Month: September 2016

In my opinion, there are two kinds of travellers in this world: the kind that enjoys the place they are visiting, more than the travel, and the other kind that enjoys the travel more than the place itself (comparison made in relative terms and doesn’t mean that either parties enjoy only one thing strictly). Well, I belong to the category that finds travel more thrilling and that is one reason why I ended up spending more time sleeping in hotel rooms rather than going out and exploring the destinations in a couple of trips at least. I am more than excited to share the experiences from the most adventurous trip I have had so far.

This wasn’t a planned trip and everything that happened was just spontaneous and that’s probably why the trip was just too amazing. I set a couple of personal records in the trip which involves the longest distance covered in a single day (766.1 Km), longest trip I have ever done (1498.3 Km in 45 hours), longest time I spent on my bike in a single day (14 hours of riding on the first day, 18 hours in total on the road until day one was completed. 15 hours of riding on the second day and 19 hours in total on the road), longest hours and distances covered in the night ever (more than 6 hours and 300+ Km of night ride on day one and 7.5 Hours and 400+ Km on the second day). You will possibly think I am a bragger when I say all these figures but you will understand why I am telling all these only if you read it along the lines of the fact that I belong to the second category of travellers: the kind that enjoys the travel more, and factors mentioned are the ones that make every ride more adventurous, exciting, and beautiful for us. The story won’t be complete if I don’t mention them.

It was a Friday afternoon in the office and would have been just business as usual if I hadn’t got a phone call from my uncle asking me to deliver a package to his friend in Kottayam, Kerala. There was nothing exciting for me in the request until he told me that he wanted it delivered that weekend itself. That weekend meant nothing but the next day and considering the places I had to go and the distance I had to cover, going by bus was obviously out of question. I was already thrilled about the ride and was checking out routes in the map by then. I told him that bike was the only option to go and he would have to convince mom to approve the trip (yeah, I think anyone will easily understand what this particular part means. No matter what a badass you pretend to be, it’s not going to happen if mom says no) . He didn’t sound very confident when he said he would do that and that was understandable considering the fact that uncle is my mom’s youngest brother and he himself receives his share of lectures and advices even now. However, I was happy since I had passed on the responsibility to his head (that’s what Indians love the most right? Passing responsibilities to someone else’s head). I still wasn’t done with the paper works and permissions because the request was not yet submitted for approval from my brother but that wasn’t a difficult thing to get at all.

Tasks involved going to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu (around 410 Km from Bangalore), buying a medicine, delivering it to a place called Uvhavoor, Kottayam, Kerala (around 430 Km from Thanjavur) and then coming back to Bangalore by Sunday night so that I could go to office and continue the routines uninterrupted (which wasn’t what happened actually, by the way). I sat with paper and pen and after a few minutes of calculations I decided that it was possible to cover until Uzhavoor on day one if I left Bangalore by 5:00 AM at least on Saturday. I wanted to leave office a bit early to get some good sleep and was getting thrilled every time I thought about the next day’s ride. Oh boy, it’s time for adventure.

I had set alarm for 4:00 am the previous night but I have no memory of hearing it and I got up at 5:00 am instead. It was okay even though I was getting late by an hour because I had considered one hour buffer in case if things were getting late. I left home by 6:00 am and there was already enough sunlight to make the ride easy. The ride on TN expressways are cliché and you can use the same description even for your 100^th trip on these roads. However, there was something to the fun factor because roads were crowded than usual and the frequent lane changes to pass vehicles made sure that the ride wasn’t getting any boring on those stretches.

This was the second best stretch I covered during the trip and it was a two lane road spread across the beautiful paddy fields of Tamil Nadu along the banks of Kaveri. The road was not that great in terms of tarmac quality considering the usual standards of TN roads but was definitely good enough to not spoil the fun of the ride. There were potholes occasionally but not bad enough to bother you during the trip. Since this is the same route that goes to Velankanni, you will see a lot of pilgrims clad in saffron clothing and would probably make you wonder if this is an Indian version of ‘Camino De Santiago’ with number of pilgrims increasing for every Km you cover. The number of pilgrims might have had something to do with Nativity feast that was less than three weeks away.

This was my first ever visit to Trichy and I must say Trichy is just a beautiful city from whatever I saw in the short time I spent on its roads. I just loved the way the roads and traffic were managed and I never ran into any bottlenecks which is a commendable thing for a city that big. Another thing I noticed is the cleanliness which amused me so much that I got suspicious if it was just the areas that I saw during the ride that was clean. I googled about cleanliness of the city when I was back in Bangalore and wasn’t surprised to learn that this is the 6^th cleanest city in the country. The Thanjavur road cut through BHEL area and some other central government establishments and the regions are so beautiful, calm, and peaceful. There were a couple of temples on the way that gave a hint that the city has a good architectural taste as well.

I didn’t get a feel of Thanjavur since the expressway went around through the outskirts towards Saliamangalam. I had to travel another 20 Km to reach Papanasam, which was my final destination. The expressway ends shortly after Thanjavur and till Saliamangalam, the road was under construction. However, once you take left from Saliamangalam towards Papanasam, the ride gets really soothing with the greenery of paddy fields on either side of the extremely narrow village road, which looks much like floating in a green sea.

The adventurous part of the ride started from Papanasam because my whole schedule got delayed by at least 3 hours here. The medicine I came to buy, was made available only by around 5:45 PM even though I reached here by 2:00 PM and I was able to start from Thanjavur only by 6:00 PM. I was getting concerned because it was a risky shot to ride until Kottayam the same day since I still had to ride another 420 Km out of which only around 160 Km was expressway. This meant my average speed would get hugely affected and I would have to ride the winding stretches of Western Ghats at night after being deprived of sleep for a very long time. This was definitely not a wise thing to do and I decided to ride until Dindigul and crash at some hotel and call it a day.

There was a problem with Plan B as well because I would be around 250 Km shy from my day one target and this meant I would have to ride another 250 Km extra the next day. Altogether, that would make it a ride for more than 850 Km for day two which was not very feasible since half of that distance was crowded two lane roads on which it gets real difficult to average more than 60 Kmph usually. However, after weighing down all the factors, I decided to stay at Dindigul itself since I was getting tired with each minute that passed and I usually avoid pushing my body beyond its limits when I have to ride or drive due to safety concerns. I set a target to reach Dindigul by 8:30 pm so that I could get proper rest and start off by early morning next day.

I crossed Trichy soon enough and was heading straight on the expressway thinking that I was in the right direction. Even though there were a couple of busy junctions and cross roads on the highway outside Trichy city, there were no major intersections that suggested a major route change but the fact was that I had to take an exit right after city in order to get on to the Dindigul expressway. I rode on the Madurai expressway for at least 15 Km before I got suspicious and it was already dark by then and it was getting difficult to find some help. I decided to ride further ahead until I found someone to ask for directions and luckily I met a cab driver after a couple of minutes. He told me the obvious thing that I was on the wrong road had to head back to city to take the Dindigul road. However, he told me there was an easy route that would take me to the highway but it was not a proper road and went through the paddy fields but would eventually intersect with the Dindigul expressway. He advised me to consider that option if I was confident enough to navigate safely through the road. I decided to go for the second option and I didn’t have to regret it at all.

The road was not proper and that was quite understandable because there was only one small village on the entire stretch and didn’t seem like the road was used much other than for farm vehicles. There were ten kilometres of bumpy ride with paddy fields on either sides and I told myself that it was making my day. Finally I hit the Dindigul highway and switched to safe ride mode. My safe ride mode at night on express ways involves keeping the speed checked at less than 80 Kmph and ensuring that I have a clear visibility of the road ahead. What I usually do for this is finding some vehicle that goes at around 80-90 Kmph and follow it at a distance on a different lane. There are two reasons for doing so, one: I have clear visibility until the car with my own headlights and beyond the car with its headlights and two: In a possible case where I need to slowdown such as a hump or a pothole, a dog or human jumping in front, I will get enough time to respond based on the car’s behaviour.

However, all the vehicle’s where zooming past me definitely at speeds more than 100 kilometres per hour and I had to remain patient until I was able to find the right car. Finally, I found a swift desire that was going at around 90 and decided to tail him. Luckily he was there until Dindigul and I reached the city by around 8:30 PM which was really good in terms of time. I started looking for hotels but most of them were full and the ones that were free was damn expensive. I called upon my brother to check for rooms online but he too had only disappointing news for me. While he was still checking for other options, I decided to ask some porters, who were sitting beside the road, about road conditions until Kumily. This was because Kumily was midway between Dindigul and Kottayam and was only 150 kilometres more from Dindigul. It would have been really beneficial if I was able to complete this stretch because it would help me to cut down the extra kilometres I had to do for the next day to just 100 kilometres from 250. The only reason for not considering this option was safety because, keeping aside Theni and Cumbum towns in between, there are no major towns or villages on the road and I was not sure about getting help, god forbid, if I got into some trouble. My friends who travel this road often also warned me to avoid it even though it wasn’t entirely a risky affair.

The porters I met (not just the porters, people of Tamil Nadu are extremely good and humane as far as I know. I have had only the best experiences with them so far. I know some of you might come up with arguments with respect to politics but that is an entirely different context) were so nice and encouraging that they gave me every details I needed to know about Dindigul – Kumily stretch. They reassured me that there is frequent vehicle movement on the road and it wouldn’t be difficult to get some help in case of an emergency. By the time I had finished the conversation, my brother also called me up and he suggested me to go to Kumily and stay there for the night. I was morally recharged to take up the challenge and it was then I saw a Kerala RTC bus heading to Kottayam passing by. That would have been a lottery for me if I got to tail that bus because I wouldn’t have anything to worry at all in that case. I told the porters that I was going to follow that bus but, concerned, they quickly checked the route and found out that it was going around Pollachy which was not the route I was supposed to take. Even though I was disheartened a little bit, the porters gave me confidence and told me to just hit the road.

I decided to have some snacks and get a coffee boost before starting the final stretch for the day and started off to Kumily. The Dindigul-Theni-Cumbum route is a beautiful two lane road that is simply amazing. My worries and fears went for a toss as soon as I hit the road and I simply enjoyed my ride throughout. In fact, this was the best stretch I did in the entire trip. Beautifully constructed road lined with reflectors and moderate curves was a perfect finale for an amazing day. My only stops during the final stretch included one coffee break at Theni and a prayer break at the St. Mary’s shrine on the Cumbum – Kumily pass section. There was a happiness and relief after I said my thanks to mother Mary for keeping me safe during the entire ride and admired her beauty for a little while before starting off to Kumily. The pass section, even though short, is a small feast for a rider and can be really enjoyed, responsibly. After a thorough checking of my bag by both Tamil Nadu and Kerala police at the border (think twice before taking weed across the borders I tell you) I reached Kumily finally by 12:30 am. I checked into the first hotel I saw and crashed as soon as I could.

I got up by 6:00 am because I knew I was on a tight schedule and had no time to spare with my destination still another 100 kilometres away. I had started from Kumily by 7:00 am and reached Uzhavoor by 11:00 am. The Kottayam – Kumily road is an awesome stretch to do on a bike and I was thrilled to start the day with such a good ride. I handed over the package to my uncle’s friend and started from there by 11:30 after taking a good rest. I knew I would get tired and the 5 hours of sleep was not sufficient enough to revive me from previous day’s exhaustion but I had no choice but to keep it going until I reached Bangalore. Even though I was not tired by then, I knew I would be tired by evening and therefore I had to cover a significant distance before that happened. I stopped for lunch by around 12 and started off with my calculations.

I realized I was running late and even if I rode non-stop, I would reach Salem only by 7 pm. This was not a good idea because I knew my body wouldn’t be able accommodate so much exhaustion. I thought about two options, one: leave bike at Fabid’s house in Palakkad and go to Bangalore by bus and two: get a good sleep at his place and continue the ride. I called up my brother to check bus tickets and yet again, the results were disappointing and thus option one was scratched off. I called up Fabid’s dad to inform him about my plans but unfortunately they were not going to be at home in the evening. I decided to just keep riding and in the worst case to take a hotel in Salem and get a good rest. I started off and luckily the roads were not crowded at all for Kerala standards and I made it a quick run to Thrissur.

I had reached Puthukkad signal and while waiting for the signal, I remembered the last time I stopped at a red signal there. That was in December 2014 and a Traveller van hit me hard enough to cause damages amounting to 23000 INR to my bike and possibly a lot more to myself in case if I was not properly geared up (invest in riding gears I tell you, it will be totally worth it some day). I decided to take rest on the service road and that’s when it struck me that Suraj’s house was near Puthukkad and he is home on vacation. Bingo! I messaged him and he called me and, thank my lucky stars, he was at home and I finally found a place to take a good nap. He and his parents had come down to celebrate Onam at home and I got a proper sleep for three hours at his home after having amazing ‘Payasam’. I hope they had a real good vacation. I had evening tea and snacks from his home and started from there by 6:15 pm. He showed me the new Royal Enfield classic 500 he gifted his dad and accompanied me until highway on that beast.

Ride until Palakkad was a bit difficult considering the overcrowded road and occasional potholes and too much light glare that was hurting the eyes. Even though I was feeling much energetic after the good sleep, I just wanted to hit the Coimbatore – Bangalore expressway so that I could ride tirelessly for the remaining distance. I had my dinner at Walayar, the border town, and headed straight to Coimbatore. The L & T highway was rather difficult at night because of the newly developed potholes and high vehicle density. Due to visibility issues, I had to tail behind a mini-truck until I reached the Salem express way.

Coimbatore to Salem was smooth as butter with convenience of three lanes for a major share of the stretch, and amazing visibility enhanced with reflectors on all required regions. However, Salem to Bangalore was not as smooth as the previous stretch because it was more crowded and there was always a chance of people suddenly jumping in front of the bike which made me over-conscious. I had to stick to my plan of tailing vehicles in this stretch to be on a safer side but it was getting really difficult to find a car that was going under 100 kilometres per hour. I was switching between different cars every ten minutes to maintain my speed and it was then a TN registered Hyundai Verna appeared. Somehow, he figured out that I was tailing behind cars and he took it upon himself to be my pilot. He passed me and then on adjusted his speed every time I had to catch up, cautioned me with indicators whenever an intersection or U-turn came, or whenever we had to slow down. He accompanied me until before Krishnagiri and we honked at each other as courtesy when we parted our ways. I would like to thank him once again for the kindness he showed to me that day.

Krishnagiri to Bangalore is our usual playground and we used to come here quite often as college students for dinner and stuff. But, a problem had developed with my right hand finger by then because it had got infected from a wound that happened almost a week back. Due to heavy riding and stress on my hand, the wound got infected and I had to remove my gloves when the pain became unbearable. The pain was getting real bad with each passing minute and I just wanted to reach home somehow. Finally I made it to Bangalore by 2:40 am and my finger had swollen up like a marble. I had to go to hospital and get an injection before I could go back to home and get some sleep finally.

We all have fond memories of many ‘first times’ in our lives. Most of those are moments we all want to keep close to our heart till the day we die and all of us like to look back at them only with a smile on our face. The first time you got on a plane or travelled by a train (that you remember, of course), the first time you saw the sea, the first time someone let you hold the steering wheel, the first time you drove, the first time you rode a bike, the first crush, the first love, the first time you kissed and what else? The list would go on and on. Beautiful, isn’t it? Are you not smiling already, thinking about that first kiss of yours?  Well, how about the first time you passed out on a party? Didn’t see that coming, did you? Okay, this story starts with a party that went as awesome as it could be and the consequential passing out parade that followed (jk, it was just me that passed out)

So, it had been more than a year since we left college and the phenomenal apartment D306, Ramanuja Enclave, that we called home for the last two years of college. Nostalgia had started creeping in and it felt like memories were already getting rusty (thanks to people who left Bangalore over the time). It was at such a moment Susu (Read Suraj Sugathan) announced his arrival on a rescue mission as he was coming to India on a vacation. Sheikh told us that he would be in Bangalore by September 2 and entitled us to arrange a place for the party. It is always a problem when the person who used to be the event manager of the squad asks you to arrange things yourself this time. However, we were lucky enough to get our old apartment for a day to party after a bit of confusion and it was just going to be the beginning of an awesome long weekend (me and Anshu were set to leave to Kodaikanal on a trip with another set of friends on Saturday morning 3:00 AM and this post will eventually come down to that in a few more lines)

Susu had come with one bottle of JD and another bottle of Glennfiddich and the Mallu genes have this habit of starting to function right away when exposed to presence of alcohol (especially the expensive ones, we drink them only at parties thrown by others). It didn’t take a long time for the squad, comprising of mallus mostly, to gulp down both the bottles and to start entertaining ourselves. It was some peaceful rounds of card games for the first few hours but by around 1:30 AM we all wanted to go to our old hang out place over NICE road near the apartment. This is an incomplete over-bridge built across NICE road and we used to come here for star gazing while we were in college (only after getting high). The grain juice had started doing its magic but, despite the lame jokes and the silly acts, I was in total control until I decided to take a nap on the railing.

My head started getting heavy when it was time for me to get up and go back to the flat and by the time I reached the flat, I wished if I could puke all the poison out. All I wanted to do next was crash on a bed and take a nap until my ‘other set of friends’ arrived to pick me and Anshu up. Now, gentlemen, the twists and turns start from here onward. I only remember falling on the bed and it was then I passed out. I opened my eyes the next day morning hoping to wake up into the fine greenery of Kodaikanal but what was in front of me didn’t look anything like Kodai at all. It took me five minutes to realize that I was staring at the light yellow walls of Ramanuja enclave and it gave me a shock to see Jince, Abin, and Susu lying next to me on three other beds. It still didn’t occur to me that my so called besties left me behind and continued with their trip, and I was about to go and wake Anshu up when Abin told me she was not there.

Now on I would definitely understand if someone spoke to me about betrayal because my so called friends did to me what I would have never done to them(I know you bitches have your versions of the story but I am holding the keyboard and I own this show, huh). Any normal person would have expected their friends to carry and put them in the car in that particular scenario, but my friends are not friends friends, and they tried to wake me up rather than carrying me to the car and four heavy men failed miserably at one simple mission. It was around 9 AM and I was sulking in a Kengeri apartment, still hung over from last night, thinking about what kind of a failure I am and it was then the spontaneity kicked in and I decided that I am going to Kodai no matter what. Luckily, Fabi hadn’t taken my bike home and I asked Suraj to drop me to Satellite bus stand so that I could take a Bus to Salem. I got my bus around 10:00 AM and my epic journey started from there.

If it wasn’t for sheer determination, this trip wouldn’t have happened and I would have slept until half past noon at least because I felt like my high lasted until around 2:30 PM. Somehow I managed to get inside the bus and took a window seat and all I did until I reached Salem was, sleeping in different positions abiding to the space constraints set by the majestic design of TNSTC buses. Bangalore to Salem is around 200 Kms and on an average speed, you should be able to reach in 3 hours or maybe 3.5 hours. You get up after 3 hours and realize that you are nowhere close to Salem. Then you get up after around 3.5 hours and you realize you haven’t made much progress from the place you were at, half an hour ago. Now you get impatient and you are not sleeping anymore. You are trying to stay awake, despite the bad hangover, hoping that you will reach Salem in any moment. And finally you reach at Salem at 2:30 PM after travelling for almost 4.5 hours.

If there was ever a slow racing competition among State Transport Corporations of the country, TNSTC would remain the unbeaten champions till world’s end. Also, I understood the logic why they don’t have any Volvo/Scania or any such luxury buses in their fleet because driving these buses at  less than50 Kmph is not humanly possible. Instead, they have got numerous categories of services starting from ordinary, town to town, bye pass rider, fly over service, express, 1 to 3 etc. etc. but you wouldn’t be able to distinguish these buses unless you know to read Tamil because all these categories use the same green/brown buses with a label on the front wind shield that says what kind of service it does. If you are thinking about what difference it makes to travel on an ordinary bus and an express bus, here is how it goes: Suppose there are ten stops between start point and end point. The normal bus would stop in all the ten stops while an express skips 3 or 4. Considering the speed factor, they all travel at a comfortable 50 Kmph. It would be blasphemous to say that TNSTC buses would ever drive into accidents because they never ever travel at speeds that would remotely qualify for an accident. Oh wait, I shouldn’t be ignorant about the possibilities of accidents or irritation caused to other people sharing the same road with these buses due to their snail pace. Whatever, I need to reach Kodai man.

I had to get down from bus even before it reached the bus stand because the puke I wanted to make last night had reached my throat 12 hours later. And listen people, I am a gentleman and don’t like causing trouble to other people. I humbly requested the co-passengers to make way for me to get out of the bus so that I don’t puke on them and that was the quickest response from anyone I saw during the entire trip. I got out of the bus but struggle was real since I was in the middle of the city. I had to find a proper place to puke so that I don’t dirty the city (yes, I am a pro-Swachh Bhartian) but the nausea gods were not much in my favour. However, I spotted an opening on the drainage cover and ran towards it with no time to spare and started my job right away. It felt much better once it was over even though I got a little tired after that.

The reason why I shared my throw up story is not because I thought that anyone would get fascinated by that but because I wanted to tell you about two uncles who were standing next to me at that time. They came and helped me in a very commendable way when I was about throw my stomach up in the drain. They told me to wash my forehead, then face, back of my neck and ears once I was done throwing up and, trust me, it did help me feel much better instantly. However, the thing that surprised me was something else. One of them offered his hanky to me thinking that I didn’t have one. Honestly, I would never be kind enough to offer my kerchief to some random stranger to clean up his belly juice and the incident made me realize how, good people can still be found around. That was moment number one where faith in humanity was restored in me during the trip.

I walked towards Salem bus stand and entered a hotel for lunch. I ordered meals (rice and sambar would remain my favorite food at any given time) and it was there at the hotel the moment number two happened. I had requested for a spoon since my finger was still dressed due to an infection but the hotel didn’t have steel spoons, so the waiter got me a plastic spoon. Another waiter who was standing nearby saw me struggling with plastic spoon to put rice in my plate and he went and got one more plastic spoon and asked to use them together so that it would be easier for me(this was done without request). Even with both the spoons it was not that easy to transfer the rice on to the leaf and this guy transferred the rice with his own bare hands. I know you might go ‘ewww’ over the hygiene factor but I know he did it only out of his innocence and compassion and it did make me happy.

I started searching for a Dindigul bus hoping that I would get a Kodaikanal bus from there according to what had conductors instructed me. I got on a Madurai bus that was about to leave and managed to get a seat. The bus started from Salem bus stand by around 3:00 PM and I was hoping to reach Dindigul by 6:00 PM or something. I got my next shocker when the conductor told me that the bus would reach Dindigul only by 7:45 PM. That’s when I started getting paranoid because I was not sure whether there would be buses from Dindigul to Kodaikanal late night. I made friends with two co passengers who sat beside me and they reassured me that there would be buses to Kodaikanal throughout the day from Dindigul and not to worry about it. I eventually realized that people were all talking to each other despite being total strangers and that was obviously a great way to pass time in that slow moving bus. Clock was ticking past 7:40 and there was no signs of bus reaching Dindigul yet and that concerned me a lot. Bus reached Dindigul only by around 8:15 PM and the trip was getting adventurous with every passing moments.

Despite reaching late to Dindigul, I was somewhat relieved thinking that the next bus would take me to Kodaikanal and told myself that there was no reason to worry at all. I walked towards the nearest bus I saw and asked the conductor when the next bus to Kodaikanal is and the way his eyebrows made a formation wasn’t comforting at all. He told me to go to the next terminal and ask in the enquiry and I just followed the instructions. The officer at the enquiry counter told me that there was no bus to Kodaikanal but I can take one bus to Batlagundu village and I might get a bus to Kodaikanal from there. The Batlagundu bus had already started and was on its way out of the bus depot when I started running towards it. There was no seat and the bus was overcrowded considering the fact that there wouldn’t be another bus to Batlagundu in a very long time. I had to stand and travel for one hour and ten minutes to reach Batlagundu bus stop and another kind guy helped identify the ramp where Kodaikanal buses would stop. It was around 9:30 PM and I was informed that the next bus to Kodaikanal would come at 10:00 PM and it did come at that time but left for Kodaikanal only by 10:30 PM.

It was a 3 hour long journey to Kodaikanal from there and I would reach by around 1:30 AM as per the calculations, which would have been fine in a normal case. But I had a problem. My final destination wasn’t Kodaikanal but Poomparai village which was tucked inside the forest 22 Kms far from Kodaikanal town. Even though it was only 22 Kms it was almost a 2 hour long journey considering the road conditions and the terrains and the last bus supposedly would leave at 1:30 AM from Kodaikanal. People in the bus told me that the next bus would be at around 3:30 AM if we didn’t make it on time to Kodaikanal for the 1:30 bus. My fingers were crossed but the fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it made me remain calm and I decided to sleep off on the bus.

I was very excited when the bus reached earlier than ETA at 1:10 AM because I thought I would be able to catch the 1:30 bus to Poomparai. I thougt of taking a taxi to the resort if the rates were reasonable but obviously Rs. 1500 for a 22Km ride didn’t make any sense at all. I sat on the lonely and empty lane beside Kodaikanal bus stand waiting for the 1:30 bus to come. Also, my phone was dead by that time and there was no way of communicating with anyone. It was already 2:00 AM and there was still no sign of Poomparai bus. When it was half past 2:00 AM I understood that there is no 1:30 bus and the only bus going to come next is the one that was supposed to come from Batlagundu later. I could have taken this bus if I had waited at Batlagundu skipping the first bus I took. Finally the Poomparai bus came at around 3:40 AM and the conductor was a bit skeptical when I asked him about Club India resorts. He asked me if I was willing to walk to the resort if he dropped me at the intersection and I said yes.

I wasn’t even puzzled why everyone was so skeptical when I told them about going to Club India resort until the bus dropped me at the intersection and conductor showed me the road I had to take. The bus left right after I got down there was literally nothing I could see around myself. No moonlight, no flashlight, no phone but just the hope that I was looking in the right direction. I was able to identify a trail that went down from the public road and I started walking down on that trail. After a few meters, I saw a moderately illuminated field that looked much like a flat lawn at a distance and I concluded that it was the resort and started walking towards the light. I could see people flashing lights at distance and I tried to get their attention by trying to switch on my phone but it didn’t work out. I kept walking towards the light and with every step I took, I was getting less convinced that it was the resort. I reached the building that I was targeting, after around ten minutes and was panicked to see that it was an empty building.

There were all good reasons for me to panic and I decided to walk towards the next building that was lit. I reached near the building but there was a moderate sized trench built around it and hence I couldn’t reach inside the compound. I started shouting ‘Anna, Anna’ hoping that someone would be there inside but the only response I got was the barking of a dog. I was about to give up my hope after about two minutes when I heard somebody getting up inside the building and opening the door to come out. It took some time for the person to point his flashlight at me because I was standing at the backside of the building. However he came out and I explained to him my ordeal and a chill went down my spine when he made me realize where I was and what kind of an idiot I was.

My friends were so great and responsible that they didn’t find it necessary to warn me that the resort was in the middle of a jungle. Literally a freaking jungle crawling with bison and wild boar at night. Yeah, Anshu had told me to give them a call once I reached the resort entrance from Main road so that they would come and pick me up since the building was around 800 meters inside. Firstly it was more than a Km inside and secondly there was no proper road leading to the resort. The guy whom I met was a farmer at night watch protecting the cattle and the crops from possible wild boar attack. The flashlights I saw were not security guards of the resort but other farmers watching over the crops. I understood the severity of the situation I was in when the farmer didn’t allow me to walk to the resort. I had asked him to show me the way so that I could go and he asked me what I was saying when there are possibly so many wild animals around. I asked him if he could drop me to the resort and I would pay him and he explained to me it wasn’t a matter of money but he couldn’t leave the cattle in case some wild animals sneaked inside.

However, he was kind enough to not leave me alone out in the dark and he called out for another watcher in the next hill and woke him up. He entitled the other guy to walk me up to the resort but I still had to walk up to the second guy from the hill where I was standing, so that he could accompany me from there. The first farmer told that he would show the flashlight and asked me to follow it until I reached the next guy. I was scared enough but I walked towards the second flashlight following the trails flashed by the first guy. There were so many ditches and loose mud that covered up until my ankle but I kept walking and finally reached the second guy. The second one wasn’t very impressed about the idea of waking him up in the middle of the night and he didn’t speak even a single word throughout the walk. It gave me shivers when I realized that the guy kept flashing around to see if there were any animals nearby and I only wanted to reach the resort somehow by then.

The eventful journey on four different buses came to an end by around 5 AM after 19 long hours on the road and I took that sleep I deserved much, afterwards. I decided to sleep until afternoon while others decided to go on a small trek nearby. I had had my share of trekking the previous night and it was very thoughtful of them to let me sleep until I felt good. I found out that my feet had got hurt with thorns and twigs despite wearing a shoes and I cleaned everything up after taking a shower.

We headed to Vattaikanal that afternoon to have brunch at the famed ‘Altafs’ café and also to visit the Dolphin’s nose cliff to take those awesome pictures. Even though we reached Altafs at around 2:00 PM, we got our food only by around 4:00 PM. The place has great food and an awesome view with shitty service. There are only two waiters and they treat the customers as if they would be happy to see us leave the place. However, the food was great and the view was awesome from the café. But our dolphin’s nose plan didn’t work out that day because it was already getting late. We came back to the cottage by night and had made arrangements for an awesome campfire which totally made our day. The ‘I have never done that’ game that we played at midnight put some light on some cool facts about my old friends and new ones and those facts were indeed fascinating for me.

This was my second trip to Kodai and the search for Magic Mushrooms turned out to be disappointing yet again. I might have to wait until the next trip to witness the magic of those shrooms. I am hoping that the wait would be totally worth it because Kodaikanal is a small place to visit so many times otherwise, honestly. We returned from Kodaikanal the next day and if it wasn’t for the awesomeness of Dolphin’s nose cliff, the trip would have been rather a boring one because we didn’t do a lot of other stuff during the trip.

Honestly the trip would have been boring if it wasn’t for the awesome people whom I was traveling with. Nino was amazing as always and she lived up to the expectations by introducing me to some great people to travel with. And we always used to carry a bundle of excitement with us in all our trips and that bundle, without doubt, is Anshu always. Even though that bitch ditched me and went ahead with the trip, we had great fun together at Kodai. Solomon handled all of us really well and took it upon himself to be the DJ for the trip. And there was enough time for laughter with Vinita’s and Vanessa’s awesome timing at making dialogues directed at us. Vanessa had made some promises to me during the trip which she never kept though 🙁

We are all young and hot blooded and would do anything to feel that adrenaline rush inside of us. But I want all of you all to remember that being adventurous and being stupid are two entirely different things and there will be no point in screwing up your life over your stupidity. I would call my journey till Kodaikanal an adventurous one because I had a thrilling experience all the while. The second part of my journey, from Kodaikanal to Poomparai, is something I would call utterly stupid and senseless. The first thing to do before setting out on a trip or back-packing across a new place is to get an initial idea about the place itself. I should have checked where the resort was located and how to reach there and I should have abandoned the idea of going to the resort when it was pitch dark in the night. Honestly, I would have abandoned the plan if I knew it was in the middle of the jungle. My idea of the resort gate and the road inside was that the resort had a huge compound with a gate and once I was inside the compound I would have to walk another Km inside the compound. I was expecting a security guard at the gate who would guide me to the resort when I reached there but all the revelations happened to me too late.

Yayy that’s us and the shivering of knees is not visible in the picture 😀