Love in Shimla - Part II

A tale of back-breaking bus journey, parathas and snow

A couple of months back I was cleaning my room (a very rare sight) and found a picture that made me nostalgic and I immediately called my friend. The two of us spent an hour reliving our Shimla/Manali moments and agreed that we couldn’t have asked for a better holiday. During the course of our call we remembered an insignificant incident and tadah! that’s how I got the title for my post. Err this was just to give you a background which I now feel is pointless.

Agra was our first destination and our stay was uneventful.
Lesson number 6: Do not buy miniature Taj Mahal you find on the streets of Agra. It’s extremely tacky and easily breakable.

After Agra, it was time for us to head to Manali. The moment I got off the bus, I was in love. In love with Manali. For those who haven’t visited this place, please do. It’s a b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l place. River Beas, clear blue sky, narrow trails, mountains, street food, and tall trees will leave you enthralled.

We reached Manali after a horrible bus journey. Couldn’t believe our luck or the lack of it when we were made to sit in the last row. And it didn’t help when my friend, who has a spine that’s bendable in all directions and needs constant support while travelling, sat next to me. I am sure all of us have one such friend. These earthly beings invariably find your shoulder to sleep the moment they get inside a car or a bus, eventually occupy a lot space and almost chuck you off your own seat.
Lesson number 7: Sit next to the driver; you can at least enjoy hindi film songs of 90’s. Anuradha Paudwal and Kumar Sanu singing “jaanam jaane jaa.. janam jaane jahaan..” or if you are lucky you get to listen to some of the rare ones too, which have mindboggling lyrics- “kaisa yeh ladka hai.. baatein hi karta hai.. liar hai liar hai”.

Few of us who were awake chatted for sometime and I then fell asleep, not because I was tired but it became extremely difficult for me to laugh while the earthly being slept on my then bony shoulder. Sometime in the morning at round 6 our bus stopped near an old dhabha in Haryana. Our tour operator had arranged caterers who began the job of preparing breakfast for us - bread/butter/jam. Only a loser would have eaten bread when there were hot parathas in sight. We gorged on 10 bucks aloo da paratha with a big dollop of home-made butter.
Lesson Number 8: Never share your paratha.

I don’t think I can ever forget the taste. That was the only time I genuinely liked potatoes (exceptions - yummy French fries served in Infinitea and chips bought from local Hot Chips). Finally after a very long journey we reached Manali. Cold wind greeted us and we Bangaloreans were thrilled to get our jackets, sweaters, shawls out. We generally feel happy when we see wool. I could not sleep that night; I lay awake thinking about snow. The next day we left to Rohtang Pass.
Trivia: You may notice, I used to and continue to have irregular sleep pattern. Insomnia is my middle name.

The organisers took advantage of our good nature (read: too lazy to protest) and made us permanently sit in the last row for the rest of the tour. The journey to Rohtang pass was scenic; Beas flowed peacefully and I sat next to the window. Sheer bliss. The blue-green river made my heart skip several beats... err no, in reality the sleepy bus driver kept going tad too close to the milestone. I couldn’t take my eyes off those lovely mountains and the milestone. We reached Rohtang pass.

Oh! we were ecstatic. It was feet-numbingly and teeth-chatteringly cold. But of course I just had one thing on my mind- snow. We were asked to climb the hill to reach THE place. And so we did. Did we get to see snow? Yes and no. All we saw was dirty brown patch of snow coated here and there. 200 angry college goers were all set to turn murderers. The tour operator’s promise of “snowww.. veryyy slippery also.. you will enjoy” was still ringing in our ears. Dejected we all got back, tried finding a knife in vain and sat in the bus feeling terribly hungry.

Later we hit the streets of Manali and ate mind blowing junk food.

Next post: Part III (the final one, I promise) *grin*

Love in Shimla - Part I

En Route

“Did you pack two pairs of socks?”

“I am not going to carry cold cream. Ami, you do that no?”

“Whoa! Are those Crocin tablets? Plan to set up a shop there?”

“snowwwwwww (giggle)”

These were some random sentences uttered (sometimes even in our dreams) before leaving to Manali and Shimla. The excitement was sky high and the packing list endless. My mom and sister forced me to come up with a list of things to pack, which was a task by itself.

Lesson No.1: Remember a twine rope, safety pins, mosquito repellent and a torch can complete any list.

So I added all these and much more, packed two bags and set out. My college had organized a trip to Kulu, Manali, Shimla and other must-see-places-if-you-have-gotten-off-at-Delhi-railway-station. I was with my group of friends and other college mates. How many? umm..around 200. Fun aye!

The train in which we traveled (Karnataka Express) had to accommodate 180 manic teenagers and some tweenagers along with some lecturers (yup lecturers. We had to take them along. Rules I believe). Our fellow passengers looked very nervous. They looked intimidated by the sheer racket we all created when we got in. 3 days? No way, they all must have thought. One of them was seen crying next to a stinky wash basin muttering “death.. death.. take me” (note: you know how I love to exaggerate). We found our ‘berths’ and I got a last minute do’s and don’ts from Dad. The train was about to move. I impatiently looked around for my sister. She was stuck in a traffic jam and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to see her for another 20 days. But she made it. Wheeeeeeeeee I said and exchanged hugs and some cash (working sibling=ATM. We younger one’s are so nasty *evil laughter*). After saying our goodbyes we got back to our seats and wondered how to sort the crisis that needed our immediate attention. Few of our friends were in another compartment and we had to move them. So we went around asking our co-passengers:

“err escuse Mister large man with a frown can you please shift to berth number 43, pliss?” Lesson No. 2: Never mess with such people. just smile and offer a packet of Frooti.

“um sorry, kind lady with a badly behaved child, can you take that fabulous seat number 50 and let our friend sit with us” -so on and so forth.

Even after all our pleadings and drama two of our friends ended up in a different compartment. We didn’t bother much as we had other important issues to tackle. Like dinner, for instance. So we sat down and gobbled yummy curd rice and chutney puDi with chapaatti. We failed to notice that there was a man sitting on the edge of our reserved berth and shouting very loud in a voice that could give Rajdeep Sardesai a run for his money. “Train ko kharida hai kya?” he yelled. We all took a couple of minutes to look away from our food.

Lesson No. 3: Know your priorities while traveling. Food should be your first priority. Always.

We looked up and gave one of our get-the-hell-out-of-here looks. He was upset that most of the seats were booked before he could. Our world famous get-the-hell-out-of-here look didn’t work; he kept other passengers entertained with his sulk-sulk-blah-blah. We kept ourselves entertained with curd rice and pickle. He left after sometime. We had already decided that none of us would sleep during the journey and planned to stay up the whole night. Yes, stupid teenagers. We kept ourselves awake by talking non-stop (read: bitch*ng session). But I noticed most of my friends were yawning after 11PM. I for one can never sleep while traveling so I didn’t want them to sleep. I asked them to be strong and keep themselves awake.

They left and slept peacefully.

I kept waking up from time to time, trying my best to read the names of all stations. I was on the middle berth, a difficult spot I would say, but I managed to read 'em all. Or so I thought (they were written in Hindi and my hindi reading capabilities from a distance is err how do I put it, questionable). The train was too slow for my liking and it was ~5 AM. As it was the first time that I had woken up so early in my life I thought of making the best use of it by brushing my teeth and eating some plum cake that we had packed. Hey! you feel hungry while traveling.

The whole freakin train was asleep. How can they all sleep so peacefully I wondered? With nothing much to do after eating plum cake I went back to sleep only to be rudely woken up by eunuchs at around 6 AM. Four or five of them were all around the place - *clap clap clap* “aye hero utho..” *clap clap* “haan ..haan good morning” they wished us. I needed coffee. But they kept clapping. It hurt my head. Somebody please give me coffee, I pleaded silently. For us Bangaloreans waking up to find no coffee is like going to Tirupati and not hearing MS’s Suprabhatam or going to Tirupati and not standing in queue. More claps followed forcing me to peep through my shawl. One of them caught sight of me peeping, thinking I was a guy (don’t ask me why) tried to wake me up. After s/he found I’m in fact a girl, asked me to go back to sleep. Sweet, no? I murmured ‘coffee?’ sleepily (threw in some sympathy angle muhahahaa. clever me!). “coffee?” s/he asked me with a frown and *clap clap* called the coffee chap (who had just walked into our compartment) and moved ahead to harass a cute guy who was sleeping on the ‘passage-wali’ seat (ahem.. a cute medical student. more on this later)

Lesson number 4: Don’t infuriate eunuchs. Stay calm and smile or act sleepy. They’ll help you. Really.

I thanked the kind eunuch, which went unnoticed, paid Rs.5 to the coffee chap and had my first sip of “Brooo instant coffee”. I immediately felt dizzy. I will never be able to describe the taste of Broooooo. But my fellow coffee lovers may I request you to join me in requesting Indian Railways to ban this dreadful blend of warm water, three spoons of sugar and coffee powder tin’s lid thrown in for the effect. I vowed to drink only Tea for the next 20 days, any day better than Br-ewww.
Lesson 5: You might have already guessed, yes, say NO to coffee while traveling. It.should.be.banned.

Rest of the journey was uneventful. Oh yes the cute medical student (no, he is not the protagonist of this story). To be honest I didn’t find him cute, in fact none of us did. Much to our amusement he slept throughout the journey and kept throwing furious glances at us. Well I dont blame him, coz our chatter matched the decibel levels of the train’s engine.

And thus we reached our destination.

Now, let me skip the rest of the places we visited and head to Shimla, alright. Or on second thoughts...

to be continued....

pa-pa-pa-paaaaaaaaaa (that's the sound of a trumpet by the way)

Award time!!!!!!! 'my favorite time'. its so nice to get pampered with all these awards and you lovely bloggies deserve a huge candy store for massaging my blogger-ego :) :)
Thank you Aryan’s mom and Swaram, I am so so so happy. Big hug to you both (extra big hug to Aryan :D)

by Aryan's mom:

by Swaram:

I pass these two awards to Gazal and Prax :)

Feeling hot hot hot

I haven’t traveled for a while now. I only dream about traveling. I watch shows on Travel & Living and sulk. My travel plans flop the minute I get excited about it . For this reason I have stopped planning my vacations. But the future does look bright and hope my travel plans don’t bomb like Harry Baweja’s next movie. I h.o.p.e!

The last I traveled was to Chennai on an official assignment, that too for a day. I couldn’t really look around the place as there was no time at all. But the good part was I got to eat some yummy food at Saravanaa Bhavan. What a fine place! I thought of getting a Xerox copy of the cook’s feet but they didn’t let me inside the kitchen. Can you believe that? Apart from this minor regret the trip was fun, thanks to my colleagues who were with me.

*note: dare you say- “official trip but traveling by train-aa?” hmph. I work for a start up. This justification should suffice, no?*

The train journey turned out to be uneventful, for us. Our fellow passengers felt otherwise. They almost threatened to throw us out as, they thought, we were talking too much. One man after tossing and turning for hours lost his sleep (poor chap, you’d think) and with nothing better to do he kept scowling at us. What nonsense. Another guy threw dirty looks at us every time we burst out laughing (which by the way happened every 2.67 minutes once). We did not feel guilty though. It was only 11 PM; tell me who sleeps so early?

Talking about sleep it is necessary to tell you that I normally can’t sleep while traveling. And so when everyone went to sleep, I put on my headphones to listen to music. I got bored listening to my own playlist and let my thoughts wander. I remembered the time when I had first traveled to Chennai. That was eons ago.

As kids we never had a choice. We had no decision making power (unlike today’s kids). We were happy with any kinda outing. “Trip-aa?” we’d ask our folks eagerly. The place didn’t matter to us as long as we had company.

That’s how the first Chennai holiday took place. I remember going to the beach and walking down the street feeling clammy. I remember having tough time sitting inside the van coz there hardly was any place to stretch my leg. I remember going to VGP from Chennai. I remember waiting to come back to Bangalore, coz I couldn’t take the heat.

Technically it was not a vacation. My uncle had some official duty there and with nothing much to do after finishing his work he thought he might as well throw few stupid kids into the water. No, he didn’t do that. He very sweetly asked us (meaning my entire crazy family) to accompany him on his trip. Amidst all the excitement we forgot it was the month of April. Need I say more? We realized it would be extremely hot and for us Bangaloreans any place above 25 degrees Celsius is considered hot. But none of us kids wanted to back out. Well obviously, how can you say no to a sponsored trip? Besides summer holidays were meant for fun. So the thought of beach in Chennai/VGP got us very excited.

I don’t recall the rest of the tour, except for the humid climate and as a result the urgency to get back to Bangalore.

While we are on the subject of hot places let me also narrate to you about our other expedition to another hot destination. During one such summer vacation we (my family and another friend’s family) traveled to Bijapur, Aihole, Badami and Pattadkal. Summer in North of Karnataka is hot. To put it mildly, we thought of cooking hot BeNNe dosey (Butter dosa) on top of our car. As we didn’t find butter on the highway we decided against it. But seriously, it was burning hot. Coming back to our trip, despite the heat and dad’s friend falling sick we had loads of fun. We all traveled in our Premier Padmini. All of us (eight people including four sweet 'little' kids) were squashed inside the car and we didn’t really mind (more so coz there was no choice). The heat didn’t prevent us from having fun. Between our journey, there was an unexpected stop over at Koodalasangama and with no hotels around we took refuge in a small dormitory. I still remember we slept on the floor and found everything exciting -the spookiness of the night, the dim lit room, the whole idea of an adventurous trip and the constant “ssshhh sumne malkoLI” (shut up you crazy little monsters) uttered by our elders. We even made up a song on Kudalasangama. Boy! What fun.

Now when I look back I don’t understand why most of our summer vacations were spent in places such as these- hot, dry, sultry and humid. Well who cares as long as it made us happy.

This post, my friends, was a leaf out of my travel journal. I do hope to write some more some other time.

Coming up next: Love in Shimla

Gracias

Shraddha and April (two lovely bloggers who run a great show here) have been extremely sweet and have passed this award to me :)
I think this will help me get out of my so called writers block :P

Thank you ladies, this did make my day :D


I pass this on to:
Aniruddha
Maanasi
Poornima

p.s. I hope by now you would have noticed my new super cool signature.

Cheers,

Walk on

I walked. Yes. Those of you who know me will be surprised. For the rest of you, I’ll tell you why. The only walk I take is the one from my office to the place where my carpool stops. That's my exercise. But seriously I did walk, for about 4 kms. SO WHAT you may ask. Well, you see this was different. I took a guided tour. A whaa? Yep, a tour in our very own Bangy town. I, along with my friends took one of the walks conducted by Bangalore Walks. It was indeed an experience I’ll always cherish. A tour that helped me re-discover Bangalore.

We walked through places which were familiar. It seemed familiar and yet new. I went through a series of - “WoW I never knew that!” moments. Savita, our ‘guide’ clearly knew the place like the back of her hand and her enthusiasm was extremely infectious. We had good fun interacting and walking through the streets of Bangalore.

I will refrain from saying anything more about the walk. Take it and discover for yourself. Highly recommended, folks.

p.s. This walk has totally inspired me to find out more about Bangalore. I will get back with a complete North Bangalore (read Malleshwaram) tour guide. Promise.

p.p.s had breakfast at my favorite – ‘Brahmins coffee bar’ :) yummy VaDaa and chutney.. slurp slurp. Darn! I am hungry now :(

p.p.p.s I had written this post three weeks back and was waiting for my friend to send across some pictures, which I thought would beautify this blog. Now I have them, as you can see, yeyy!. err this was avoidable but of course you know how I like giving pointless information.

Now for some pictures (courtesy: my friend :))

Fruit Bats in Bugle Rock park. You got to look closer :)

KannaDa KaTTe (near Brahmin's coffee bar). This kaTTe (KaTTe means a place where you can sit and talk talk and talk. There’s a kaTTe in my compound as well, are you surprised?) has pictures of various luminaries of our state. This is just one part of the kaTTe.


My friend found this very amusing :p

Gavigangadhareshwara temple:

I have my speech ready

Yeyyeyy!! I am totally yeksited. I have received an award! Not one, but two two awards :D
Thanks Swaram, for passing these two awards :)

Though, I feel I should start blogging something that's rational and meaningful. I never do that, do I? I mean look at all my posts. They make little or no sense. They are all opinionated but do not create a Rang-De-Basanti-effect. People don't read them and think "haan, hum honge kaamyaab..ek din". So will I not continue writing them? err well old habits die hard you see. So I'll try my best, to not sound sensible.

Another thing that got me thinking was last year February, when I started blogging, I never imagined having blogger friends. Now that I do, I feel good about it. Happy that there are people whom I haven't met (in person) but can share almost any dam(n) thing. Great to know people through blogs innit? And of course all my other friends who diligently read my posts and leave comments :))

Thanks folks!

and I pass these awards to all my friends within and outside blogosphere

Thanks again Swaram.

We the Junglees

The plan for the trip began a month before the actual date.. err yeah, this was the first time I guess there was planning involved in our trip *applause and some drum rolls please ;)* My friend Nihal, the initiator, got us so excited about the trip that we were actually counting days, very much like kids who look forward to visit their favorite uncle's farm house. After a lot of behind-the-scenes-"yes/No/Maybe" to the trip (that always happens when you plan so much.. hmph), after getting to know that Nihal would have to drop out (we missed our in house Schumi during the trip :(), after a lot of downs and a bit of up's we set out to Biligiri Rangana Betta or B R Hills. Asifa, Rohini and I parked ourselves in Kiran's car, clicking pictures occasionally and chatting non-stop. Shasank, Vishu and Aanch were in a cab, sleeping throughout the journey no doubt. We got to see some lovely country side I tell you, good for our health and our camera. But but but the road that we took was terrible. Actually it was just a path.. it was muddy, rocky and bumpy! Kiran's car was pleading us to get down and carry it :p.. Finally, after a terrible journey we reached BR Hills. Yayy! Now we have a Kahaani mein twist ;) we were not staying at BR hills but were driving up the hill to K Gudi (Kyathadevarayana Gudi) - to Jungle Lodges. The road to K Gudi was good, we were back on track, as in all excited and cursing Zilla Panchayat for the pathetic condition of the roads. We reached K Gudi at 2 PM I think.. Right time for lunch. Even before we could think of food, the Jungle lodges representative gave us "instructions". Sounded very organized and everything planned (sigh! not again. We are not a group of disciplined individuals' you see :p). The place had a charming view -it was raining and the whole place looked lovely. Green and beautiful. I loved the place instantaneously. We got into our "tents" and had a reasonably good lunch. Then we all set out for "the jungle safari". (The Safari story will be covered in detail soon, in a separate post :D) BTW we got to see loads of spotted deer during the safari.
Next day all of us woke up early.. ah! that made us wise (remember the saying??? hehe). It was a lovely sight. The mist and the green, together formed a great combination. We enjoyed sitting outside our tents sipping coffee and occasionally shooing a monkey away. By the way the place is full of monkeys, apart from us that is. Later at round 10 or 11, I don't really remember, we went to Biligiri Ranganathaswamy Temple. We got to see some beautiful plants and trees on the way to the temple (picture above). After lunch we all just lazed around doing nothing. Extremely relaxed. Asifa and Rohini tried their hands on Table Tennis. I read a wildlife magazine.. had coffee.. . Also watched a wildlife documentary movie (something about tigers I think) did nothing in particular.. We couldn't resist the tree houses and rope nets and so climbed/rolled.. There were hammocks to relax.. Sometime in the evening Kiran, Shasank and I went on a drive to a nearby town and on our way back we saw some good wildlife - a turtle (??), Bison, Wild dogs and some more spotted deer (not again!!). Spotted Deer apparently are like dogs you find in Bangalore, they are so common you see. Overall a superb lazy (except for our unexpected night safari), day at Jungle Lodges. loved it... Next day we went trekking into the jungle.. Oh Boy was it tiring or what! We huffed and puffed our way into the forest.. Spotted a root legged spider.. yeah an itchy weed. And another Elephant! Trekking is fun but is very tiring ..Tires you like crazy without getting to see much. Except for a "cute" flower here and a thorny itchy weed there, our trek wasn't eventful. But it was fun… It's the state of mind you see; if you want to have fun you can have fun in every sense I say!

All in all it was fun.. Of course the Jungle Lodges people would have been definitely happy to see us leave hehe... We the junglees loved the jungle...

Few facts about the place follow:

Distance: 226 Kms from Bangalore

Best time to visit: Feb - June

K Gudi Wilderness Camp Area: 540 sq kms

Cost (incl Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner): 2250 per night.

Few Wild facts:

There are 600 Elephants (Tuskers' included :p), 75 leopards (we did not come across even one of them), innumerable monkeys, wild boars, wild dogs, Bisons', Birds and Deer.

Would suggest everybody to visit this place :)