Goa Chapter 2- The Exodus

Travel arrangements were done and dormitories were booked for our stay. But still there was a silent fog of doubt hanging in my mind.

The person who unwittingly helped me overcome my doubts was a slimy, asshole whom I call my manager. Managers, good or bad, are the most hated creatures in the earth. But the (former) manager of mine goes around with a sticker on his forehead ’Hate Me’. Just days before the trip our performance appraisal came and the sycophants went away with great grades while I found myself in a swamp.

Some people chase dreams set out by others all their lives. But at the end of day they realise what they were chasing was just a mirage. I want to set my own goals. I want to have dreams, which I can call my own, I had to make this journey.

So as I boarded the train I had this feeling of escaping from getting suffocated. Travelling in Indian trains are usually eventful. You walk across the aisle and you will meet the cross section of Indian culture. The first prayer a single Indian will have before he boards the train is to get a hot woman as the companion. But this time we got an elderly couple travelling with us.

As soon as she got into the train she opened a box secretly and looked around. After making sure that no one is watching she quickly placed something in her mouth. I started feeling uneasy, ‘What could that be? She looks frail. But that doesn’t make her innocent. Should I call the police?’ Thankfully my brain cells worked although a bit slowly. It was just her false teeth.

As the journey went on, the old man opened up. They were Goans on a pilgrimage to temples all over India. We Indians have a firm belief that we will face the consequences of our deeds this life or the next. So it has been a practice among Indians to go on a pilgrimage after retirement, to escape the eternal damnation. That is one of the reasons why Indians make poor tourists. But thankfully the average age of Indian travelers has been coming down.

The best train to travel around in India is ‘Rajdhani’. The train is wholly air-conditioned and the staff treats you royally with blankets, food and extra food (if you tip them liberally). The interior is very clean. And the ticket fare is not unaffordable too. That could be the reason why Rajdhani is a preferred train today. Indian railways are run by real efficient businessmen.

Out of 6, three were supposed to reach earlier than us. The mode of transport in Goa was something we broke our heads up on. We had to choose between bike and car. Thankfully good senses prevailed. We chose a car. Unless you are sun hardened travelers the hot sun of Goa can wear you down in a few hours. Traveliing around in bike can be adventurous and macho. I would recommend that for professional tourists. But that is not the mode for soft travelers like us.

Accommodation was something we had no difference of opinion in. We had been to Goa while we were in college. While we chose the same old hostel again it was a walk down the memory lane. Those were the days when we had no money with us. Many a times we went hungry. Today we have got enough money with us. But we miss the good old days. That is something we learnt in two years, money doesn’t complete the jigsaw of life.

Well watch out for the Goa I saw in the next episode!

For the first installment of Goa

For my Goa Pics

Goa Chapter One: The Genesis

Past few days had been uninterrupted fun, frolic and travel. My body needs some rest. Blogging is the best form of rest- body and mind.

Within a few days I will have to get into regular grind of life. Goa will start fading into a distant dream from past.

Goa gave me a lot more than expected. It felt like turning more than one pages of life together. I will turn the chapters one by one.

From the moment plans were announced about Goa, I had doubts about its practicality. In reality self doubt is becoming my enemy no.1. Thanks to enthusiastic friends (former college mates) of mine everything became a reality.

Then there is a universal power that leads us to our destinies. I believe the power had something to do with smooth functioning of things. There was an old man with us in the train. He described a bomb blast in a train that happened some years ago. The conversation sent shudders through my spine. What if it happened to us? We are just toys in the hands of fate.

The friends of mine did a good deal of research for this journey. That’s some difference between Indian tourists and their western counterparts. Indians prefer a packaged trip. They pay a huge sum to some hotel. The hotelier plans the entire trip for the customer. Our Indian goes where his hotelier leads him with a hot wife and cute kid hanging on. It’s one of the best way to make money (for the hotelier) and worst way for vacation(Indian).

So thanks to my mates, we had a good idea on where to go and how to end up there. There were minor differences in opinions. We had to wait till the last minute to iron them out.

The rule no.1 was to carry as little luggage as possible. I had this problem of carrying a huge one wherever I go. The advantage is I will get to wear a clean shirt every 6 hours. But huge luggage is trouble if you have to carry it for long. Besides if your fellow mates are bachelors what’s the big deal about clean shirts. If you have to carry a family/girlfriend along then clean shirts do matter. Thanks to Big Bazaar I managed to get a cargo for bargain price.

Three T-shirts and a single cargo for 3 days in Goa and of course my precious camera, this made up my luggage.

Needless to say the colour and smell of clothes were beyond description by the time I returned. Thanks to my friends for putting up with me.


PS: For pics please log on to Jonpics

Inn God's Own Country

A warm climate, warm bath and a warm meal have brought me back to my writing desk.
The beginningA couple of days before efore the New year my Telugu friend asks me, ‘Dude, what is the plans for new year?’ Everyone around were planning something. Most of the guys would be out boozing heavily.
‘Nothing’, I replied. I guess I have trapped myself.
These guys having spent two years in ‘God’s own country’ have not ventured out of our office locales. It turned out that there is only one unwilling Mallu to make arrangements- that was me.
I was too ashamed to tell them that even after all these years I haven’t made much tours around. Besides I was itching to get out of the routine and spent some time in fresh air. Besides the new camera was tempting to make a go for it.
The next part was the arrangements. We didn’t have much idea on best places to visit. House boating was cancelled because of huge expense and lack of purpose. We faced a constraint in both time and money.
Munnar is a hill station comparatively nearer to our place. It was chosen as the destination. Making an economical trip during the tourist season is going to be the biggest challenge now.
The journey:
We did a permutation on various modes of transport. It will have to meet the criteria of taking us there in shortest time, it has to come cheap and ensure maximum comfort. A combination of train and bus was rejected because of the odd time we would reach the place. Then someone said about a state Transport that starts out at night to reach there by next day morning. It came cheap. Without thinking twice we went ahead and booked it. Sadly my friends didn’t know the condition of our buses.
Without making any arrangement, other than book a journey to, we started out Saturday night. The cold air rushed through the closed window shutters. The driver didn’t miss any pothole on the way. These troubles combined with the curving climb uphill denied us any sleep.
Destination and the guides:
We felt we had reached the coldest part of earth. With less sleep and lesser warm clothes we stood on the pavement shivering. The good senses prevailed when we decided to rush into the nearest lodgings. Fortunately a friendly auto-driver took us to a cottage fit to be used as an out station for security guards. There was no heater. TV had no remote control and to make the matters worse he asked us for double the rent.

But fortunately we got a great guide cum cabbie. A nominal rate was agreed on for a few places he would take us. I was not mighty pleased with the choices. But due to lack of knowledge we didn’t have much of a choice.
The sun started coming up. Surprisingly weather started turning warm. It never happens in Munnar at this time of the year. Another example of global warming perhaps.

Wild flowers: You will not believe it but you will see some of the most beautiful flowers growing on the walls, drainage and sidewalks. I took a couple of close up pictures.

The first couple of places we went to where dams and a boating spot. This was a tourist season and most of the tourists were made up of Non-Malayalee Indians enjoying their honeymoons. Bunch of pathetic looking guys walking around with hot-hot girls send us into desperation. We were the only single guys around.

I got desperate enough and took a few pictures of couples cozying with each other (yes, it’s sick). The boyfriends and newly wedded honchos got pissed off naturally. Since the mode of communication was Hindi, you can imagine what they said to your discretion.

To make matters worse we got a lesson in English. I was asking my friend (in English), ‘Should we buy more peanuts?’. A girl turned to us and said ‘It’s not ‘should’, it’s ‘shall l’.
Apart from all these crazy incidents we had the greatest time of our lives. After Mattuppetti dam we went to see Kundhalai dam. My friend wanted to do boating. Rest of us were against it. My friend Bhaskar became the first person in history of Munnar to injure his mouth while shooting balloons with a toy gun. We are figuring out how he managed to do that.

They were monkeys jumping around the trees. And some were gracious enough to pose.

Later we came to a boating spot. The rest of us obliged and we got into a paddle boat. There were two boats each with a capacity of two. We were the only same sex couple waiting in the queue. The guys around must have been thinking what the hell were we doing there. But my dear readers, if you get a chance to do a boating on a calm river please do it. There is no such tranquilizing experience on earth. We floated for 30 minutes (maximum time allocated) far away from the hustles and bustles of earth. We went to middle of the lake. No, we couldn’t see any traffic, we couldn’t see anyone. I couldn’t help but imagine what if we drown!! .

I had miscalculated my camera battery life. From Day one the camera was showing low power. All of us were looking forward for photos to put in Orkut, Facebook, etc. All of us were pissed off big time. We tried to manage with an ordinary battery but it couldn’t manage to hold on. We lost out quite a lot of photos on Day 1. And to make matters worse my camera fell down and came up with quite some repairs.
By afternoon we went for the Eravipuram National park. It was quite a long way from the town and by the time we reached there we were right at the end of a very long queue. We had no hope that we will make it to the front. Thankfully the cabbie of ours did the first he took us out of the queue in the pretext of going back home and made us stand in the front. Apparently he knew the guys in ticket counter.

The park was actually a mountain. Once in twelve years the mountain is covered in violet flowers. Climbing up we will get to see mountains covered at the tip by clouds. It’s really an awesome sight. If you get the angles right you can get some of the most beautiful snaps. The main attraction is Nilgiri Tahr which has the ability to climb vertical rocks. They got so used to humans that they won’t mind posing for you. I was able to get a couple of snaps. By the time my camera battery called quits.

The evening temperature went down suddenly. It was unbearably called when we started the journey back to sunset point. We had a hot cardamom tea which was a huge relief in the cold. I had to change the exposure to get some photos which would have been impossible in the dark. But I am glad we managed to get some decent ones.

Udhay was planning to leave the same day night. Since it would have been a great loss to leave without boozing, he had bought a beer. The driver had kept a few glasses in the cab for occasions such as this. I was about to take the photo when camera shook and I managed to get a picture in the Dev-D model even though it was by mistake.

Udhay had to take an exam the next day. He left Munnar by an evening bus. We wished him all the luck for the exams. Sadly on reaching the centre he realized there was no exam at all that day. Poor guy had failed to check his time table.
The next day for us was an exciting one. The schedule was packed as we had to catch an early afternoon bus back home. We didn’t want to spend the first day of a new year at office sleeping. Early morning it was found that there was no soap to be found. We were relieved- an excuse to escape bathing.

The day started with a not so good breakfast. There was little time and a great distance to cover. The speciality with Munnar is it’s no place to hurry up. The road side too can be really beautiful. Despite the lack of time we stopped many a times mid way and took a few snaps.

Lakkom water-falls was beautiful. We were not prepared for a bath. Besides water was too cold. We were not willing to bath with our jeans on. So I went about snapping pictures. I secretly wished there would be a wet lady to stare at. But no there were only guys in under wears to bathe. But I could snap a few good flowers which turned out really well.

We had to rush back to catch our bus home . The return journey was a nightmare. The driver was too slow. I missed a lunch midway. We managed to reach home some 30 minutes late.
But we promised ourselves to return soon.

(This post was too long with all the pictures. Uploading the pictures was really fustrating. Blogger should do something about it!!)