What’s the plan???

Hogenekkal, Wayanad, Skandagiri, Yana, Thalakaad ….After 5 successful trips, we were all geared up for the next…11 people, Myself, Sangita, Shylaja, Nidhi, Trishna, Prashant, Lawerence, Hari, Kumar[:) :)], Amit (Prashant’s colleague) and Monty(my colleague) set out on our journey to one of Karnataka’s most famous place in the Western Ghats … “Agumbe” in our very own Raghu’s TT :-)

Wait… it was not all that easy…The day before the trip, Prashant, Sangita and I had an hour long conference call which was basically for deciding the schedule for trip but had more of argument as to why we should go to someshwar … :-) And as the end result of that really long conference call, yet again the plan as to where to go on Saturday and where on Sunday was not freezed, even after we started or journey…

Apart from this being my first trip with Kumz, I can’t decide what other factors contributed most for my excitement for this trip… break from the hectic work schedule or the idea of adventure… I sure could not concentrate on anything else that entire week…

Rain Gods were also part of this trip and never made us feel left out!!!! It played the key role in the change of so called plan to go to Agumbe first and then to Sringeri to the other way round… this was one of those plans which were not approved of during the conference call but as we all know here, “We propose and rains dispose!!!”

After a brief break, few of us decided to visit the temple in Sringeri whereas rest of them decided to go there on the way back to Bangalore. Though I am not a believer in idol worship, I feel theSringeri Temple is undoubtedly one of the best architected temples in Karnataka with a very beautiful idol of Godess Sharadamba…

Time for breakfast…. And guess wat!! We had a plan for this too…We had hot n delicious homemade idlis (reheated in rice cooker) ... Wondering where we could reheat? Of course….we had carried food n rice cooker along...thanks to Prashant and Sangita for this [:-)]

As per the changed plan, we resumed our journey to Agumbe, for which all of us were eagerly waiting for.... We had rented out rooms at Mallya Residency (I’m sure it doesn’t have to do anything with UB Group ;D), only hotel in that small village....

We headed towards Hebri looking for Nisargadhama or Sitanadi Nature Camp... Nisargadhama, very true to its name is a well maintained camp area amidst the nature and on the banks of the wild waters of Sita River flowing on the rocks and amidst the greenery of Western Ghats… Sounds interesting right? What could be more interesting and adventerous, is the River rafting in that wild waters!!! Exactly! That was the adventure part of the trip…

We waited at the Nisargadhama till the rafts and the instructors returned from the water who had taken another group of people…We took out the camera and clicked pictures of anything and everything around and for some music, we poured our music requests to the official singer of the trip Ms. Nidhi Udupa who was kind enough not to get irritated by our non stop requests and gave us the pleasure of enjoying the wonderful voice and soothing songs with the perfect background... the nature… the sound of the water flowing in the river, birds chirping once in a while and our own koel (Nidhi) singing classic songs ... What more could one ask for!!!

The only thing that could and did get us out of that heaven of music was the arrival of the rafts and the instructors… The instructors were, soon back on job… We were made to sign on a sheet of papers which as usual said, they are not responsible for our lives… Though hardly any one of us knew swimming, we did not hesitate to sign out our lives on that piece of paper!!! Hehe… Then began the instructions which introduced us to the terms used while rafting… like “All Forward”, “All back”, “left forward” etc… and it was time for the instructions which really freaked me out… the ones which we were supposed to follow when something out of control happens!!! Scary that was!! b What the heck… after all I have come so far … now I was all set to break the fear of that childhood experience of almost drowning… The safety instructions were something that was heard to most attentively… never in school or college have I heard to anything with so much attention!!!

Soon we all got into our rafts and were all set to raft in the rapids of Sita river…Myself, Kumar, Monty, Trishna, Nidhi, Amit and our friendly instructor in one raft… Sangita, Prashant, Lawerence, Shylaja and Hari in the other with of course with some one special whom Prashant met over there…

We all religiously and with a slight fear initially (at least I... don’t know about others) followed the instructions given by our respective instructors in the raft and rowed past few small rapids … soon we came across our first huge rapid which gave us the taste of the wild waters… it was amazing to feel that you are taming the wild waters to go past those rapids and whirlpools in a river which is flowing with a fury on the rocks and amidst the bushes on just a air filled plastic raft with a pair of paddles with each one of us… It really gets the adrenaline rush in the body… In simple words, it was truly amazing and out of the world experience!!!

Our instructor did everything to make us comfortable in the water… he insisted on nidhi to be a non stop radio in our raft after he heard her sing once… he wanted us to get the taste of all the fun one can have in water… he made us all stand up and balance on the raft which didn’t happen for long and all except nidhi n myself landed in the waters at the end of that game… he so wanted to overturn the raft so that we get to experience the other extreme of the rafting experience but I was against it…. We were made to float in water where there was no rapids..

On the other raft, though the instructor (kallu) was not adventurous enough, the people in the raft were… we had sangita and shylaja who kept jumping into the river to float every now and then… sangita in fact lost in contact with the raft and kept floating away along the river till their raft went for rescue… on the other hand, Hari’s paddle some how got the tired of him and took its own course in the river which they finally managed to get it back… When we finished our half way of the 25km stretch, we took a brief break near a bridge and Monty shifted to the other raft from where he and hari were thrown out of of the raft during one of those fierce rapids… It was truly an adventurous and thrilling experience…

After the rafting, we were not let go easily... we were made to carry the raft which was definitely a lot heavier than what we had imagined it to be… adding on to it, most of us didn’t have footwear and had to carry that heavy raft on rocky path which was one hell of acupressure experience!!!

It was almost dinner time by the time we got back to our hotel… For dinner we had rice and chapatti which was a treat after all the tiredness we had taking back from the rafting…We did play a game of cards to end the day till the power forced us to hit the bed… The cards game was a serious one till shylaja joined the game… hehe

The next morning was a cloudy, drizzly morning which started with a leachy welcome… Lawerence and hari got the first bite from leach… It was just a beginning of one long leachy day as we started the leachy trekking as termed by Trishna…we had planned to trek down till the Bharkana falls… we took a local guide along to show us the way.. We got a chance to see how dense the forest there was…

The trek started off from a small stream, then through those small bushes and making through the tall trees getting denser by the mile… As there were a lot of leaches all through the way, we had to keep rushing to keep them away from us or stop every now and then to sprinkle salt on them to get rid of them and some of them were busy taking pictures…cos of all this, the group split into two and half of us followed the guide to the falls but the rest of them were left behind … We reached the place from where we should have seen the falls but it was so misty and was raining so much that we found it really hard to spot the falls… After waiting for a while the clouds managed to clear the view just enough to catch the glimpse of the falls…

Even after a long time, the other group hadn’t caught up with us.. we got worried and headed back to the place where we started and just half way we heard voices and realized it was the rest of them who were lost…Finally we all met and got back to the TT and headed to the next falls.. This time around, we could get into the water… All of us were really obsessed with the leach bites and became paranoid of it too…All those leachy feeling vanished after we got on to the roof of the TT and had a roller coaster ride sitting on the roof…It was truly an awesome ride as it was raining and we were going through the narrow roads with trees everywhere, instructing each other in the rafting instructions like “left bend”, “right bend”, “All bend” … it is one of the best rides I have had so far in my life!!!

Since our hotel was situated right opposite to the police station, we couldn’t have had the roof top ride till the hotel… so we got off the roof and Raghu was not ready to let us in to the TT as we were all wet… so we decided to walk for about a kilometer in the rain on the lonely streets of the small village with greenery all around …May be… if I give a li’l try, it might just bring out a poet in me if I try to recall how beautiful the whole place and climate was…hehe..

We were almost reaching the end of the trip before which we had nice snacks at hotel and left to Someshwar… From there we headed to the Sringeri temple where we had our dinner after the darshan (for some of us it was the other way around…) Then began our journey back to Bangalore from a wonderful trip yet again!!!

Thanks to all of those who made it for the trip and made it wonderful…:-) Personally I had a very nice time for the reasons of my own!! :). I couldnt avoid this narration from being long... thanks for having the patience to read it till the end only if u did !! :)

For those of u who are wondering y this is named "Whats the plan".... Its one question which was for some odd reason asked to sangita everytime any one had to speak any thing to her all through the trip and believ me.. she never gave up getting irritated with it!!! "Whats the plan sangita??"

Another memorable day in my life :-)

Yeah, by now all of you must have realized that I’m crazy about taking pictures… now its time for some writing again....

For decently long time, we were planning to make this day, July 19th a memorable one... but were short of ideas and even if we had any, they were all messed up even before they materialized :( ! One of those was to go on a night trek to this place called “Skandagiri” which my well wishers advised against as it wasn’t that safe for just two of us to try out. Then finally struck an adventurous idea of Microlight flying and Parasailing… After a couple of hours of googling and phone calls, finally the schedule was all set… meeting near Bharat Petroleum bunk at 11:30 on 19th July 2008 near Hoskote on the outskirts of namma bengaluru...

We (Kumar and I) started our journey later than we should have … but I was more than glad as they say “better late than never!” All through the journey on the Honda active, I thought the place was pretty close by to the “Hanging bridge” on Old Madras road… but soon realized that our journey was longer than expected..

On the way we felt that the monsoon was setting in… it looked like the hell is going to break loose and rain would pour cats and dogs… I kept wondering if all the steps taken to make this day a wonderful day will go in vain… but we got really lucky… the dark clouds were heading towards Bangalore and we were heading against :)

We were an hour late to reach the petrol bunk… We called the instructor who gave the directions to head towards the ground/fields where we were to take up the sport… but as we headed towards the ground, the path which was more like a tank bund, got lonelier and deserted... there was only one auto parked and a couple of men were standing near it and they didn’t in the faintest looks looked like a parasail trainers… We had second thoughts on our adventure trip… we wondered if it might just get a little too adventurous than expected…We even thought we will get back and were about to leave and just then our instructor called us and said they were waiting for us and asked us to look around below beside the tank bund… We finally spotted the instructor (Along with the instructor, was his wife, son and his assistant) and thought we well can just give a try… and good we didn’t get back… otherwise we would have sure missed some memorable moments…

As we got down the tank bund and reached the ground/ fields, I realized that I had met that instructor earlier…but as usual my memory just gave me only half the hint :(

They set up the harness and the canopy for the take off while I tried recalling where I had met the instructor. It was much later when he said he has seen me earlier, I asked if he was a trainer for a college parasailing batch way back in 2001… bingo! It was the same instructor who had taught his parasailing (training) during college days at Jakkur. He remembered a couple of our batch guys and there you go ... we started feeling much better and at home..

As the instructor insisted the lighter one should go first as it is risky for the lighter one to stay in air if it starts raining with heavy winds, the obvious choice was me… As I was all getting set to launched in air, Kumar was busy taking pictures… Once all set, as the jeep moved, I started taking off in air and it was such an ecstatic feeling…. It got back to me all those memories of my earlier stunt with this adventure sport which I had during my college days... I went up to a good height and had a beautiful view of the place around from such a high altitude… it was an out of the world experience!!

Next it was Kumar’s turn… it has always been his passion to fly and this was one of those closer to flying experience he could get…He enjoyed it truly like he was flying and I’m glad he did … Would not be fair to write as to how he felt as I feel he should be writing it himself in his blog some day..... for now i will add a movie he took which would explain how he felt...

On the way back from his landing to the starting point he had already negotiated with the instructor for the second round… we went for a second launch which was even better as we felt like experts from our first launch..hehe… As it looked to rain, the winds got wilder and it let us go higher… luckily it didn’t rain till we finished… We had a wonderful flying experience… it was truly memorable….. :-)

For those of you who would like to try, here are the details:

Parasailing is conducted almost near hoskote, Old Madras Road.. about 10 kms from the hanging bridge... You can contact Mr. Neeraj (Instructor) on 9886797597. He has expertise on Microlight flying and also other adventure sports. For more details: http://www.careindia.in/

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Photography Experiments

Wayanad-God’s Own Country

Phew! It has been such a long and tough battle with my lethargy to start blogging… Finally, after a month of paid joblessness, I emerge as the winner and here comes my first blog. I am glad to start with undoubtedly one of my most memorable trips... Wayanad.

It all started with a simple conversation over lunch among a bunch of frustrated professionals… “I need a break! I am bugged with this work! Let’s plan for a trip to some place... What do you say?”

Then the discussion over phones … “which place”,“Wayanad or Coorg?”, “one day trip or more than a day?”, “should we go or not?”, “are we going or not?”, “who is joining?” and “who is not?” “When should we go?” “I will not be able to join, u guys carry on!”… This happened for almost a week until finally the “D” day arrived …

Day 1: Late evening on 27th July 2007

Scene 1: Seven people waiting at different parts of Bangalore, cursing one guy for his “punctuality”! It was a near endless wait for Prashant, the organizer, to arrive with the tempo traveler. Though this time he was late only by an hour and beacuse of Shylaja , but even longer waits for him and the vehicle has now become a routine before any trip we plan to go together! All thanks to Prashant!!!

Gang of Eight (GOE) - Sriram (Photographer and Guide), Prashant (Organizer and Singer), Shylaja (Ms. Chatter Box), Surajit (Mr. Silent), Sangeetha (Photographer), myself (photographer, another chatter box!), Hari (Entertainer and Co-Organizer as claimed by himself), Lawrence (Mr. Punctual) and not to forget our driver Raghu, with amazing sense of humor, exhibiting his skills at the wheel, started our journey in a tempo traveler… “Where to” was still a million dollar question, till we reached Mysore!!! That’s precisely where we decided our destination and took the road leading to this wonderful place called Wayanad in God’s Own Country, Kerala.

Wayanad: Wayanad is one of the districts in Kerala that have been able to retain its pristine nature and is about 280km from Bangalore. The etymology of the word Wayanad is Vayal (paddy) Naad (land); 'Land of Paddy Fields'.

Just the way any journey with a group of friends would go, this too had a lot of fun element to it... singing songs, teasing each other, anthakshri, the never concluding argument – Girls vs Boys, etc…kept us awake through the journey. Prashant and I had a continuous chat about our terrible experiences with our Managers at office how it motivated us to try harder to move out of the organization... As expected, the conversation did not hold the interest of many for long... When they had enough it, they either switched to peeping out of the window in the dark enjoying the starry sky and dreaming or closely watching Raghu’s driving talent on road or the most natural thing- sleeping.

The journey through Bandipur forest was a little adventurous and definitely pulled back everyone’s attention as we had a treacherous encounter with a herd of elephants in the wild... One baby elephant,most certainly confused and scared, loudly trumpeting started running towards our vehicle and luckily Raghu managed to speed us away to safety...After that we hardly slept awaiting more such encounters and of course, Prashant and I got back to our incessant topic of discussion.

Day 2: 28th July 2007

We reached our base location, Kalpeta (Headquarters of Wayanad district) at around 3:45 am. It was a beautiful, dark and silent morning with a light drizzle and the rain drops glittering below the street lights As we had not made prior arrangements for our stay, we had to hunt for a hotel at that hour, with the off beam directions given by our guide,Sriram.

We walked around aimlessly on the derelict streets of Kalpeta only to find a lone open tea shop (Nair tea kadai). Lot has been talked about and made fun of in movies about these tea shops and their superfluous dedication to work. This time we got the real taste of it… Hats-off to the tea shop owner’s enthusiasm towards work... there was not a soul awake in the entire town at that wee hours but this guy was religiously preparing tea for, don’t know whom! We were undoubtedly his first customers for the day unless there was some driver from a passing truck would have stopped by to have a cup of tea that morning. All said and done, the hot cup of Cardamom tea on the lonely street, on a drizzly and frigid morning, was one of the best I have sipped so far!

Our search for a hotel ended right where we started… there was a hotel at the place where we had parked our vehicle which we had failed to spot in the dark… we had to heartlessly wake up the reception chap for the rooms. We relaxed for a while and then pushed ourselves to get ready and geared up by 9:30 am. Had our breakfast in a restaurant near by which had delicious buffet with traditional Kerala delicacies which the guys hogged on like crazy… call it more than paisa vasool!!!

The foremost thing on our itinerary (which was prepared just minutes ago) was famous Chembara Peak, which is the highest peak in Kerala. At the foothill of the mountain was the forest department office from whom we had to obtain permission and luckily managed to get it, of course with a lot of warning as it was rainy season and they feared landslides and worse. There was a slight drizzle all along but it did not prevent us from deciding to risk the trek and we soon realized that we made the unsurpassed decision.
The road to the foot hills of Chembara was a narrow trail amidst the incredible green blanket of tea. We stopped by a petite and yet beautiful falls on the point of where we had to begin our trek. Most of us were comfortable trekking except for enthusiastic Shylaja who needed a helping hand as she was a first time trekker which she enjoyed thoroughly. Our journey on foot was a breath taking experience as the rain was playing hide and seek with the clouds and mountains. We had a few guests luxuriously trekking along with no effort… the leaches, which we did manage to get rid of. Enroute to the peak, amidst the picturesque greenery, was a heart shaped lake, so beautifully crafted by nature that I prefer to call it as “Heart of God’s Own Country”.

The path took us over peaks of four mountains before we caught a glimpse of our destination (The Chembara peak). The chain of mountains along Western Ghats with foliage coverlet making up for the scenic beauty was a delight to photographers on board.

The awesome climate soon changed its colors and rain began hammering down heavily, by then only 4 trekkers had managed to reach the summit and the rest were almost there. But alas! We had to head out journey back to the foothills. This time around, Lawrence was the caretaker of Shylaja who gave tips on where to place her foot, one to right and one to left, and she followed only to have a bad fall. Seeing our sopping wet and muddy clothes, Raghu was skeptical to let us in to the vehicle but we left him with no choice!

We reached the hotel for a break. The break turned out to be really bizarre for Prashant and Lawrence. A stranger, woman aged around 30, barged into their room catching the guys totally off guard. She refused to leave the room despite of numerous polite requests (“Please go out of the room”) by Lawrence! Finally the guys managed to throw her out of the room by threatening her to call the reception guy. Hari was in the bath, later regretted not to be a part of the drama. After all this, most of the guys wanted to have early dinner instead of lunch... but we were starving... that resulted in a lot of confusion. We left to our next place on list, Banasura Dam, surviving on bananas and chocolates. By the time we reached, it was too late and we were not allowed inside... Our guys gave best shot of their negotiating skills to enter that place but all in vain. Hopefully we will make it in time to the dam next time we go to Wayanad, if we do!

On our way back to hotel, Hari probably had an amnesia attack, which made him forget that he was no longer

lecturer in college as he earlier was and started off with a long and confusing lecture and weird quiz to find birthday and also strange funda on birthdays!! The server at hotel where we had gone for dinner was taken by surprise when we asked him when his birthday… all to disprove Hari’s funda. Believe me; we left no stone unturned to prove his funda wrong. At the restaurant, a family from Bangalore was having quiet celebration of the Dr. Father’s birthday. We shamelessly invited ourselves to be part of their celebration and ate a major chunk of the cake they had ordered. All thanks to Hari this time!!! At the dinner table, talks about going for long walk after dinner, play cards were all heard. But none materialized as the first thing everyone did after dinner was to hit the bed, all exhausted.

Day 3: 29th July 2007
Last day of the trip, started fresh and early with a heavy breakfast again. My guess is, had the restaurant guy known that we are still around, he would have definitely had second thoughts on the buffet breakfast!
The journey was set towards Phookat Lake which was surrounded by all trees and thick vegetation, making it beautiful. This blue paradise is nestled among the mountains of Western Ghat and was like a droplet of water secluded within a thick forest. We enjoyed boating and kayaking in the silent waters of the lake, occasionally disturbed by the light drizzle. Sangita, Shylaja and I went for a horse ride, not a long one though. It was just a walk on the road sheltered under the leaves of the huge trees, around the lake. There were a few shops there which sold cardamom and other spices where some of us shopped.

Then next place to visit on our agenda was Soojipara falls, which got a delayed as I fell sick and had to visit a doctor. We had to walk down a lot of steps for quite a distance which seemed longer and certainly tiring after the Chembara trek on day before. The pain in the legs was running up the nerves but it all vanished at the first sight of the falls.

From Soojipara, we started the journey back to Bangalore. Prashant took over as the official singer for the trip. Ever ready to sing all the requests (demanded) by Shylaja, “Tadap tadap ke” and “Juda ho ke bhi” being of high demand ones… One must say, he has a soothing voice which needs a little fine tuning for success. Everyone participated in the anthakshari, especially Sriram with his old tamil songs took the icing on cake. Recognizing the immense interest of the photographers, Raghu stopped the vehicle near a beautiful field of Marigold flowers. All cameras came into action for so long that Raghu had to force us into the vehicle again. The next stop before reaching namma Bengaluru, was at Maddur, for the delicious Maddur Vada.

Apart from the trekkers, Raghu also did a good job in entertain us through out our journey with his witty jokes. All thanks to Prashant, the organizer of such a wonderful trip...of course with the help of others who joined for the trip! This trip has been a memorable one for each one of us mainly because it has set the momentum for many trips we have gone from then and many more to come…

Thanks to Kumar, Sriram and Sangeetha who have helped me in recollecting the events and giving their suggestions to make my first blog better.

On public demand!! Picture of "Raghu"