Trip to Munnar

We travelled to Munnar for a 4 day trip from 25/12. We decided against the train as even the train would require a 3-4 hour journey by taxi, having seen the way the tourist taxi guys drive, I just wasn't prepared to take my chances and decided to drive.

Some memories from the trip

- We left Bangalore at 5:45 am. At Hosur, there was a massive jam caused by an accident where a bus was blocking the entire highway. But, we got very lucky as we hit the jam just near a break in the road divider. We crossed over to the service lane on the other side and rejoined after the accident scene.

- I have a lot of memories of the Bangalore-Salem road, as we used to drive to my uncle’s place in Thanjavur regularly during the 80’s. More recently, we had a nightmare drive from Krishnagiri to Salem, when the 4 lane was being constructed. With the construction complete, the drive was a pleasure. I was easily cruising at 110-120 kmph, which enabled us to reach Salem in 2.5 hours.

- We took the Perundurai-Kangeyam-Dharapuram-Udumalpetai-Chinar-Marayoor-Munnar route to avoid any potential problems due to the Mullaperiyar dam issue. There were absolutely no problems and we crossed over into Kerala with ease

- The forest section through Annamalai Tiger reserve and Chinar national park was a bit of a disappointment on the way out. I was hoping to see some wildlife but some birds and a chameleon that I almost ran over was as close as we got.

- The Club Mahindra resort is almost 20 km beyond Munnar. Since the Marayoor and

Theni routes to Munnar are almost the same distance, going via Theni means that you save almost 45 km if you’re going to the resorts at Chinnakanal. No wonder, many of the people at team-bhp were recommending this. Atleast, we got to see some of the spectacular views over Lockhart Valley

- We stayed in a small hotel unit room for the first 2 days and then shifted to a 1 bedroom unit. The resort was good, but not very kid friendly. My son is at an age where he gives up and wants to be lifted whenever he feels like. Usually, this happens when there are steps to be climbed or a steep slope. Lifting a 15 kg child and walking up a 25-30 degree slope is no fun. I can’t wait for the day when he is embarrassed to be lifted.

- As the driver, I hardly got to see any of the views. So, we decided to take the tour offered by the resort. This had another advantage, as we didn’t have to worry about parking the car at the spots.

- The tour was a little disappointing, we went to an area with elephant rides which was quite nice. The next spot was the Mattupettu dam, we were really looking forward to taking the speedboat ride, but it had almost a 3 hour wait. Having already waited 1.5 hours for the elephant ride, we decided to skip and left after taking a few snaps.

- Day 2 was spent mainly at the resort, where we visited the model village set up by the resort.

- On Day 3, we went to the Erivakulam National Park, home of the Nilgiri tahir. We found a huge traffic jam as we neared the NP. Following the cue of other vehicles, we parked right there itself and walked the final 1 km to the entrance. Near the NP entrance, the cause of the problem was clear, the road was only wide enough for a single bus, but there were 2 huge buses on either side of the entrance wanting to get through. On reaching the park, we found a huge line which extended halfway up the side of the mountain. On enquiring with people, we found that it would take almost 4-5 hours to get the bus and decided to just head back. Our decision to park away proved a blessing as we could easily reverse and head back avoiding the jam completely.

- Club Mahindra resort was excellent as always with good food, generally great facilities. However, the activity room was very poor compared to their resort in Coorg and Goa with almost no facilities for infants. As a result, we avoided it completely.

- In view of the jam at Erivakulam, we decided to start back early hoping to avoid the Erivakulam jam and see some wildlife on the way. Till we entered the Annamalai reserve, we did not see even a single eee-kaaka. To our luck, as soon as we entered the reserve, I spotted a movement on the right and sure enough, there were two elephants making their way up the mountain. Further on, we hit paydirt, there was a single wild elephant on the side of the road eating his/her breakfast.

- On the way back, we stopped for 4 hours at Tirrupur, got some good bargains on clothes at a factory outlet and ate a big lunch at Sree Saravana Bhavan. This delayed our return to late evening, and as I am not very comfortable with night driving, dropped our average speed significantly. We finally made it home at 9:45 pm.

- I was very happy with my car's mileage during the trip. With all the high speed cruising and the ghat roads, we still ended up with a little over 14 kmpl. Not bad for a 1.6l engine.

Trip to Devbagh Island

We had been promising Nisha a trip to the beach for a long time. So, when her Christmas vacation started, it was time to start planning. Unfortunately, we left it too late and most of the places I checked were pretty much booked solid. I had almost given up hope and started planning for a trip to Chennai when the agent called to say that a cottage at Devbagh beach resort was available for 2 nights. It also helped us check one more thing on our to-do list, which was to make a trip to Karwar, where Vidya had grown up.

We had got the booking for Sunday and Monday nights. We decided to start driving on Saturday itself to make full use of the weekend. Our cook packed us a great lunch of puliyogere and thayirsadam, just like the old days when we would pack food and eat on the wayside. Our target destination on the first day was Hubli, where we hoped to find a decent hotel to stay at. Rather than risk the regular jams on Tumkur Road, we decided to take a slightly longer route via Dodbal

lapur and Dabbaspete. It was a good decision, as the traffic was very light and we reached Tumkur around 2 hours after we left. The main downside was the many speedbreakers along the way, it was almost as if each house in evey village had constructed one to slow the cars down.

We had a quick bite at the Kamat Upachar and set out towards Chitradurga. The highway between Tumkur and Chitradurga was awesome, as most completed section

s of the GQ are. On the way to Chitradurga, we saw an amazing vista of over a hundred windmills. Apparently, this is a windfarm run by Suzlon and has

 generated a lot of controversy for environment damage.

Once past Chitradurga, the road deteriorates rapidly, with lots of unfinished sections. Unfortunately, our present buffoons in the UPA government view the highway project as a low priority and all work on the uncompleted portions seems to have come to a standstill. 

It was now almost 2:00pm and we were looking for a place to stop and have lunch. That's when we realized the other main casualty of the four-laning project, the tree cover. There is absolutely no shade anywhere to be found. After driving for almost 20 km, we found some shade and stopped for lunch.

We progressed slowly, past Harihar, Davangere, Rannebennur. Finally, after we crossed Haveri, the conditions improved and we were able to make faster progress, finally reaching Hubli at 6:30, a full 9 hours after we started. I'd managed to get the name of a decent hotel (Hotel Hans) from one of my friends, but there was no number. Luckily, we found that they had some rooms available and were abl

e to check in. The hotel was average, but the food (both dinner and breakfast the next morning) was really good.

The next morning, we had a short stop at Lake Unkal. This is a fairly large lake in Hubli and looked quite clean, unlike some of the lakes in Bangalore. There is a statue of Swami Vivekananda in the middle (a la Lord Buddha at the Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad)

, but we couldn't really make out from the distance.

The highway from Hubli to Ankola was once described as the "worst road in the country" due to the hundreds 

of iron-ore laden trucks from Bellary that had destroyed the road. However, with the collapse of iron-ore exports, the road had significantly improved. The road still bears the scars, everything has a reddish hue, the leaves on the trees are coloured red and the overloaded trucks have sunk the ground by a few inches, making it an unpleasant ride for a car that has a narrower track.

We reached Karwar at lunchtime and checked into the hotel office in the city. The resort we had booked in, Devbagh Beach Resort, is run by Jungle Lodges. As the only access to the resort is via boat, it is relatively uncrowded and clean. The beach is clean and shallow enough that you can venture a few hundred feet and still have the water only reach up to waist level. The waves are also relatively small, so it is a great beach for children to play in. There are varied levels of accommodation ranging from tents to log huts. We had booked a fisherman’s log hut, but due to overbooking, we were upgraded to a higher category of loghut with air-conditioning. Being a enterprise that promotes eco-tourism, there are not that many frills in the resort, no TV, telephone or restaurant. Instead, there is a common dining area with set times for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  

Nisha was eager to hit the beach right away, but we convinced her to wait until 4 o’clock when the heat subsides a little bit. She had a great time playing in the water till around 6:00 pm, when we decided to head back to the room and get ready for the campfire. It turned out to be a disappointment, as there was no activity planned as such, it was just people getting into their groups around the fire. But, it was a great night for stargazing, the lack of city lights  meant that we saw a lot more stars that we ever could in Bangalore.

We were woken up at 5:30 am the next morning for the nature walk. Vidya and Nisha were in no mood to get up, so I went alone. It was quite windy and chilly, but the people who braved it were treated to a fantastic sunrise over the mountains. 

The nature walk was quite entertaining, with the guide Anil rattling off quite a few jokes in hindi and Kannada. The highlight was when he dug up some river

 crabs and put them on people’s hands for a special photo-op. These were fairly docile and the non-biting variety. 

Later on, he dug up a proper ocean crab (chamadi nikalne wala) from the beach. This was a real mean one, when he held up a small stick, it immediately grabbed it and held on with a surprisingly firm grip. He took it back with him, probably a lunch feast.

 

Soon after breakfast, we went back to Karwar to visit the colony where Vidya grew up. On the way, we stopped at one of her father’s colleague, Mr Saxena’s house. Though they were Biharis, they had grown so much in love with the place, that they had settled down in Karwar itself. It was a beautiful place, with a large garden and lots of trees. The fact that it would cost less money to buy than an average 2 bedroom apartment in Bangalore, left me wondering whether we have our priorities right.  The factory and colony were around 5 km away in a place called Biniga. We were taken on a tour of the place by one of the older employees. It was a nice place, clean and well maintained, but as the person explained, it was no longer like the olden days. The plant was being operated with a lot fewer employees and there was a lot of movement of people, so the community had been built around the factory in the 70s and 80s was no longer present. In addition, the beach near the colony had been acquired by the Navy, who had built a 10 foot wall along the road. As a result, Vidya was quite disappointed and was wishing that she had not come to see the place in its current state.

From there, it was back to the resort for lunch and more beach activity. This time, we walked further along the beach and found a small pool of water where Nisha enjoyed herself tremendously. We had to check out the next morning. Before we left, we took the boat ride into the sea that was included as part of the package. If we were fortunate, we would be able to see some dolphins. But, it was not our lucky day. Not only did we see no dolphins, on the way back, the boat broke down. The boatman dropped the anchor and we waited there for almost half an hour for the other boat to come and pick us up. As a result, we could only leave Karwar only by 12:00 pm. Our plan was to visit the famous Mahabaleshwar temple, but due to the late departure, we decided to leave Gokarna for another time and instead visit Yana.

Before the trip, I had researched and found that it was advisable to get to Sirsi and then go to Yana rather than take the direct route from Kumta. So, we went on NH17 towards Kumta and took the smaller state highway towards Sirsi. A few km before Sirsi, we found a turnoff towards Yana. We enquired with a local shop on the condition of the road and got the reply “Channagidde sir, hoga baudu”. As we discovered later, the perception of a good road is very different in Sirsi. The road was average to begin with and progressively got worse. To make things even more exciting, we saw a huge black snake cross the road just before our car. That made me even more cautious, as we didn’t want a puncture or breakdown in that place. Along the way, we considered turning back many times, but the thing that kept us going was the chance that maybe we had taken the bad road and there was a better road to Sirsi.  Finally, we reached Yana taking almost 1.5 hours to travel the 30 km. There we were told that the actual rock was a 1.5 hour trek. More disappointing was the news that the only way back to Sirsi was along the same road that we had come. We were so dis-spirited that we decided to skip the trek and head back to Sirsi. The first 15 km were hell, when we came up to a fork in the road. We decided to skip the path we had come on and take the other one to Sirsi. It was a couple of km of the same bad roads and then miraculously, the road improved and we had a fantastic 20 km till we reached Sirsi. We had a quick bite and moved towards Haveri to join the national highway.

The road from Sirsi to Haveri was only marginally better, hardly more than single lane in many places, a broken surface and almost no traffic. We made slow progress and covered the 90 km distance in around 2 hours. A quick stop in Haveri for some fuel and tea followed. By now, it was almost 8 pm and reaching Bangalore was out of question. We decided to stop for the night at Davengere. Luckily, I remembered my friend Shashi, who is from Davangere, and got the names of a few hotels from him. A quick call to Just Dial got us their contact details and we had a confirmed room booking. We finally reached Davangere at 10:30 pm, just in time to get a quick bite before the hotel kitchen closed.

After the adventures of the previous day, the drive back to Bangalore was boring. We reached Neelamangala at 2:00 pm and took over 2 hours to get to HSR Layout. For the third year in a row, I arrived home just in time for new years eve. This time, we were just too tired to stay up, so we did the traditional new year cake cutting at 9 pm before going to sleep!!!

Discovering Uttara Kannada

We are going on a road trip after a long time. The last trip that we took by road was to Coorg in April. This time, we are planning to visit Yana, Gokarna before landing at Devbagh island at Karwar for a couple of days of relaxation. We will come back via Hubli, partly fulfilling my long standing dream of driving from Bangalore to Pune.

Mumbai Pune photos

We had gone away for a week to Mumbai and Pune for Nisha's vacations. Here are some photos from the trip

Trip to Poovar

We signed up for a Club Mahindra membership last year, this gives us a week’s stay at any of the Club Mahindra resorts every year for the next 25 years. As part of the joining incentive, we got a 5 day free stay at a Club Mahindra resort and a 2 week free stay at any international resort. We used the Club Mahindra offer for a week’s stay at their resort at Poovar Kerala, which is near Trivandrum. The plan was to leave Bangalore on the 14th and return on the 21st of August and in the process celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary there. It didn’t exactly go to plan…

We’d decided to travel by train for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Nisha has never really experienced train travel and we wanted her to go on a longer train trip. Also, the train ticket cost me around 6K, whereas the cheapest flight tickets were almost 30K. As the train timings were extremely convenient, we decided that we can put the extra money to better use, like buying a new smartphoneJ

We set out on 14th evening, armed with umbrellas and raincoats, as we expected heavy rain in Kerala. As it turned out, the only rain that we saw was in Bangalore as we were waiting to board the train. For dinner, we finished off the delicious aloo paranthas that I’d ordered from our neighbourhood Punjabi dhaba. We reached Trivandrum right on time, around 12:00 pm and took a taxi to the resort, which was around 30 km away.

The resort is located on a river island right at the place where the river meets the Arabian sea, which meant that we had to take a boat to get to the resort. As we reached the resort, we passed the estuary where the river meets the sea. We also saw a few local boys swimming in the river, though none were doing so around the estuary, which we learnt was quite dangerous.

We had reservations for a floating cottage, which are built on a hollow concrete base and tethered to the shoreline. However, as these cottages were shutdown in the weeks prior to our arrival due to high tides and wind, they were not ready for occupation when we arrived. They put us up in a regular room, with a hammock in the balcony for a couple of days before we shifted to the floating cottage. In hindsight, that was a good break, as I was not very impressed with the cottage, which had quite a shabby feel to it. In contrast, the rooms were extremely impressive, spacious and neat.

We visited Kovalam beach on Sunday. It was a big letdown, the erosion was so bad that there was barely 20 feet of beach left and in many places, it was even less. The water was also quite rough and the lifeguards prevented anyone from venturing more than 10-15 feet into the water. We were hoping to have some bhelpuri or chaat items, but all the establishments at Kovalam seem to cater to the foreign tourist, all we could get was sandwiches. I am sure it is a much better place to visit during the season, but based on what I saw, I don’t see why it should deserve the fame that it has as one of the best beaches in India.

Other than the trip to Kovalam, we did not move out of the resort during our entire stay. Our usual routine was

- get up and have coffee
- have a heavy buffet breakfast
- relax for a couple of hours on the hammock
- Nisha an I would then hit the swimming pool for a couple of hours, while Vidya spent time reading
- Eat a heavy lunch
- Sleep for 2-3 hours
- Laze around till dinner
- Dinner was a light affair, we would typically order some phulkas and dal in the room
- Watch TV

With food and rest being the mainstay, it was no wonder that I found all my trousers getting much tighter when I returned back to Bangalore. The food was the typical resort food, a huge spread with many salads, curries and desserts. It would have been a dream 20 years back when I had an unlimited appetite, but times have changed and we tired of it in a couple of days. On the last day, it was a relief when we found that there was no buffet due to low occupancy.

The one major disappointment was the activity centre. On our previous stay at Coorg, the activity centre was bussing through the day with lot of things for children to do. Here, it was the exact opposite; it was a small dingy place where you were left to yourself. Luckily, the weather was glorious throughout and we could use the pool, or else Nisha would have been bored to death. In total, we spent almost 10 hours in the pool. She became great friends with a 8 year old girl Trisha from Mumbai, who took it upon herself to teach her to swim. Some progress was made, but there is still a long way to go.

By Monday, we had completely unwound and were really beginning to enjoy ourselves. However, it was not destined to last. There was a strike called by the left parties on the 20th, which was the day when we had to leave for Bangalore. The resort informed us that there would be no taxi service after 6 am on that day. So, we had a choice of waking up at 3:00 am and getting dropped to the station by 5:00 am or moving to Trivandrum the previous day and checking into a hotel near the station. The thought of waiting 7 hours in a station during a bandh was not very appealing, so we went for the latter option. We checked into the Comfort Inn Grand, which was around 2 km from the railway station, right on MG Road on the 19th. We left most of the luggage in the cloak room, the plan was that even if we don’t get transport to the station, we could always walk if we don’t have much stuff to carry.

The next morning, we woke up to the news trains were being stopped all over the state. We were in a quandary, do we check out, go to the station and find that our train was stopped, thus having a lengthy wait. Or do we wait it out at the hotel, thus running the risk of missing the train in case they started running again? We decided that I would go alone to the station at 10:00 to get a real assessment and depending on the situation, we would take a call. In the worst case, we’d just stay put for another day and take a flight to Bangalore on the 21st. On the way, I found that MG Road, which was choc-a-block with traffic the previous evening was completely free. At the station, the person at the information desk informed me that our train was running on schedule and was slated to leave on time. I hurried back to the hotel, hoping that they would be able to organize a private vehicle for us to get to the station. Unfortunately, they had no vehicles available or did not want to take a chance. So, now our only option was to walk. If I had not gone earlier, I would have just not taken the chance, but having seen that the police were out in force throughout our route to the station gave us the confidence to go ahead. We reached the station without incident after a 20 minute walk. By this time, the trains were running normally and our train departed on schedule at 12:55. We reached Bangalore right on schedule on 21st morning and got ready for the regular grind.

Long trip home

We went on a long trip to Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur and Ahmedabad. 10 days, 2 flights, 4 train journeys, countless rickshaw and traffic rides. I ended up 2 kg heavier but 25K rupees lighter. That's not including the train + airfare. Whoever said India is a cheap place to travel.

Despite the large number of great places we visited, I have to say that the main highlight of the trip was the food. We had the best samosas that I had ever eaten at Gopaldas Pethe wale near the Jama Masjid in Agra. And the best jalebis ever, cooked in pure desi ghee at Dilli Haat. This was followed by a traditional Rajasthani feast at Lakshmi Mishthan Bhandhar in Jaipur and an amazing Gujrati thali at Pakwan in Ahmedabad. When I think back, I count myself lucky to have got away with just a 2 kg increase.

I was also really impressed with the cities that I visited, especially Jaipur and Ahmedabad. They both have seen a lot of development, but it seems to be a lot more planned than Bangalore. Ahmedabad, in particular really impressed with its wide and good roads, lush greenery and the general prosperity that I saw there.

It was a good end to 2007 and I feel happy that I am starting 2008 on a happy note.

Long weekend in Ooty

The May 1 holiday on Tuesday made a long weekend possible, so we started planning on a trip. Vidya’s father had a timeshare that he had taken in the late 90s and had not been using for a while. He invited us to avail of it and looking at the hotel rates at Ooty, we were happy to accept this.

Ooty is around 320 km from Bangalore, a 6-7 hour journey. Rather than cover it in one go, I decided to split it into two halves. So, we set out for Mysore on Friday evening. The road from Bangalore to Mysore is just fantastic now, four lane all through and 6 lane at the towns along the way. The biggest challenge, as always, is getting to Mysore Road. As we had discovered the previous weekend, on our trip to Wonderla, it takes over an hour to cover the 15 odd kilometers to Mysore Road. I was suggested an alternate route on the partly completed BMIC Peripheral Road. So, we set out on Hosur Road till Electronics City and took the BMIC road from there. The road is fantastic, no traffic (atleast for now). The intersections at Bannerghatta Road, Kanakpura Road and Mysore Road are incomplete, so you have to take a detour. The Bannerghatta Road detour is really bad, but the others are not too much of a bother. Overall, I don’t know if we saved much time, as the route does seem to be a bit longer, but it was totally stress free and that’s a big plus when you’re setting out on a holiday. I only wish Deve Gowda and family would stop letting their personal interests hold the city to ransom and allow BMIC to complete the road, Bangalore would be much better for it.

We covered the distance to Mysore in around 2 hours. We stayed at a hotel called Ginger. This is a new budget hotel chain promoted by Tatas, which promises clean modern rooms at affordable prices. To do this, they cut down on the frills like room service. They definitely delivered on that, as the rooms are really good, spacious with comfortable beds, LCD TVs, wi-fi (not free!!!) everywhere. There is only one restaurant and they only have a buffet, it is somewhat high priced (175 for the buffet) but the food was good. Overall we had a very pleasant experience and I will definitely stay there again.

We set out to Ooty on Saturday morning. I was hoping to see some wild animals as we went through Bandipur and Mudumalai forests. However, they seemed to totally avoid the area around the roads and other than a couple of deer, we saw absolutely nothing. The roads in Karnataka were really good, except for a 20 km stretch from Gundulpet to Bandipur. Once we crossed into Tamil Nadu, we were at the Mudumalai forest. A well known secret is that you can cut the journey by almost 35 km if you’re willing to brave narrow roads and 36 hair pin bends and go though Mudumalai. The alternate route via Gundalur is much flatter. We decided to take the narrow road. The journey was quite uneventful, except at the ghats, where I discovered just how underpowered the Santro is. At the hairpins, I had to switch to 1^st to get any momentum going and avoid slipping backwards. To be fair, this was among the steepest roads I’ve been on, much steeper than Nandi hills or Yercaud where I’d driven before. This is probably one place where a diesel with its higher torque would be useful. All the low gear driving did tell on the mileage, when I topped up in Ooty, I found that it had just gone 14 km to the litre.

We had quite a time finding the resort in Ooty. It wasn’t in Ooty proper, but at around 7 km from the town, it wasn’t too far. The resort was beautiful, it was built on a hill with each cottage at a different level. The resort had definitely seen better times, and wasn’t maintained very well. The rooms were dingy with poor lighting and carpets falling apart. The cottages further up the hill were half complete and it did appear that only around 15 of the cottages were in use. In fact, the waiter told us that at peak, there were almost 45 staff and now there were only 6 people in total.

We had planned to go sightseeing on both days, the first day in Ooty and nearby areas and the second day to Connoor. We first went boating early in the morning. The experience was ok, it would have been nicer if the lake was cleaner. There is also a children’s amusement park, where we went hoping to persuade her to go on some rides. She flatly refused to go anywhere alone, just like she had done at Wonderla. We finally decided that it was pointless and proceeded to Doddabetta, the highest viewpoint. Unfortunately, it appeared that everyone in Ooty had the same idea and in India, if you put too many people together in a small area, chaos is inevitable. There was a massive traffic jam on the hill. As it was a narrow road, we could not do anything as vehicles were stopped in both directions. After almost 20 minutes, we decided like everyone else to just leave the car there and walk up the hill. We started off, but luckily after 15 minutes of walking, we could see the traffic clearing. I ran back and got the car and we drove the rest of the way. The views were fantastic, the area is very green and Coonoor is very picturesque. There was a viewpoint called Green Valley viewpoint, where you can see a valley totally covered with vegetation, which was beautiful. On clear days, you’re supposed to be able to see until Coimbatore, but we did not have any such luck.

We had a quick lunch and proceeded to the Botanical Gardens. The Ooty Botanical Gardens are quite different from Lal Bagh in that it is in a much smaller area but set on many different levels. As you enter, the view is absolutely magnificent, tall trees towering above you. Like everywhere in Ooty, it was totally full with people, but I’m sure that in the off-season, it would be a fantastic place to get some peace and quiet. By then, we had had enough sightseeing for the day and went back to the resort.

On Monday, we had planned to go to Coonoor but dropped the idea and decided to take things easy. I decided to take a walk around the resort and came across a small densely wooded hill. There was some kind of a path going into the jungle, which I decided to follow. Once I went in, I found that it wasn’t as dense as it had appeared from the outside, just a lot of trees and not much undergrowth. I went right to the top of the hill and got some really good views of the surrounding countryside. On my way back, I went off the trail and started to follow a few other trails, but they just went around aimlessly without leading anywhere, and after a while I decided to just head back. It was a really good experience, my first trek in many years, and left me wanting more. Maybe, I’ll join a trekking club and plan on atleast a few more soon.

After I got back, we decided to go to the Rose Garden, which supposedly had 2800 different varieties of roses. Like the Botanical Gardens, this too was set at many different levels, 5-6 in all. There definitely were a lot of roses, I didn’t bother to verify if the number added up to 2800. They all looked the same to me anyway. It was quite hot during the day, so we didn’t really explore all the different levels. On the way to the rose garden, we took a horse ride. Nisha was initially very afraid to get on to the horse, but after some persuading, she got on and enjoyed it quite a bit.

On the way back, disaster!!! Near the lake, there was a small traffic jam due to a bus reversing to park. As I didn’t want to risk anything, I went to the extreme left of the road and stopped waiting for him to reverse into the parking lot. The idiot, however, was only looking to his right and didn’t notice our car at all, despite one of his helpers banging on the side of the bus and me honking away. He made contact with the right front panel. Luckily, he realized right away and came to a stop immediately, before he could cause more damage. The damage was done though, after 3 years of no scratches and dents, I had a fairly big dent on the side and a lot of scratches. There were a lot of arguments with him and his helpers. Afterwards, we went and relooked at the dent and realized that the panel had just gone inwards due to the thin sheet metal and could be brought back to shape very easily. One of the bus passengers, who owned a workshop in Bangalore, offered to do it free of charge and also touch up the scratches. We finally agreed to it, after taking a security from the driver of a couple hundred rupees. I don’t intend to go to the workshop, but am hopeful that the repairs should not cost more than 200-300 at most.

We finished off by buying some chocolates and Varkey (a snack popular in Ooty) for both mine and Vidya’s teams in the office. The next day, we started off to Bangalore around 11:00 am and reached home by 5:30.

You hear a lot about how Ooty is totally commercial but I really ended up liking the place. It is crowded, polluted, dirty, chaotic etc etc, just like most Indian cities. But there is enough beauty just waiting to be discovered, if you're willing to go off the beaten path.

Photos on my Picasa web album

Ooty April 2007

Impressions from Pune trip

Some Impressions from my recent trip to Pune/Nasik

Train Journey
It was my first long journey (i.e. greater than an overnighter) in 8 years. Incidentally, the last time was also to Nasik , for my cousin Savita’s wedding. We got a compartment that was in the final stages of its working life. The cushioning was non-existent, the lighting was bad. To boot, we had day-trippers coming into the reserved compartment from early in the morning, so seating space was quite limited. Overall, not a very pleasurable experience.

The thing that really irritated me was how people continue to throw things out of the window. We had a Gujarati family sitting with us. Food, paper plates, plastic bags, water bottles, everything was fair game for chucking out of the window. There was a funny incident, where I had put our coffee cups under my seat for disposing at one of the stations. When they saw it, they immediately picked it up and chucked it out of the window. When will we learn not to litter? Not in my lifetime at least.

Pune
I had this memory of Pune being this charming small city, one of the best in India . No longer. It is as crowded as Bangalore and the roads are narrower still. Naturally, traffic is a problem, though the jams are not as bad as Bangalore . We managed to make it across the city (from Mundhwa to Kothrud) by car in around 40 minutes. This was at peak time, and could have been faster had the roads been better. That’s one area where Bangalore scores, the roads are much much better here.

Trip to Nasik
We took the Asiad bus to Nashik. The road to Nasik is not that bad, but because of the traffic and the frequent stoppages, it took us 5.5 hours to cover the 200 kilometers. We stopped at this really nice place called Daulat, midway to Nasik . It was a food mall, with a lot of variety, in clean surroundings and all at a reasonable price.

One more thing that I noticed were the many Reliance petrol bunks that were totally deserted. The reason is that prices at Reliance outlets are 3-4 rupees higher than the PSU outlets. Reliance being a public limited company cannot subsidise the way the government can. I’m sure that they would have invested crores of rupees that have now gone down the drain due to foolish government policies.

We spent most of the trip checking out the coverage of various mobile networks and ribbing my uncle (who works for Hutch) about the lack of coverage of Hutch at various points enroute. The coverage is almost continous all the way to Nasik . Further evidence of how much of a difference mobile telephony has made to life in India .

Ashram stay
Panchavati is one of the places where Rama, Lakshmana and Sita stayed during their exile from Ayodhya. It would have been an idyllic spot in those days, full of trees and kissed by the mighty Godavari . Today, the Godavari is dammed and is little more than a gutter as it flows through. There are thousands of people everywhere, litter abounds and it is not a very pleasant experience.

We stayed at an ashram in Panchavati, called the Sankaracharya mutt. Though it was showing its age, the mutt was neat and well maintained. Since our stay was only a couple of nights, we didn’t mind the sleeping quarters or the toilets, but a longer stay would have left us yearning for the comforts of modern life. I’m all for traditions, but evolution is inevitable and I feel that we must embrace technological advances that make our lives better.

Function
The function that we attended was a very simple one. It was to celebrate my uncle’s 60th birthday as well as the engagement of his son. His fiancé is from Ireland . She was noticeably overwhelmed by India , traffic, the number of family members who wanted to know everything about her etc, but was very nice about it.

In the evening, we went to a new temple that came up near Nasik on the banks of the Godavari . It was a very nice spot, with a mini waterfall.

Food
One of the highlight of the trip. In Pune, my cousins took me to this roadside vendor in Koregaon Park , who makes chocolate sandwiches. It is basically chocolate and cheese toasted between two slices of bread. Over that, he puts Hershey’s syrup, more chocolate and finishes it off with chocolate gratings. The end product is truly worth traveling to Pune (My mouth waters as I write about it). My expectations of South Indian food in Nasik were minimal, but the cooks (from Dombivili) did full justice to the wonderful traditions of South Indian cuisine. Net result of all the eating (and no exercise): 1.5 kgs. I have to work extra hard over the next few days.

Check out some of the photos from the trip at my album site

Overall, it was a wonderful trip. It was very helpful for me to get some time away, which gave me an opportunity to do a lot of thinking about life in general. I am much more clearer in my priorities now and hope for a truly wonderful 2007!!!

Happy New Year

Wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2007.

I'm just back after a very nice visit to Pune and Nasik. I met many of my family members and it was great fun. I will post on the highlights of the trip soon. In the meantime, it's off to the gym to lose the extra kilos from the 3-4 days of overeating on vada-pav, cakes, chocolate sandwich etc etc etc