Yeamasing Kochi Claimmette!

4 PM : Bright and sunny. Hot too. (OK. HOT is maybe too much to say. You need to be in Delhi to experience HOTness. Unless of course, you see me *WINK*.). Need I talk about the humidity?

4.30 PM : Dark and cloudy. And windy. Very windy. Almost cyclonic windy.

4.45 PM : It's still windy. AND its raining. No. POURING. No. (A word to describe rains that are even more heavy than "POURING").

5 PM : The wind's stopped. But it's still raining cats and dogs.

5.30 PM : WOW. It's only drizzling now. As much as it would in the whole of Delhi's rainy season.

5.45 PM : No rains. Heavy thunder and lightning. It's as loud as the fireworks procession at the Thrissur pooram. Even more. And the lightning comes as close to the earth as it possibly can.

6 PM : Everything's stopped. And the weather has become very VERY cool. Perfect weather to go out and enjoy!!

So, this is how it is. On the dot. Everyday. Yep. EVERYDAY. As I write this, the weather has reached the 4.30 PM stage. Kochi weather is just simply amazing.

Name that volcano.

You just know you're going to take a looooooooooong time when you try pronouncing the name of this, now very famous, volcano that's creating havoc in Europe.

Even more busy days ahead?

The looooooonnnggg looooooooongg two months spent after getting my job offer has seen me going to the following places :

1) Kurukshetra

2) Delhi - There is a LOT to see in Delhi!!

3) Jaipur

4) Agra

5) Mathura

6) Pune

7) Goa

8) Amritsar

9) Mcleodganj

10) Dhanaulti

11) Rishikesh

12) Haridwar

Not bad for a couple of months, is it?

Now to see where I can go to in the next couple of months..... Here's a possible list

1) Bengaluru

2) Hyderabad

3) Chennai

4) Thrissur - for the Thrissur Pooram, of course (For those ill-informed, read : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrissur_Pooram .)

5) Road trip across Karnataka.

6) Going all across Kerala once again.

Sure looks like its going to be pretty busy, the next few months (or till the time i have to join, whichever is sooner).

I will have to make full use of the time I have!!

Of playing Dumb Charades and going White Water Rafting.

Talk of intense planning!!

Mail sent to us a day before the trip was scheduled to happen :

"Here is the link of the personal checklist, location and testimonials of the Riverside Jungle camp at Rishikesh as provided to me by Camp Wildex. Please go through the same to pack your bags accordingly. We are leaving at 10 tonight so please be ready and steady by 9.30 PM. We shall be reaching Mussorie - Dhanaulti tomorrow morning at 5.30 to watch the sunrise from there and then enjoy the scenic beauty of this beautiful uncommercialised place. We shall than go to Mussorie for breakfast and local sight seeing and leave for Rishikesh camp post lunch. We can also stop at the famous Kempty falls enroute and shall reach our camp max by 6-7 PM. We can play volleyball and other sports at the camp and also booze by the bonfire at night. In the morning, after breakfast, we shall leave for the 25 km stretch of rafting from Marine Drive (not the one in Bombay :P). This shall be followed by lunch and a waterfall trek in the jungle for 2-3 hrs. We shall leave the camp after the trek by about 5-6 PM and reach MDI by night. We have booked a luxurious 9 push back seats + sofa, air conditioned with TV tempo traveller for the journey. So, please pick up some CD's having nice songs/movies for the journey.

See you at 9.30 PM. Adios!!!"

Now, when you see such a mail, you would normally go "Ah yes! Very well planned... Now I really do think nothing can go wrong." And you hope that nothing will go wrong.

So, did anything go wrong during the trip?? You betcha. Starting with the luxurious Air Conditioned TV tempo traveler.

A trip that was supposed to take about 5 hours ended up going to close to 10 hours, just because the driver kept stopping at random places in-between to take a break. We did keep ourselves busy by playing dumb charades. Me, of course, was in deep rest throughout the journey.

We finally reached Dhanaulti in the middle of the day. Fortunately, the weather was wonderful. The scenery, amazing. The place is usually covered in snow till January. It's a nice place to relax and just enjoy the peace.

We left the place in after about an hour. We had to leave early, given the way the driver drove. The idea was to reach Rishikesh at around 5 in the evening, so that we could camp over there at night and go rafting in the morning. But, did it happen that way?

Nope. We ended up reaching Rishikesh at 10 in the night. Talk about keeping time!!

Anyways, we spent the night camping. The experience was exhilarating.

We got up next day, only to find that some of the people from our group (A certain "triangle", for those who know what I am talking about!) had gone on a trek to some limestone caves nearby. After they came back, we packed up and left the camp towards the rapids for our white water rafting. Again, we were a good 3 hours late, and ended up starting the rafting at 12 in the afternoon. Bad time to start.

The experience, however, is out of this world. This is one thing everyone HAS to do atleast once in their lives!! The thrill you get from going through those rapids is outstanding. The highlights of the rafting experience are the two huge rapids, and the cliff jump right at the end of the ride. I am scared of heights, so the feeling when I took the leap of faith was an eye-opener.

Overall, it was truly an amazing trip. One that was planned meticulously, but executed badly. But still, the rafting made it all worthwhile!

Thank you.

Thank you for all the words of wisdom given. Thank you for the mid-night snacks. Thank you for helping me out when in need. Thank you for withstanding my endless bouts of PJs. Thank you for the endless bhasad on IP messenger. Thank you for giving me all those movies and songs through DC++. Thank you for the amazing badminton and TT games. Thank you for those amazing CS night outs. Thank you for those mind blowing parties. Thank you for the memorable moments at the dome. Thank you for all those outstanding trips. Thank you for the endless amounts of coffees and tea........

All in all, Thank you for everything!!

Peace Out!

The Dalai Lama says "BALLE BALLE"!

Talk of "on the spot" planning!!

Phone conversation at 5PM:

AV: Hey!!
Me: Yup. Sup? (Wow. That rhymes! Din't know that.)
AV: How about we leave for Amritsar at 5.30 today? We'll reach there tomorrow, see the Golden Temple, and after that go to Wagha Border, and then next day it's off to Dharmshala!! LFN's already agreed, and VT and NG will come directly to the bus terminus.
Me: OK. Cool. (Yup. Me the cool "no need for any planning at all" type after all.... heh heh.)

And thus, AV and I go off to the bus terminus to catch the first bus we get to Amritsar. On the way, we find out that VT and NG will not be coming for this trip (Wonder why? Probably because of the intense amount of planning done?), and even decide that if nothing, we both will go to those places. The main point being, we are out of MDI now, we just CANNOT GO BACK!! LFN meets us at the terminus, and we end up taking the 9.30 PM bus to Amritsar.

We reach Amritsar next day morning at 6.30 in the morning, and we immediately head off to see the Golden Temple. I got to tell you, the temple is a sight worth seeing at sunrise!!! And at night too. Totally worth seeing.

One thing I (and I think the other two who were with me) realized is - Never take a woman for her word. Case in point? This person... let's call her "Devil" for now.... had given her word that she would somehow call up one of her friends and get us VIP passes to the Wagha border Change of Guard programme. Now, when someone says "Don't worry about that. It is all taken care of", you would normally not worry about it, and expect things to be taken care of.

Not in this case. Uh-huh. Not even in your wildest dreams.

When we call the person (who, incidently is from MDI itself), we find out that not only had she not done her task, she had conveniently forgotten to even mention us going to Amristar!!

Women.

Anyways, we did end up seeing the show. And what a show it was! Though it did get a bit repetetive towards the end, the intense patriotic feelings that you get during the show is amazing. Totally worth the money. Which, incidently, is NOTHING!!

From Amritsar, we took a cab directly to Dharmshala. To be more precise, Mcleodganj. Everything worth seeing is in Mcleodganj. Atleast the cab driver said so. And we blindly believed him. It's not like we had any choice. The weather over there was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. Just perfect.

PLACES TO SEE

1. The Dalai Lama's temple - Very tranquil. Very peaceful. A must visit!
2. Bhagsunag Waterfalls - OK. This was just a very small stream of water falling down. Probably would look better during the rainy season, when there is more water. You need to take a 1.5 KM walk to reach the place. The scenery is brilliant.
3. Dal Lake - There is apparently a dal lake in Mcloedganj. Very small. Unfortunately, when we went there, there was no water in the lake!!!! They were doing a clean-up of the place, and had pumped out all of the water.

In addition to this, I hear there are a lot of trekking tours that one should take from this place.

We then took that same cab back to Amritsar, and then took the amazingly wonderful Punbus (Yes. They actually call it the Punbus!) back to Delhi. The journey in that bus was aptly summarized by AV:

"Punbus - cramped seats, overcrowded, slow, a driver who loves the sound of his horn, blaring punjabi songs... can there be worse public transport!"

So that's that. A truly wonderful trip across Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. I sure had a really nice time over there!

It becomes in heat!!!!

Dialogue from a person while we were in one of those magnificent palaces in Jaipur:

"This room is winter bedroom. Full mirrors over here. When light put on it, reflects everywhere, and it becomes in heat!!"

I just stand and stare at him. And then I find my mum and sis also doing the same. What he was referring to when he said "it becomes in heat"?