Pulse Polio @ Masinagudi

So, I was supposed to send a reminder out about the Pulse Polio vaccinations on Sunday (22nd Feb) but forgot all 'bout it in the rush to pack. I was actually worried if we could get the vaccination done because we were not in Bangalore. But, I needn't have worried. We got Kuku's polio drops @ a health center in Masinagudi.

We had, by the the time we got the vaccination, received a gazillion calls from family members reminding us to get the vaccination. So, we spent the rest of the time, informing folks that "Yes, we got it done", "No, we are not in Bangalore", "Yes, it was possible here as well" and other variations of the same!

Hope you got it done as well!


   

Mangalore - Day3 - Contd.

The plan was to make the Arien feel that a holiday was indeed happening :) Well, after the breakfast and shower, I managed not to utter the horrid words "Can we take a break now?" and instead said "Letz gooo."

Day 3 Contd

The first stop was at the Aloysius Chapel. This was quite close to the Periera's Hotel and it brought an angry frown to the Arien's face and I burst out laughing. I really wish I had a snap of that place. The Aloysius chapel was an amazing piece of art. The paintings or rather frescoes were xtremely lovely and as we tried to take a picture - someone shooed us away and asked us not to take any snaps. 

The next stop was the Sultan's batherry - which was surprisingly spelt as Battery. Yup :)

I could not figure out what this place would be like from the name. It felt like we were driving forever - I was worried we were lost yet again but thankfully we were not. 

When we reached, we were in for another shock - it was like a stone structure that had no meaning.

It had been used by the sultan to protect and watch his land from intruders. This is a picture of the space where the soldiers could place two guns and shoot at intruders. Otherwise, honestly, there was really nothing to see. Plus, we reached at 1 and it was really hot. We saw a young couple - looking very much in lowe - heading towards the boat and thought why not... there was a ferry that would take us to a beach on the other side for Rs.3 each. I thought the amount was hilarious and so we paid Rs.12 for a round-trip for both of us.  

 The first thing you notice as you get off the boat is that the beach seems secluded and we realized that we had actually reached the lovers rendezvous. The whole place was crawling with 16 somethings - shyly looking at each other. It was kinda Ohmygoodness :O

We had reached the virgin beach, TaneerBhavi Beach. There was absolutely no shelter after we crossed the small clearing that was filled with trees. Young couples sat in the clearing and whiled away their time while the two of us walked on the beach - Madness - us and the birds were the only living beings on the beach. Yuppp - Oh ya, let me not forget the one couple that was as mad as us and braved the sun. However, they were braving the sun for an entirely different reason (for a cootchie-coo) - we suddenly felt so old :(

Anyways, after spending 'bout an hour in the hot sun - we decided we must get back - we still

 had to visit the NisargaDhaama. On our way back, there was a chuntu church and we saw these cute puppies sleeping - they looked so cute inspite of the heat. 

As we took the snap, they woke up and posed for us. This was almost like peekaboo - only with puppies :) They were choo teeny - they look awfully huge in the picture - thts jes the Zoom :D

They were ready to follow us and we did not have any snax with us - plus we were going to turn cranky b'cos of the heat, no food (lunch-time had come and gone), no water either. We sat down under a makeshift hut and waited for the ferry to return and pick us up. I was totally down and out and we still had the Nisargadhaama to visit.

I was hoping the Arien would decide that we had enough for the day - but the Arien is true to his type and so after we reached the Sultan Batherry - we had lunch and proceeded to Nisargadhaama. That will be part of another post - Yup Day 3 was indeed hectic. :D

Mangalore - Day 3

Surprise of surprises - I woke up early (7:30 -Ahem!!). To make up for yesterday's flop show I came up with a soooper plan of visiting a beach in the morning and most of the other sightseeing spots after 11. Sulky Arien was still not convinced that I would implement the plan.... anyways thats how Day 3 started.

Day 3

The first visit for the day was to the Ullal beach that had been re-christened Someshwar beach.

It was lovely in the morning. I cannot get over

the first sighting of the beach. There was a temple (Someshwar, after which the beach was named) atop a hillock and by the side was a road that led to the beach. This photo was taken

from there. The sulky Arien's sulk disappeared and he was soon all smiles. He actually complimented me on my plan to visit the beach in the morning. The waves were aplenty and all over there were warnings 'bout swimming in the beach. We were not planning on swimming anyways and so it didn't matter :)

Did I tell you that there was almost nobody else at the beach? Well, I guess if you live next to a beach - it loses some of its charm and ppl don't flock to it.

Of course, that makes it great for us but I was pretty surprised all the same. Thats a picture of our footprints on the sand. As you can see we were the only ones on the beach. The beach was clean and did not have plastic and a lot of all the stuff you usually have come to expect on a beach.

If you have been to the Marina beach, in Chennai, in the evening - you are likely to find zillion ppl on the beach jostling to find a spot near the best spot (which does not exist), stalls selling Chilli bhajjis, fish fries, Bhel puri, etc. etc. etc and a lot of yelling and screaming. Panamboor was kinda like that but the stalls were not on the beach. Well, I haven't been to the Marina beach in some time and so maybe things have changed... Maybe.

Anyways, back to the Ullal-alias-Someshwar beach... as we walked, we saw a fisherman throwing his net to catch some fishes.

The waves were quite high here and atop another hillock we saw a man meditating. While we were distracted by the fisherman's catch, the meditating man left and we found that it was getting pretty warm.

I proposed moving back to the hotel as we had a full day ahead and we were already wet to the knees :) We went back to the hotel to have a quick shower and breakfast and then move to the other tourist spots of Mangalore.

The plan was to go to the Sultan Batherri and Nisarga Dhaama - I was reminded of the trip to Mysore's Nisarga Dhaama. Hmmm... I hoped that it was a good place to visit.

Mangalore - Day2

After a looong drive that could be summed up as Day1 - which was fun - I was looking forward to Day 2 at Mangalore....

Day 2

The day started when I awoke at 8:30 am. I was actually surprised that it was not later ;P As usual, the Arien woke up as if the day was already over and we had missed some hazaar stuff. Anyways, after a lazy breakfast and a rushed shower, we were off to visit some temples... we first went to the Mangala Devi temple. We reached jes in time as the temples close by 12. Inspite of that, we decided to visit the Kadri Manjunath temple. The main deity's sanctum sanctorum was closed to everybody and so after visiting the other diety's shrines, we had to leave. That picture is of the doorway to the Kadri Manjunath tempe. It was a warm day and the time was around 1 when I took the snap. :)

The Arien wanted to try out mangalorean food and so we decided to go to Periera's - a resturant-cum-hotel which was supposedly renowned for authentic mangalorean cusine. The Arien was majorly excited and so we went around asking for directions. After circling the same place thrice we realized we were lost. It took us till 2:30 to find the place and what a shocker it was :( Firstly, it was so sad looking that I was very sure I did not want to eat there; Secondly, it was a Non-Veg resturant (this was new: any resturant does not want to miss ou on the veg crowd and so throws in a "veg and on-veg" by-line) ; Thirdly, the resturant had been closed a long while ago. The Arien totally lost it especially 'cos he was very hungry and we did not really know the way back. We drove around and ate at the first place we saw which was (ob.) a mistake.

Anyways, the moment we reached the Hotel, I wanted to have a chuntu snooze and so we decided to go to the Panamboor beach after the snooze around 4:30pm. I woke up at 5. By the time I got ready and we found the beach it was 6:00 pm. Yupppp.... The Arien walked around with a growl and was totally irriated that I could sleep on a holiday... Do not look at the logic.. Seriously :D

We stayed at the beach till it was 8:00 p.m. and then left - I promised that we shall leave early tomorrow and check out the Ullal beach. At that promise and a lovely dinner later - good mood was restored to the angry Arien. Meanwhile, I was crossing my fingers as I can never get up early when on a holiday :D

Mangalore - Day1

Finally... A planned vacation :) After thinking, planning, researching, fighting, and almost cancelling we decided that we were going to Mangalore. It was almost an 8 hr drive - assuming we drove with minimal breaks and at an amazing speed... daunting task for most ppl but I had the enthued Arien as my travelling companion and so ob... it was a fun journey :) Lets start at the beginning...

Day 1

Somethings never change, Arien wanted to leave at 5 am and we finally left at 6:40 am :) And as predicted we hit the Yeshwanthpur traffic and slowed to crawling pace. I spent the next half hour staring out of the window at other vehicles as the Arien went on and on about how we should have started at 5 am over and over again. The Piscean has a fair amount of patience and tolerance especially wen she is in the wrong :P

We finally got out of the traffic mess and moved towards Neelamangala and got the shock of our life. There was so much fog or mist (I am never sure which is which) that we could barely make out the road ahead. I had to, of course, state that had we left earlier as planned, well, maybe we would be waiting near Yeshwanthpur for the fog/mist to clear... Hehehe I know that was a cheap thrill... Kya kare control hi nahee hotha!

Anyways, we were soon speeding along towards Kunigal as the sun peeped out. On the way, we say a board pointing to Shravanabelagola... and we were soon moving towards the Bahubali monolith.

I had totally forgotten 'bout the steep climb to see the Gomateshwara. Considering the sad state of fitness that I was in - it was a herculean task. I remember having climbed the same pretty easily some years ago... Maaan!! Well, I huffed and puffed away as we climbed the steep hill. I was very tempted to change my mind half-way and the AC in the car was so tempting... but I went on... surprisingly :) It was also a pretty warm day which added to the discomfort.

We saw a bunch of school kids climb the hill effortlessly and that kinda seemed to call attention to my fitness albeit lack of it... Grrr... When I thot we had reached, I remembered that there were more steps and so we went on and on and on.. I saw a few old people being carried on a cane chair by some folks. I also saw some old people braving the climb while I was taking one of my many frequent breaks.

Seeing the Bahubali, so huge, clean, and so well-maintained was a splendid sight. It is 60 feet in height and is supposedly carved out of a single stone.

The pujari spoke good English and was busy explaining the history of Bahubali to some foreigners. The abhisheka of the huge Bahubali happens only once in 12 years and the last one had happened in 2005.

Puja is done everyday for the small bahubali, seen in the picture on the right.

We started walking down the steep hill and the climb down was easy (ob) and so we hopped, skipped our way down... I was a little apprehensive of the effect of the climb on our feet later in the evening. We were soon on our way to Chenrayapatna where we were supposed to have breakfast... it was around 11:30 and we both agreed that this called for a brunch and we could try the Kamat near Chenrayapatna.

We reached Kamat at 12 after almost giving up the hunt for the Kamat hotel.

There was no crowd... we were almost the only folks at their dining hall. The food was jes okay but we were extremely hungry and so we wolfed it down while stating that the other Kamat was so much better.. The service was pretty good that it actually scared us :)

We were soon speeding away to Sakleshpur and then came the dreaded ghat section. The condition of the roads deteriorated from bad to worse and we were shocked at its state. The drive alternated between slow and bumpy to fast and bumpy - it jes felt far more painful when we were fast :(

The ghat section was scary. We came across a bunch of men looking down a ravine and as we went around the hair pin bend, I saw a mini-lorry that had fallen in. I urged the Arien to go slow as I did not want to end up in a ravine. We thought the roads would get better as we reached Mangalore... Hahahahahaha :D

The sakleshpur route to Mangalore is really the worst route a person can ever drive on. We drove without a break and reached Mangalore at 6. We checked into a hotel and decided to have a chai while we plan our day-2-day activities for the next few days... after an amazingly good chai/coffee and steamed wantons - we decided that this was a fitting end to Day1 - no more driving. (I did not drive but I was glad to comply).

The hotel had a very popular resturant which served yummy food and so we decided to have dinner there and sleep early. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day said the Arien - while I dreamt of lazing away my sunday :)

Mysore during Dasara - Day 2

Day 2 dawned bright and sunny only I did not witness it 'cos I woke up at 10:00 am!!! I really wanted to get back to sleep but the Arien was as usual fully charged and ready to begin Day 2. Waanhh :( We planned to visit Chamundi Hills. Last nite, during the palace visit I had seen a "Welcome" sign which seemed to be hanging in mid-air. The wise arien informed me that the lights were actually placed on the way to Chamundi Hills and that we would be seeing it the next day. So we were off after a hot cuppa chai and a cud-have-been-better breakfast :)

We started Day2 with a visit to the St. Philomena's Church which was a gigantic gothic structure that is entirely made of stone. It was an imposing structure and we looked like ants when we posed with the Church in the background. I gave up trying to get the entire structure in a single snap. We spent some time inside the church and walked along a corridor that had all the patron's names etched on it. It was a hot sunny day and after admiring the structure once more, we decided to move on. I have heard that it was the Wodeyars who were involved in the construction of this new church i.e they were the sponsors not the masons :) It is considered a secular monument. Hmmmm....

I wanted to visit the Silk Factory and the Sandalwood factory that I believed was located at Mysore. I found, to my chagrin, that the sandalwood factory was actually at Bangalore. Of course, the Arien disagreed. It was a sunday and I was sure it would not be open and so I cancelled that plan.

On the way, we saw the railway museum. It was tooo cute. It looked like a photo op and we surprisingly, took a keen interest in not only photographing all the engines, but also pretending to drive them. The dustbin was also shaped like an engine and so we took quite a few pics. They even had a modified Austin, which was to run on the railway track. Naturally, we were not allowed to sit inside or drive it but it was fun anyways. Inside, we also had a look at the Maharani's saloon carriage, which was one of the exhibits. An old old man started describing what we could clearly see and so we decided it was time to kiskofy :D

Oh! Before I forget they had on exhibit, one of those black telephones, which we had during the early eighties, where one had to dial and not press keys - remember?? It made me nostalgic... I remembered how I would come home from school and talk to my friends, separated for barely 10 minutes, for hours and get royally shouted at by mom. She could not understand what I had to say that couldn't either be said tomorrow or could have been discussed 10 mts ago :) My classic excuse was homework which did the trick most times.

Back to here and now. We had lunch at DasaPrakash. It was nice, simple, and reasonable. It took us quite a while to find it though. It almost looked as if it was Mysore's best-kept secret :) Anyways, did you know that Mysore is actually a short form of Mahishasuranaooru?? Mysore was actually home to the daemon, Mahishasuran, who was killed by the goddess Chamundeshwari. Atop the Chamundi hills is the temple of the goddess and a scary statue of the daemon as well. It is a lovely ride up the hill and the place was surprisingly crowded. We got off the car and saw the huge statue of the daemon and realized that it was not too huge :) Ok... I am exaggerating... its just that after seeing the Cathedral, I was kinda expecting a really huge statue. The statue was broad, defintely taller that an average male and so I guess it was huge.

We also went to the temple inside. It reminded me a lot of the visit to Tirupati. We were pushed and pulled in all directions as we moved closer to the diety and then we were allowed a brief 2 seconds to figure out what the goddess looked like before we were pushed out of the way by some self-appointed queue mover. I was totally cheesed off. On our return, we walked via a chuntu market where they sold so many things that I was almost dizzy. I got myself a lovely Ramar Pattabhishekam picture, a chamundeshwari statue, and a Ganesha statue for my home. Was unable to get a picture of Aanchaneyer but was otherwise thrilled as we walked back to our car. I was getting cranky and tired and so wise arien decided to break for coconut water, and cucumber slices. I forbade myself from worrying 'bout health aspects and hogged on the cucumber slices. :)

On our return from the hill, we came across the beautiful black Nandi, which was really huge and magnificent to look at. Arien opted for sugarcane juice while I went up to admire the Nandi from close quarters. As I walked down, Arien was busy purchasing cucumber slices yet again. A foreigner was attempting to purchase some pineapple slices. I felt it was extremely adventurous of her. Then came the best part of the incident, the fruit seller tried to sell his pineapple slices at a higher price to the foreigner but the foreigner had picked up some of the local language, Kannada, and told him that she will not pay him Rs. 5 more than the others. As we left, we could hear the fruit seller muttering that it would never do, if these ppl learn our language :)

We returned to Bangalore around 9 pm, dead tired, bone weary, and xtremely sleepy. We had stopped at Kamat's for dinner and so we had no complaints. Tomorrow is a working day.... Groan..... I want my weekend back :(

Mysore during Dasara

Day1:
It was yet another unplanned trip to Mysore. Rather, it was a trip that had been planned for the next weekend but enthued Arien decided that he was too bored to stay at home this weekend and so we were going to Mysore tomorrow. I was totally tempted to say NO. If you are wondering why?? Well.. that is because I am a lazy piscean who prefers to relax (code-word for laze) at home after a tough week of writing highly technical stuff which no one reads and he is an Arien who lowes to travel, work hard, keep busy, etc etc etc. So did we go? Of course, we did. Lazy piscean had promised that she would try to be enthusiastic about sudden trips and so she could not really say No, could she?? Grrr... As usual, Arien decides the time when we would leave for Mysore which is between 4 am and 5 am. Egzactly!!! Well.. we finally leave at 6 am :) No trip to Mysore is complete without a stopover at Kamat and we did that.

We decided to visit Krishnaraja Sagar Dam. They have a cute little aquarium inside, where the star attraction was a fish that cost forty thousand rupees.

Hordes of locals and the two of us spent

more than an hour gaping at all the fishes and the celebrity fish in particular. I have never spent so much time in an Aquarium before and I was informed by the wise Arien that the Bangalore one was a lot better. The celebrity fish looked like a villain in a hindi movie. It had an eye that looked akin to a glass eye and stared you down.

There were lotsa other fishes too. We, now have appr. zillion snaps of fishes, most of whom I

cannot recognize or name :(

Anyways, we started walking towards Brindavan Gardens. It was a looong walk... and it was noon and surprisingly the weather was humid. I felt like I was in Chennai and that surprised me quite a bit. I had not been to the gardens in a really looong time. The garden was renowned for being the location where most film songs, romantic scenes were picturised not so long ago. It looked lovely from outside but on closer inspection we found that it was xtremely dirty :(

The flowers were in full bloom and looked very pretty and the waterfalls looked nice too. I recalled that they had the musical fountain at 7 pm. We were roaming around the place at 1 pm and soon it just got too hot and I got too cranky. Also, around the same time, we figured out that all hotels at Mysore and Srirangapatna were fully booked and that we may not have a place to stay the night. Yuppp... However, that did not deter us from taking quite a few snaps of the place that was. We also realized that everybody comes to enjoy the water fountain later in the evening and you cannot see the dirt at that time :) Well... not sure if that was nice to know or not... hehehehehe :)

It must cost a lot to maintain the Brindavan Gardens the way it is - I mean the flowers looked so lovely and colourful... I am just wondering about the number of people who have to work to make the Brindavan Garden look good... and while there is always scope for improvement... it is a great effort in itself. Anyways, I soon lost interest in the Gardens and wanted to know where we were going to stay, if we planned to stay on. A sudden cancellation by some person was a lucky break for us. We decided to check-in, have lunch and then plan our next outing. After a not-so-bad lunch, we were tempted to take a nap but did not do so. Instead we decided to check out the amusement park, GRS. There was some half-day offer kinda thing and so we decided that it may be worth the look. I was totally tired and did not want to go on the thrilling water rides and opted for the slow water rides. Managed to get completely drenched in the wave pool. As if that was not enuf, it suddenly started raining and did not abate for almost half an hour :( If it weren't for the fact that I was totally drenched, I would have found it funny :P Anyways, we decided enough was enough and headed back to the hotel. A quick shower and a hot cuppa chai later, we were ready to check out the Mysore palace. The time was almost 8:15 pm and the whole place was lit up and it looked so lovely. All roads that lead to the palace were lit up and so we followed them to see the palace. There was a Carnatic concert going on at the same time which is that small corner which is lit up slightly differently. I have heard that for the entire navarathri, various artists would come and perform for each day. I was pretty impressed though I was unable to recognise the singer. The crowd was not unruly and we were able to move around without worrying if we would lose each other. We were late and we did not have too much time as they planned to close the place to visitors in less than 30 mts and so we walked around as if we were going to miss the bus - we did not have time to gape, stare in awe, or comment on the beauty as we were worried.... However, we did the entire round and left before they started closing the place for visitors. It took a while to sink in. We stared in awe as we moved out. Security was at an all-time high and for the first time I worried about bombs. I mean bombs are usually placed at places where there are huge crowds... Time to stop worrying 'bout stuff like that and concentrate on something else... Dinner?? Yeah!!

We decided to have dinner at a popular place, Parkland Hotel. It was the worst experience ever. We waited till we almost dropped off and when the dishes finally reached our table, it was stone cold. I am not exaggerating. We managed to gulp down the food as we were not really sure how long he would take to bring it back and we were totally sleepy. I was trying very hard to keep my eyes open. The theme at Parkland was good and drinks were being served at an amazingly fast pace and since we had not ordered any drinks.. I guess they forgot about us. Well, never mind.. we were ready to go back. We quickly paid and left for the hotel. When we reached the hotel, we realized it was almost 11 pm. That was end of Day1. Zzzzzzz... Arien starts snoring ... Hehehehe :D

Wonder La

It was going to be one of my classic lazy sundays when I get up late, have breakfast at lunch time,  and watch re-runs of F.R.I.E.N.D.S or a romantic comedy which I would have seen a zillion times already. Well, that was not to be. Usually, I am extremely cranky when my classic lazy sunday is tampered with but I decided to go with the flow for the first time when the plan was to go to Wonder La. I have been crazy 'bout amusement parks and scary rides for a loooong looong time now and have been to Wonder La thrice already with office junta. This was the first time we were going to an amusement park by oursleves in a really looong time.. Shocking :(

Anyways, we started the day by having breakfast at Adigas (a popular eatery for vegetarians) - which has the fastest service, hugest crowds, tastiest food at the most reasonable prices. It had been our family haunt on sundays before we moved to far far and away. I usually opt for take away, also known as Parcel, because finding a chair or a table is quite impossible at Adigas. Anyways, I was coming here after a loong time and I totally relished the experience and did not do my snob act at standing and gulping down my idli vada :P We left in about 20 mts, a record almost, considering that if you had visited Shanti Sagar, you may leave in an hour if not longer :D

It was a sunny day and I felt that we would be roasted and cooked by the time it would be evening but surprisingly it was not that hot. We paid for the tickets and went in. I was intent on not missing the rides that I had missed earlier because of the shocking crowds.

Regarding the rides, the Maverick is one helluva ride. It actually does an amazing number of somersaults, back-flips, and you spend a lot of time upside-down! You are asked to remove loose change which you have kept in your pocket, spectacles, chains that may fall off etc etc. Dupattas are of course a No-No. The Sky Wheel, which is the giant wheel atop a tower allows you to have a nice view of the entire landscape of Wonder La. 

Thankfully, it does not go at top speed. 

The Pirate Ship, formerly known as Columbus, is more like a pendulum.

The Water rides are altogether too amazing. I had never ventured near the water rides previously and so this was my first time. I was completely terrified and did not go on more than a few rides. Twister was nice and fast and I was real terrified and so closed my eyes towards the end and almost drowned - ok ok I was exaggerating - I got some water up my nose. The Water Pendulum almost gave me a heart attack as I thought we may end up toppling over and the rush is simbly fantastic. The wave pool and the lazy pool are nice if you just want to laze in the water. The artificial waves are generated once an hour or so and ppl throng the wave pool when it is time. They have a new attraction, Friendly Fish, which was a beeg hit among kids. They were so excited that I had to check it out. If you have ever been to Sringeri, where one feeds puffed rice to the fish on the banks of the river... well this attraction is identical except that the fish at Sringeri are dark blue or green in colour while here they are in lovely shades of yellow and orange. 
So if you stay in Bangalore or are visiting and if you are crazy 'bout amusement parks and crazy rides then WonderLa is a must visit for ya :)

Coorg - Weekend Getaway - Day 2

After a visit to the famous Raja's seat, known for the commanding and amazing mist filled (err.. was it fog filled??... Hmmm.. does it matter??) view of the city, a ride in the cute toy train in the rain, a totally amazing Day1 came to an end.
We realized that we were yet to reach the HomeStay. I was totally thrilled that we had managed to pack so many sights in a single day. We reached the Homestay and were welcomed by the very hospitable home owner and her talkative daughter. We did not want to appear like ravenous gluttons and I am glad that inspite of hogging on sumptious roti - subji dinner - they did not think so. In fact, they felt that we were eating very less (hehehehehe :) for once!!). After a refreshing sleep at the Homestay inspite of there being no power all night, either we were too tired or too sleepy, we were all set to go white water rafting in the not-so-white waters on Day2. The plan was to wake up at 6 and be at Dubare by 8 am.

Day2:
We woke up at 8 and had an amazingly heavy breakfast of a Coorg delicacy known as Paapittu.

We drove all day and had a delicious dinner, why were we still hungry?? Anyways...the Paapittu was served with a tomato onion gravy which was simply too delicious. I barely managed to resist licking my fingers ;P

We left finally towards Dubare. I was wearing my peach salwar and suddenly wondered if they would let me go rafting in my salwar :( Well, I needn't have worried, it was oookay and we did not go rafting till 11:30 am. We sat around waiting, listening to the instructor telling us "You should have come at 8 am" and whiling away our time, hoping we would be next and finally the moment arrived. We were given smelly life jackets and helmets which we were helped into and given instructions that lasted for arnd the same time. We were then asked to get on the raft with our paddles. 3 ppl joined us who were from Orange County. An old man with lotsa attitude, his wife, and their daughter. So we set sail with two instructors giving us instructions, explaining some rules, and generally bugging us. After I came to know that the water was more than 23 feet deep, I decided to pay more attention to what the intructor was telling us.

The first rapid was nice, not too scary but we were totally drenched. I totally lowed it - not surprising considering I am a water sign :) Anyways the other rapids were scarier and it was one helluva experience. Our trip went way off the budget b'cos of the rafting but we lowed it so much that I was real glad that we did it. We rafted or is it rowed 8 kms -I got badly tanned as a side effect. We were treated to nice hot tea at a road-side stall after we landed and we were then transported back to Dubare. We happily drove back to the Homestay, had a refresing bath, ate lunch and left Coorg.

The drive back seemed looong - we tried a different scenic route and got lost :) I was very tempted to move to the back seat and fall asleep but the dazed zombie look in his eyes made that thought disappear almost instantly. Plus, he was making these bizarre remarks 'bout wanting to place match sticks in his eyes to ensure that they do not automatically swing shut while we were driving :O Lack of sleep sure does tell :)

It was one helluva vacation and we totally lowed every bit of it including the scary ride at the end.

Coorg - Weekend Getaway - Day1

A weekend trip ... a Surprise... Yeaaahh... no nice clothes ... Have to get up early... 4 am.. is he kidding?.. Grrr... were the thoughts that I had when I came to know that we were going to Coorg over the weekend. This was Friday nite, 9 pm. We left at 6 am on Saturday. We had our fight shortly thereafter which almost led to the cancellation of the trip :) I say almost because we turned back n drove towards home for 10 mts - both of us totally angry - and burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole fight somewhere after 5 mts. Ya.. we are like that.. Anyways we reached Kamat Lokaruchi arnd 8. This inspite of the parking disaster we had when we left, and our short fight - I felt we had made good time.
A heavy breakfast later, that consisted of the famous conical shaped idlies, maddur vada, regular vada, dosa, and two amazingly hot cuppas of tea and coffee - I would say we were in a wonderful mood :). It has always been the case that after moving so far away from Bangalore, you always end up meeting ppl whom you would not have met while they were right next to your cubicle. When we were returning from Bandipur, our last trip, we met Subash and Nisha. This time we met Ranga (Sriranga Nadiger) and his wife. This time the service at Kamat was slow and we did not get a table for a very loong time and then after finishing our breakfast, they took a loong time to get the bill and so I felt that we may have lost the good time that we made. Anyways we continued on our way to RanganaThittu, where we were to change routes. The drive was good and not as boring as I thought it would be. We were listening to songs from the movie Kaakha Kaakha , which is one of my favorites and happily singing (er.. braying)along. As we neared the destination, we decided to visit all the spots before we reached the Home Stay.
The first place we visited was the Tibetan Monastry near Kushalnagar. On the left is a picture of the arch taken from a distance. The whole place was serene, strangely beautiful, and begged to be photographed. The weather was simply lovely, it would rain for sometime, stop abruptly, drizzle again and the whole place looked so green and lovely. This snap was taken when it stopped raining for a bit. I wanted to shop for gifts for kids but did not get gifts for his nephew and so abandoned the gift giving plan. You always get gifts for gals, a pair of ear-rings, a brooch, knick-knacks, anything. For guys... you just don't get anything. Sad fact of life.
Inside the monastry there are three huge statues which are gold plated and you are instantly rendered speechless in awe. The statue in the middle is the Buddha, the statue on the left is Guru Rinpoche (I think..) and the statue on the right is Budda Amitayus. The low benches placed in front are used by the monks for prayer and we are asked not to touch them. Not that we were planning to. The walls are all painted in bright red and green colours and it is very difficult to understand the story that they are depicting. I did wish we had a guide. There are huge bells that are tolled when all the monks are summoned for prayer... or maybe lunch... :) Time for lunch... we decided to have a bite at a local restuarant and keep going. I had been to Coorg before but I had not visited the Tibetan Monastry or the Golden temple. We had been to Irruppu falls and seen some tea estates. This was a very different trip and I was totally enjoying it.
Our next stop was at Nisarga Dhaama. It almost reminded me of RanganaThittu. There was a lovely hanging bridge near the entrance, as you can see from the picture. It was raining again and I ran to get the umbrella. The rain had made the cauvery swell up and it was a sight to see. There were tree houses and cute benches that were now wet because of the rain. There were quite a few swings. There was really nothing much to see and the path was wet and it was steadily drizzling and so we decided to get going.
The next plan was to go to the Elephant Camp to Dubare. It was now pouring and we decided to go for a boat ride to the camp. As soon as we reached the other side, we realized that we were not sure if we have locked the car or not... we worried and worried and worried... and it was the most gruelling 1 hour of our life. We were soaking wet too.. to add to our miseries.. Finally, when we reached the car, we found out that we had locked it after all. Grrr... Walked into the Dubare Hotel which only offered Tea, Omlette, and Fried Rice. Had bitter, totally burnt chai, and an omlette which had uncooked, small onion chunks. We come in contact with a nondescript lean man who is having fried rice :) and come to know that there is water rafting at Dubare. In fact, in the exact same place where we had the boat ride. The hitch was that we were supposed to arrive at 8 am - I laughed out loud. We were yet to reach Madikeri and he had been driving the entire day.. but the look in his eyes stopped me from voicing my thoughts... and so we went on to the Home Stay - totally relishing the experince of Day 1 of our short vacation.

Bandipur

Dreaming 'bout a fundoo holiday was a fav pastime of mine. Whether it was during the holidays when one had a lot of time to dream, or when I was supposed to be preparing for my exams, or when I was supposed to be working - I was forever dreaming of this wonderful vacation that I wud b taking. I believe now that it probably was some deep rooted escapism that I indulged in - 'cos whtever I was doing right then was too boring to hold onto my attention. Anyways, one of my favorite dream vacation trips was this Jungle Lodges thingie for 2 nights n 3 days. I spent a lot of time nagging, cajoling, begging, and even threatening family folks to plan a trip. Of course, I did my best booking for it and came away disappointed as it was also one of those always booked holidays... Grrr!
Finally, this year, after behaving like an unruly, pampered kid, I got my way - we were finally going to Bandipur and staying at Jungle Lodges. The trip was a last minute plan and we were on a shoe string budget but I was jes happy tht we were going. We set out in the morning from Bangalore... we were supposed to start at 6 but yours truly was finally ready only by 7.

The plan was to bike to Bandipur and I did not want to share this piece of info with my folks as they can immediately make my plan into a safe, unadventurous, blaah trip... sorry guys.. you are sweet and nice... but I like doing things my way too, at times. I am sure they are shaking their heads thinking: "Uff.. this gal never listens - Stubborn - All pisceans are stubborn - When has she not got things going her way - I want to know??" Anyways, So I did not tell them. We drove like the wind - I was in the pillion seat and I indulged in quite a bit of back seat driving - I do that a lot especially after my accident - but we made excellent time. We reached Kamat Lokaruchi arnd 9. I was totally zapped!!

We had a lazy and filling breaker and decided not to lose the amazing time we made by lingering at Kamat and started with a bang towards Mysore. I was tempted to buy some of their cute handicrafts but decided not to. We reached Mysore arnd 10:45 and purchased sm essentials and we were totally sore by then - a bike ride is only romantic for that long - after that all you really want to do is: get off - stretch ur legs - and choose another means of transport. We had to check in at the Jungle Lodges at 12 and so we really had to get going but I indulged in a chuntu crib fest.

And then to our surprise, we see coconuts stacked one on top of the other - forming rather looong lines to the sky and we stop. The creative nature of these coconut vendors which they exhibited by arranging their fruits in interestingly different ways was a sight for sore eyes - in our case - a break for our sore limbs. Man ko bhaa gaya. I lapse frequently into Hindi in an attempt to improve my faltering Hindi and also b'cos there are some things best expressed in a regional - ok.. in this case, national language :) I feel seeing those coconuts eased the crabbiness that we felt b'cos of the loong bike ride :P

Finally, we reached the Jungle Lodges resort, not-so-sore, glad at having finally found the place. We were escorted to our cute cottage called "Cheetah". Wondering why all the cottages were names after animals, we walked into a room that had a lovely mural of a cheetah on a branch. The Cheetah looked fantastically real and totally impressive. We were told that lunch would be ready shortly and tea would be served at 4 after which we will go for a safari. I think they were not used to enthusiatic nods as answers and we finally stopped and said Yes - we'll b ready!

The Safari was enjoyable though we did not really catch sight of the exotic animals. Did I hope to catch sight of a real cheetah, or tiger? Actually, No. I have not been to a Safari in a very loong time - probably since we went to the Banergatta National Park to view the lions and the tigers -so looooong ago - not even I know how long ago :D
After the Safari, a film clip which was created on Wild Life in India was shown - we were distracted by: the projector being archaic - too many mosquitos - the mouth-watering snacks-a naughty kid who was eating mud to irritate his mom - and the bonfire that was being built. The film as such was lengthy and we all got the message - I think :)
There was an option to go for a nature walk early in the morning but we opted for a second round of safari - in the vain belief that we may actually see some of the exotic animals. We saw the pug marks of a tiger which we cud not spot, we saw a lot of spotted deer, sambhar deer, elephants, and wild boars. We also saw several cute peacocks and peahens. We also went on an elephant ride and to a museum nearby.

Of course, the guide had to bug me with his "Kabini is fantastic - but you cannot get booking - you must go there" Grrrr.... Is there some law in the Universe that was created especially for me that goes something like this: When you think she is settling into happiness hit her with a statement that will make her go Grrrrr...oowwwwlll?? Anyways for the first time, I did not let it bother me as much.. and came away smiling :P