that can be found here, is next to impossible to eat. Rasgoollas almost feel like rubber here. Gulab Jamoon stinks. They just have the names. Now going for the real taste for few days. Ohh, Shit this is again some kind of a travel blog!!
As usual Air Deccan has fucked up. My flights just got rescheduled from morning 7.30 AM to evening 8.35 PM. Can you beleive it. But this happens only in India. So next time if ever, no more Air Deccan. Bastards!! I’m not a big homesick fellow. But anyway the thought of going home is somehow keeping me in a good mood. Not caring about office work anymore. In just couple of days I’ll turn on my ugly “Out of Office assistant” in Outlook. That’d be the happiest momment. No more worries about the goddamned mails from the clients. At least for 11 days.
I wasn’t posting anythign untill today. But as I’ll have to start preaparing for the trip ahead, I’ve just posted two posts below; which I should have posted long time back. Hehehe… Anyway again blogging after a long time. Feels good!! Hope I’ll blog on time in the coming days..
Gosh!! My blog is almost becoming a travel blog. This is my third continuous post wherein I’m blogging about some sort of travel again. I think I should use some specialized travel blog site, instead of WordPress. Wot say guys?
Now coming straight down to the point, Let me tell you, KP stands for Kumar Parvat, the highest peak in Karnataka, in the Western Ghats. Just wanted some kind of trek before the monsoon sets in. This time three relatively inexperienced trekkers, including me, started planning for the KP trek. We’d no idea about the weather condition there. As usual Chirag started collecting all possible information, including stuffs about leeches. From the beginning itself we started having lots of issues. We didn’t have raincoats. Just had enough food for and sports drink and one jacket each.
Our plan was something like this. We’d travel from Bangalore to a place called “Gundya” which is on the way to Mangalore. From Gundya we’d planned to take a bus to Kukke from where the trail of the trek starts. We stuck to our plan. Had a tough time finding a bus from Bangalore to Gundya. The ones we found were already packed, as it was a Friday night. Finally found a private bus. A congested one and not so comfortable one. 380 Km journey. No push back seats. Nothing! Reached gundya 6.00 AM in next morning. Saturday. It was raining there and we’re fucked up. Gundya is nothing but a small place with one police check post and two shops. We discovered that we’re even more fucked up, when we started asking around for direction to Kukke. The road that connected Gundya to Kukke was closed for some kind of construction work. No heavy vehicles were allowed except for auto rickshaws. Found an auto rickshaw almost at around 8.00 AM, who agreed to take us to Kukke 22 KMs from there for a sum of 300 bucks. We reached the place we wanted to. Small, clean and nice village. The famous Kukke Subramanium Swamy temple is there. Hard to believe but food is free there. We’d breakfast at a nice looking restaurant there. Finished our chores. Rahul and Chirag went ahead to visit the Subranium Swamy temple. Being an atheist to the core, waited for them outside the temple.
We started our trek at 9.00 AM. The rain had stopped, but it was muddy all around. We could see the majestic Kumar Parvet from the village street. Lush green dense forest from the bottom to the top. On the top, it looked like some kind of golf course. We couldn’t stop ourselves. Clicked pictures like maniacs. Now it was time for us to get started on our mission. We walked almost more than 2 KMs on a muddy track to reach the trail. The entrance to the trail looked scary. It was dense forest, drenched with rainwater. The trail was looking muddy. We could found something written on a board there in Kannada, which of course non of us could read; later found out that it was warning for bears inside the forest from two other guys from Hyderabad. We started trekking. We found scorpions of virtually all colors. After a while we started spotting leeches. By the time we’d already trekked 1.5 KMs we started to find more and more leeches. I also noticed some crawling up my shoe. We stopped immediately and wound scotch tapes over the bottom of our pants. But nothing could stop the leeches. Fucking blood suckerz. After walking a bit more into the woods I could feel those ugly fucking creatures entering my skin. And I was correct actually. I found almost 7 to 10 leeches on each of my feet. Same was the case with Rahul and Chirag. We started removing them. But, by the time we could remove one; two more were crawling up on us. The situation was completely uncontrollable. The decision of abandoning the trek had to be taken. Finally I gave up and told them that I was going back. They’re bit shocked but started climbing down with me as they also didn’t have much choice. It’d also started raining by then. We just rushed down the hill collecting even more leeches. We reached the bottom; the only thing that was there on all of our minds was to remove those blood suckerz. We almost got naked under a tree. A couple of leeches were entering my skin making a hole in my socks. The rest were just crawling on my socks and shoes. It was a horrible condition. All of us were busy removing them. After we’re done we came back to the village to book a guesthouse and our return ticket to Bangalore on the same day. Actually we’d received wrong information about the place. We’re told that it would be almost barren land till 30% to the top. We’re also told that there would be no leeches till the peak of monsoon. But what we saw was completely the opposite. We’d just increased the attrition rate of that particular trek, but were happy that we didn’t have any more leeches. Fuck man!! I’d a long shower in the bathroom while Rahul was busy cleaning his wounds from the leeches. He was bleeding profusely but somehow the bleeding stopped after some time. We’d our MTR packets and bread for lunch.
We still had the entire afternoon and evening to spend there. We started off to see the river Kumardhara. Not a very famous river. Not worth visiting, but had nothing much to do. Chirag was almost stoned and started dancing in the river. Had good time there. Shot some videos and snaps of him doing all sorts of crazy things. Came back into the village. Strolled along the streets. Clicked some snaps, which are being listed by some of the most interesting snaps from KP by Flickr. Feels good to hear it. Hahahehehehee.. Checked out some of the shops around, but found nothing worthy of buying. It was drizzling a bit. Had evening snacks cum dinner. Went back into the hotel room. Got freshen up a bit and started packing things up. Had to catch the bus at 9.00 PM in the night. Checked out from the Hotel at 8.15 PM. Reached bus stop. It was still drizzling and I could still feel those leeches crawling up my skin!! Not a very good experience indeed. The bus started cruising through dense forest. All three of us slept off. When we woke up it was 6.00 AM, Sunday, in Bangalore. Got back home, safely!!
Snaps : http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegdevil/tags/kumarparvat/
This hapened in the month of May. May 25th – 27th 07 to be exact. More than one year in Bangalore, but was yet to visit one of the most famous places in Karnataka. Found 3 more willing souls. One Hired Indicab, with a known driver. One HP camera with very less battery life and two cell phone cameras. That was all we’d to capture some memories. But the only thing that materred then was to see those places.
The most adventurous time we’d was in the Bandipore national park; the dense forest on the way to Ooty. We saw almost every wild animals except elephant. Herds of Deers, Bisons, Hares, a wild Boar and finally, believe it or not, a Tiger. The hair-pin bends were scary. Soon after reaching Ooty we discovered that it was almost chilling over there inspite of the fact that it was peak of summer. And the hotels were damn expensive. Somehow we manged to find a place for our heads for 800 bucks a night. We checked in. The room was dirty and damp. But we’d nothing much to do in there. Had our breakfast and a couple of shots. Headed to St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Went in and clicked some snaps. The second to visit was the boating lake. Dirty water but still Chirag and Sanyasi decided to go in. Pawan and I just walked around and out of sheer boredom had our lunch in a newly opened Panjabi dhaba opposite to the lake. It was time for the 3rd place. Rose garden and the annual flower festival. The flower festival is held ones in every one year and goes on for one week. We’re lucku enough to visit it during the right time but got unlucky because of the rain. But still had a glance quickly. Botanical garden was the 4th place in our list. Its almost a small forest; but beautiful place to spend your afternoon at. Then came the last but the most woderful thing in our list of places to visit. Dodabetta Peak. Its the highest peak in South India if i remember correctly. My Hutch phone was still showing strong signals. I called up my Mom just to see if it was working!! LOL.. Views from the peak was awesome. See the snaps for your satisfaction. While coming down visited the highest elevated tea factory in India. or at least the board there says so! A small one actually. Came back to our small and cheap hotel room. Sanyasi stay in; we three headed out to have a walk along the narrow and busy streets of Ooty. Many antiques and jwellary shops. Clicked some snaps secretly inspite of being warned against it! Had a nice Gujju meal for dinner. Done for the day, tired and soar muscles; the fairy of sleep blessed us with her wand.
Next day! Sunday morning. 6.00 AM. I could feel as if it was kind of typical December morning in my native place; Bhubaneswar. Checked out from the Hotel. Headed for Coonoor. Coonoor is nice place. The toy train looks amazing from a distance. We started off with a very good South Indian breakfast. The tea gardens were beautifully green. They were refreshing to look at. Thought I hate tea, I ended up tasting four different verieties of tea. Finally bought 1.5 KG of three different packet for home, worth Rs. 500!! Phew!! Second place in our list was SIMS park. Just a park, nothign much to see inside. I’d recommend not to waste time visiting it. The no. 3, Lambs Rock is the most amazing place in Coonoor. Clicked many snaps of the landscapes visible from it. Did a small trek there, but on a beautfully paved way. had to visit Mysore. Headed backwards. Visited a South Indian temple on the way to Mysore, on the bank of the controversial river Cauvery.
Reached Mysore at almost 5.30 PM. Didn’t have much choices. Everything in Mysore almost clsoing for the day. Started off with the mysore place. Closed for the day. Frustration started to rise. Went on to visit the majestic St. Josheph’s Cathedral. People were praying inside to their mighty god. Nice place. Next thing in our mind was the much talked about place; Brundavan Garden and the Musical fountain in there. The worst place that I’ve ever visited. The water was stiking. The musical fountain was nothing but a joke. Infact we thought of using all kind of bad words while bloggin about it. Some one gave us the idea of translating the whole into all the different languages so tha people can know the truth about the Mysore. But somehow I refrained myself from doing it. But trust me, Mysore is not worth all the hype that it gets.
It was time to come back to Bangalore. 10 PM in the night. The cab cruised along the Bangalore – Mysore highway at a speed of 110 KMPH. Had a good dinner at a dhaba on the highway. Reached home 1.00 AM early morning. But will never forget one thing. In those two days whoever we asked the way to some where, we invariably got the same answer; “Straightaaaaaa….” in a jolly South Indian accent. We still joke about it!!
Watched the movie “A Walk To Remember” for the 6th time. And as I’m writing this blog, I’m listening to “I Wanna Be You” by Mandy Moore. I really don’t know whats going on. But thats not the point anyway. Writing this post after a long time. So much to blog about, so little time. Or may be bad time management!! Hey I’m getting carried away by something unusual. Many good things have happened to me over a period of last two months. April and May to be specific. Finally shifted to a rented apartment after a long depressing stay at a PG (Paying Guest) accommodation on 1st April. Learned to how to peel a potato and chop an onion. I’m cooking my own breakfast, sometimes lunch and dinner also. Okay okay. I must confess instant food. But that has to be cooked. Right? Phew!! We’ve got a big 29” TV to watch, maid does all the cleaning stuff. Happy life. I’ve no intention to recollect what Tyler Durden said in Fight Club. But the best things that have happened are a trip to Hyderbad and my first organized trek. Must tell u about these two things.
The trip to Hyderabad will be hard to forget for a time to come. I mean, after leaving college I’d never thought that I would meet the same group of friends whom I used to hang out with. Our Handigada gang. I and another friend from the same old gang, we headed out from Bangalore to visit this old city on one Friday evening. We reached there around 7 Am in the morning. Amrit had come to welcome us as if we’re sultans of some kind, up from his deep slumber. Eyes still red, he couldn’t recognize me at first glance. What the #$#*. What’s this. This is what his reaction was, after seeing my long locks which I don’t have anymore. After a nice breakfast cooked by him, we headed out to visit Birla temple. It’s a beautiful temple, though I still maintain that I’m an atheist. Had enough time in hand so went off to visit the Imax theater. We actually had no intention to watch any movie. But somehow the idea of watching a movie stuck our minds and set out to watch the most violent movie ever, that too in Imax. Violence so horrific, so real u feel like its being done to u. What a movie that was. Apcalypto. By Mel Gibson. From there on a pearl quest we started thinking what to do. Had a very good lunch. And here for your information waiters, shopkeepers and auto-rickshaw drivers in Hyderabad are much courteous than their Bangalorean counterparts, who have a very damn care attitude. One friendly chat with a auto rickshaw wallah can actually reveal a lot of inner information!! At least I got to know what HUDA means. Hyderabad Urban Development Authority!! And its actually is a developed city. Almost every where one can see those green boards saying “Toilet, just 5 mins away”! The Hyderabad Central, what I felt is just a clone of the Forum in Bangalore. Same stores with big brand names. A baby PVR cinema hall is also there. No movie this time!! Sarangi, rode a Video game bike and we clicked snaps of him. It was all like becoming kids again. And that evening, the walk along the Hussein Sagar lake was simply the best part of the day, though I was very much tired. We had ice creams at Eat Street, and literally speaking we ate like pigs. Saw some couples kissing there, very unusual in India but quite usual for us Hollywood movie buffs. Hehehehee. Dinner was cooked by the biggest Handigadaa, our good old Munna Bhai. Well, thats what we call Jyoti. Next morning what was about to come is the most exhilarating part of Hyderabad. Ramoji Film City. Without which the Hyderabad trip would have been incomplete. Its hard to describe it in words. U have to go there and see, whats in it, though I’ve forgotten the physical dimensions of it can faintly recollect the guide saying that it’s been created with an huge investment of Rs. 4500 Cr. Mr. Ramoji is the god in there. They showed us how movies are actually made. The stunt show was simply great. Food was also good. The best part was Eureka, the guided 45 minutes tour of the entire film city. The guide was speaking fluently with very good sense humor. Showed us how a single building can be used as Airport, Jail, Hospital and a Railway station. Yes, thats true. There were a lot of fun rides too. All free except for the food. After the guided tour we didn’t have much energy to explore more of it. We headed out. It was almost time to part again. Get back to work again. Was time to come back to Bangalore again. But anyway u can’t just have fun always. Had to depart from the Handigadaa gang again. Again Amrit, the skinhead friend of mine came to see us off. He actually did much more that just seeing us off. As someone has said, no need to be thankful to real friends. Well, only looking forward to their visit to Bangalore.
Huh. Now is the time for the second best thing that has happened this Month. The trek to Gokarna, in the search of the Arabian sea and its virgin beaches. This time it was my Mallu tech lead Vishnu, his friend from Delhi and good old Sarangi. We started from Majestic bus stop from Bangalore on a Friday night. No reservations made. Fortunately found the four seats on the last row. With all those bad patches of road and shock enhancers fitted in the bus, the journey was not a very pleasant one but we were warned of it by Vishnu before. And of course it was a trek so no complains here. A little bit pain is actually good. It teaches a lot of things. So we reached our destination Gokarna at around 9.20 AM. And just for sake of the ignorant, Gokarna is located on the north west of Karnataka only 150 Kms away from Goa and 480 Kms from Bangalore. We started our trek right away from the bus stop, though we’re offered a ride by an auto-rickshaw wallah, of course for money! The nearest accessible beach to humans is 9 Kms away from Gokarna bust stop by road. We took the road. But in the mid way this idea of taking a different shortcut path stuck to our one of ours mind. We started walking off road on patches of rocks and bushes only to get lost, then again had to return to the same road which we had left. We just walked. Talked a lot pf crap. And Delhi guy, Shantanu finally got a name for us. FLA. I don’t want to expand it here. Drop me a line if u really care to know. And finally the moment came, the sight of the Arabian sea. Green, clear water. The first beach that is visible is the Kudle beach. A private but beautiful beach. One can take a right turn there to Kudle beach or left turn to the most famous Om beach. We headed towards Om beach. Restaurants can be found there and a lot of Firangis too. Particularly on that day it was pretty crowded as the entire channel V crew had come down to shoot some kind crappy videos. No need to mention here that the VJs from channel V are the ugliest. We found KFs there. Good thing thing to cool us off. We had our breakfast there in a semi-Indian restaurant. The hard part was just about to come. 4 hills to cross. 1 of them was really big. You can check in the snaps. The sea shore was looking awesome from top of the mountain. No human being around. After crossing all 4 of them and some small unnamed beaches in between we reached the Paradise beach. A small and not so beautiful beach. We found an Indian Family and Italian man living there. No idea how they live there. Its so remote. All of them were very nice to us. We’d run out of water but filled in from their well. Dirty, but we finally found water to drink. One thing for sure, I learnt the value of water. Its precious. Clean water is a luxury. We had our lunch there. Nothing but some bread and processed food packets. Just filled our tummies. Sarangi had a nice sun bath and rest three of us rested for the afternoon. Our next target Kagal beach. To reach that place the only way out is a motor boat. You have to cross the sea. And that was the basis of its appeal. Riding the motor boat was a unique experience. The sea was a little violent almost throwing the motor boat into the air. But somehow we reached our target of the day. Kagal beach. 7 Kms long crescent shaped beach form one end to the other. We started walking again. We walked. Clicked some weird snaps. Almost looking like some kind of wallpapers from some websites. Vishnu was busy testing his photography skills. Sepia tone! Grey scale. Phew! He calls it creative photography. Ask him about it. And finally when we’d reached almost some where middle of the beach, the sun was just about to set. So no more walking. We stopped there. Had our dinner; A bit early though. All 3 of them went for a skinny dip. I didn’t. In fact the entire day I didn’t go into the sea. Got no idea about swimming. But it had to come. I had to go in at some point of time. We had whiskey there, except for Sarangi who is a tetotaller. Talked about the whole day trek. And that night is the most memorable night of my life. We slept on the sea beach. Pure sand from the beach beneath us. On one hand forest and hills. And on the other the Arabian sea. I couldn’t get much sleep. But thats the best night ever. Next day morning we took off for a village nearby from where we’d get bus. So two more hills. One tough, the other not that tough. Found a dead dolphin towards the end of Kagal beach. Clicked snaps of it like maniacs. Had our breakfast on top of the last hill. The village was visible from there. Now the was for bath again. This time I didn’t wanna miss it. I went in, not much inside, but I had a good bath. Still not sure what was the name of that village, neither the sea beach there! Got a bus from there to another village (A bit advanced one with a proper bus stop), named Kumta. What a name. But anyway, what’s in a name? Had South Indian meals there and boarded a bus to Simoga. Another place. Reached Simoga somewhere around 8.30 PM. Again had south Indian meals for dinner. Boarded a govt bus to Bangalore, which eventually got a flat tire at a ghostly hour of 1 AM in the morning. But fortunately found another bus on the road to Bangalore and reached Bangalore at 4.30 in the Morning. And just for the sake of a little bit more adventure took a BMTC town bus to BTM Layout. Huh. Finally home! Tired. Soar muscles. Got only 3 hrs of sleep and it was time for office again.
Two months. More than 2000 Kms of travel. Many means of travel. Many good experiences. But already a bloated post. So don’t want to add to its size. Besides I’ve got some plans for this weekend. Thats for the next post.
Check out some snaps here.
