Wild Hogs

It was a Monday and - I was waiting to go home as soon as I walked in - I had some blaah work to do - which was done in record speed. Quickly, before ppl realized I was out of the door - I left :D - Ya.. I do that smtms - provides sm vago (pronounced - Vague + O) excitement and soon I was at home. After a really loong time, instead of reaching home an hour and a half after I leave, I was going to be home in less than half an hour.

Anyways, you know by now, that I totally lowe thrillers, and horror movies but did you know that I also lowe the in-your-face comedies? Well, I do. And, when Wild Hogs was the evening entertainment - I simply could not resist.

There were so many things that you can laugh at and when you look back - maybe even connect to - that I was ROFL :D It did not require you to put on your thinking cap and ponder over the subtle humour - you jes fell over laughing b'cos it was so in your face.

Tim Allen was always a favorite - from the Home Improvement sitcom days. He was not at his funny best, though. John Travolta was, not surprisngly, very good :D If you have seen Grease, Face Off, Broken Arrow, and then Wild Hogs - Well, you can then easily appreciate the actor, in him. Let us not forget Pulp Fiction which was simbly 3 good :D - Yup. Macy and Lawrence provide the needed distrations - sometimes over the top distractions - but one has met smne like them at sm point or the other. The movie recieved quite a few negative reviews but was a top grosser. That proves that critics and their reviews do not make or break the movie - the audience does.

Of course, there was stereotyping - but I liked it all the same. Chk it out when you want a total break from whtever is bugging you - I can totally assure you that you will enjoy the break and totally forget what was bugging you :D

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.

Out of Time

"Do you wanna watch a horror or a thriller movie?" asked the Arien while he fiddled with the DVD player. I was undecided - what did I want to watch? Both genres are my favorites and I can never make up my mind and so I was wondeing if this was some kind of trick question. Worrying that my delay would make him choose cricket or worse action movies as the evening entertainment - I screamed "Thriller". From the startled look on his face, I knew that I had jumped the gun. Oh well.... Anyways, Out of Time it was.

The movie stars Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Dean Cain, Sanaa and others. In the movie, Denzel is in the process of getting a divorce from his wife, Eva, while he is having an affair with his college sweetheart, Sanaa, who is married to Dean. Denzel is the Chief of Police in Banyan Key, a small town. Eva is a homicide detective. Sanaa does not seem to have any job and Dean is an ex-football player who abuses her. While you are wondering if this is all the thriller has to offer you and feeling a lil disappointed - the movie throws you a twist.

Sanaa is diagnosed with terminal cancer and she decides to change the beneficiary of her life insurance policy to Denzel 'cos he has been so good to her. She cannot afford the alternate treatments and so decides to leave town and die peacefully someplace else. Denzel, getting all emotional decides to get the loot maal that has been left in his Safe for safe-keeping and give it to her so they can fly away together. He hands over the money and asks her to meet him at 11:00 pm. 11:30 comes and goes and Sanaa does not turn up. He drives to her place - it is totally dark. He goes back home and is now majorly worried 'bout her - he keeps calling her and then falls asleep at his couch.

He is woken by the explosion - her house goes up in flames and both the bodies (Sanaa and Dean) are charred beyond recognition. He meets Eva at the site and the investigation begins. Considering he is the beneficiary of the life insurance, he is the prime suspect - the federal police want the loot mall back and he is literally running out of time.

The movie's pace goes up considerably as they (Denzel and Eva) come to know that Sanaa was not suffering from Terminal cancer. When the phone records of Sanaa are faxed to the office and Denzel is deleting every record of his name, and when a neighbour states that she saw Denzel on the night of the fire - you are trying very hard not to scream. The tension is considerable.

The end is predictable and as I don't want to spoil it for ya - go catch it. For a few moments, the tension is simbly amazing as Denzel tries to keep one step ahead of the investigation. Alls well that ends well - See it over the weekend and let me know if you liked it as well.

Now, I am running out of time... hehehehehe :D

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 :)