Sabarish

Early Saturday morning (29th April) even before the Sun rose, our cab started climbing some hills (I’m guessing part of the Nilgiris range) on some winding hairpin roads. On the other side of these hills – Kerala! We were still in the Tamil Nadu side of the hills when dawn started to break. It was a beautiful sight and though we couldn’t see the sun rise, as the hills were blocking it, we stopped to savour the moment and take some photos. Our cab had a tire puncture around this time and we stopped for more photos!

Soon we were on our way and we reached the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, somewhere right on top of the hills. While the driver was showing his documents to the border police, we stepped out of the cab and into heaven. This entry that we got to Kerala was undoubtedly the best moment of our entire trip. There was a slight drizzle and the fog had surrounded us all and the wind was blowing at great speed. We were exhilarated and felt like we had all connected with the divine. There was a small temple near this place, where we prayed and then after some photos returned to the cab. If the entry was like this, we couldn’t wait to see the rest of paradise.

Enroute to our hotel in Munnar, we crossed acres of tea plantations and amazing scenery and stopped the cab every now and then to take some shots and to enjoy the beauty. After coming from a concrete jungle like Bangalore, it was refreshing to see so much greenery and to inhale pure pollution free air.

We reached our hotel – Royal Retreat – at around 9AM, but not before stopping for as-fresh-as-possible tea at a Tata Tea factory. We checked into our comfortable deluxe suites and lazed around for a bit on the hammocks. After some much needed rest we got ready and went for lunch at the in-house restaurant. After lunch, while waiting for the driver to finish lunch, we took more photos in the hotel gardens.

Finally around 1:30 PM we left the hotel to check out more of Munnar. We saw more tea gardens and then went to a dam. On one side there was this huge river and on the side where they were releasing the water, the water was gushing out with immense pressure through a tube only about a metre in diameter! We went speed boating in the river and had good fun.

Our next stop was this echo point, with a lot of people (including us) screaming out at the river and the forest behind, only to get screamed back at! Next we saw more tea gardens and took more photos between tea plants. We then went to another river + dam, hoping to find row boats, but left disappointed. All this while we were gradually climbing up hill and our next stop was at the peak of the hill.

We had to trek a bit from the car park to the peak and once again were treated to some great scenery. The trek back was exhausting; apparently our lungs weren’t used to such clean air! After more photographs we returned to Munnar city for shopping and also went to a computer centre to transfer photos from our nearly full camera memory cards to my mp3 player. We returned to our hotel for dinner and some rest and relaxation.

Our holiday was going great so far, but we were literally sick of seeing so much greenery! Unlike the morning where we asked the driver to stop every now and then for us to take photographs, in the evening even, when he was suggesting us some places to take photos, we just asked him to drive on!

Our ever changing trip plans changed some more and we decided to leave Munnar the next afternoon itself and proceed to Kumarakom for a boat ride on the famed backwaters of Kerala.

More pictures here

After procrastinating for far too long, I’m finally getting around to writing about my trip to Kerala, way back in April. We had a long weekend because May 1st was a holiday and decided to leave in the evening of April 28th and return on the morning of May 2nd.

The three day weekend was the perfect chance for some of us to get away from Bangalore and have some fun. The planning bore fruit and although Rishabh couldn’t make it, another champ, Ankith joined us.

After leaving office early, we — Sunil, Sharath, Ghana, Raghavan, Ankith and myself –finally left on 28th April (Friday) evening in a Qualis (cab) to Kerala!

Our cab for the trip

The start wasn’t very good. While waiting to pick up Raghavan on Hosur road, we witnessed an accident. A mini bus tried to avoid a speeding two wheeler and swerved straight towards us, he then swerved again and the bus went flying and landed in a ditch, barely a few metres away from us. Luckily noone was hurt, except for probably the bike rider who was thrashed by the public for causing the accident and yeah the bus was a goner, it probably had to be craned out of the ditch. Later our cab developed some problem and we had to stop at a service centre for quite some time to get it fixed.

 

At the service station

The rest of the onward journey was long but fun! We all had a nice time talking various things. The major theme for the evening was love and relationships, which the “newly-in-love” dudes were busy talking about, while Raghavan and I enjoyed laughing at them and reminiscing about our own past relationships…they have no clue what’s in store for them!

   

Food!

Most of us didn’t sleep much that night in the car, or did so only in brief phases. We were all excited about the trip and eager to reach Munnar, our first stop. Next day early morning – we were treated to the most awesome entry into God’s own country, Kerala. Will write about that in another blog post!

A quick short post to say ‘I’m alive!’

Well i’ve had quite an interesting couple of weekends, these past couple of weeks. The first of those weekends I saw Fanaa (ok movie – nothing great) and X-Men 3 (awesome movie) and met up with a few old friends and made a new friend! On Sunday I saw a rather controversy filled Monaco Grand Prix and am not sure what to say about Michael Schumacher’s qualifying event. Anyway bottom line – controversies apart Schumi is the best driver by far and he proved this by coming a decent 5th after starting last in the race.

The second of those weekends I made two more new friends and went to Sudhanva’s farm house and had a great time there and on the way back met with (no, not another friend) but with a small accident. It all happened very quickly and all I remember is me saying “bye” to Sudhan and Anu whom we passed at some 50-60 kmph and then approaching a blind 90 degree turn and then turn – brake – skid – fall – “Oh F*ck!” – slide – fly – and landing in a ditch. Though I got away pretty much ok (except for some scratches and a sprained wrist and a major PITA!) – Rangan (who was riding) needed some stitches and seemed to be hurt rather bad – his bike being a bullet didn’t look like it had just been through a crash. Anyway he was rushed to a clinic and later to a hospital for stitches and dressing and I got some painkillers from the doc after a brief check up.

The weekdays weren’t half as exciting and were pretty much the same old routine — to office and back home and then the evening spent on my comp, surfing the net, chatting with friends, reading up on some blogs, and later reading some book till I doze off.

This weekend is not going to be a lot of fun, as I will be spending Saturday at office for some training that starts on Thursday. Although Sunday should be great as I will be meeting a very close friend of mine after nearly 8 – 9 years! I better go to bed now, as the training starts in approximately 7 hours and 45 minutes time (from now), else my snores in class might drain out the trainer’s voice!