Gokarna 2013

Me Tina and Rakesh .... A long awaiting trip and a promise to myself that I will visit here once a year come what may.....

The plan had many ups and downs starting with the thought that Payel will join then came the thought of dates there were many confusions there too like adi's birthday then my business meetings .. And what not .... But nothing could stop me from coming here .. This is the place where I be Me....

Well there may be some confusion in the story telling part of the journey because I am writing it in Gokarna..

So out journey started on Friday night we reached gokarna on Saturday morning the bus was a non ac sleeper bus was pretty comfortable we had a double sleeper and a single sleeper by the way as I write I am eating pancakes freshly made with honey and sitting under a tree with low sitting set up... God it's bliss... Anyways so coming back to the journey, we reached around 10am in the morning on the way it had stopped at some place where we had some v spicy rice with coconut chutney.

Once we reached Gokarna it was time to take an auto and reach kudle and so we did, after which begins the process of climbing down the mountain to reach the beach, I was able to hear the sound of waves which was charging me to carry my luggage and walk faster and finally when we saw I told myself "I am here"....

Then we started with the room hunting with heavy luggage of clothes after a long process of hunting we found 1 room with attach toilet and one without the toilet we just said yes and we had a place. 

Then we changed and started the process of ordering food and alcohol ... Lemme skip some part after that coz it's quite hazy. In the evening we were happy high and we went for shopping picked up some stuff, all three of us picked then it was I time to return to shacks and then the WATER!!!!

We came back changed into speedos and popped into the sea it was dark and night and cold and Yay... It was fun. Once we returned we took shower in the open air, felt no less than any beach wear advertisement ;)    

By then it was quite late we ate some drank some and then started the dance ,,, me and Tina and Rakesh trying all lifts and moves to show off later, she hurt her head I hurt my hand but we din stop when were were just badly tired we just dusted the sand off and went to sleep.

It's today morning now... I obviously woke up early saw the beach was just the same but seemed cleaner looked like all that we did yesterday the sea had cleaned it up for me to play again. Then I went to wake up Tina and Rakesh once they woke up and we got ready we came out for breakfast. Tina and Rakesh both felt sleepy again well I did not feel sleepy at all after all how could I avoid a beautiful sunny day and pan cakes and the set up under the tree. Don't have much to write for now.. I am just waiting for Tina to come and we start shooting pictures .... BRB

Well good morning !!! It's Monday morning and lemme bring you upto speed with what happened yesterday so as I was waiting for Tina  ... In no time Tina showed up in a beautiful pink hooded backless dress... along came Rakesh. We ordered for some more food and we started the photo shoot. Ohh before that we played LUDO and tried to get mehendi done which we did not. So now the photo shoot ... We tried lifts and candid shoots though quite pretentious but the photos came brilliant. We could definitely ensure all the shacks were looking at us not just the shacks but the people by the beach and the ones in the water ... It was fun. By the end of it we were tired sweating etc etc... End of it I had severe back ache Tina came handy and she stood on my back and gave me a sigh of relief. After sometime we decided to go for tracking so we came back to our shack or room whatever u call it changed and started walking towards Om Beach ... It was a narrow climb on the mountain and full of monster trees... The photo shoots were on. Once we reached the beach we felt our beach was far better and a u turn and we were back. 

We started deciding what to eat so I had a brilliant wood fire oven pizza with olives and mushroom,,, 

We lazed around for sometime and then we went and sat by the beach played litup candles etc etc ....

Overall a peaceful day, today we will return to Bangalore at night got up in the morning freshened up and then came to eat sitting by the sea shore gazing at the waves and drinking ginger lemon mint honey tea. That's all for now we will do some more photo shoot today and then relax will finish the rest in the bus.

Well now that I have reached Bangalore and lying on my bed at home lemme complete from where I left... So in sometime Tina and Rakesh came along and then some more food. I thought of painting which I did, came out well I was pretty glad. Rest of the day we just wanted to be even more lazy and eat and sleep etc etc and be in different shacks that's exactly what we did. Along with lots of pics and poses.

Then came time to pack and comeback home after packing we somehow had an extreme urge to go to the sea again so we promised we will go next time ;) after all I will come here every year ... 

Bangalore Palace - a relaxed luxury

It was a Saturday morning and we (me, Mumma and baba) were thinking of where to go to enjoy the weather... We started with the thought of going to The Pyramid meditation centre, and we started ... On the way we fueled the car and our journey was on ... I started googling the distance and was trying to find out the distance, then we realized that the meditation centre was not a close affair for a quick visit. My head started churning for new places and we all three were googling and trying to find new places. We came to a conclusion that we were not able to decide where to go because we were hungry .... So we first went to KFC our favorite food joint..there we got the idea to go to visit the Bangalore palace. I had seen the palace in the past may be a year back but it was definitely a place I could visit again with the weather supporting us. Then we immediately set the destination as Bangalore palace in the google map and headed for the palace. The palace is situated well in the centre of the city and its not difficult to reach there at all. 

Once we reached the palace, all we saw was greenery and vast land in the mid of all this stood the very beautiful fort structured palace of the Maharaja of Mysore. This was suppose to be his vacation house during summer in olden days.... We got down the car and moved towards gather palace. Once I reached there we saw there was ticket it was for 225 per head with the audio guide which is like a headphone with a player quite simple to operate and I took another ticket for my still camera which was for 675 .... One thing I learnt is that carry cash wherever you go because these tourist places don't accept card. 

Once you enter you stand in awe of the class the grandeur the richness of the place... The palace authority have been able to maintain this up to quite an extent.

We came out a little tired but the weather outside was extremely beautiful ... My father went and sat on the benches placed there and me and my mother went for a walk around the palace. There were evening tea tables, beautiful gardens very well maintained and walk ways..... Sheer pleasure to be just around. We returned after clicking enough pictures and being tired. Sat on the bench for some time and then it was time to return home... We had definitely charged ourselves with enough energy and nature to sustain for another 6 months

Gokarna ! Fun, Food and Friends

Distance : 450 KMs apx

How to go : I traveled by Bus, but one can drive down too.... But trust me Sleeper bus was really Good It takes apx 12 hours to go from Bangalore but you wont eve realize because these buses start at night ad are comf enough to by the time u getup u you are in GOKARNA.

Where to stay: Well there are lodges and rooms available in the township of Gokarna (Suggested for families) but if you are with your friends one must stay in Shacks only there are many in Kudle and Om  Beach but during season there ca be shortage and they usually cost around RS 600 per day.

Well enough of description given let me start about my journey (if you are thinking about food then dun worry there is enough of it coming up :))
So the plan started pretty long back once we realized that we have a holiday coming up which is on Thursday so the idea was to add a leave on Friday and start for our trip. I always wanted to go to this place had heard about this place from my friends and of course Tina so i asked Tina what are her plans and asked about if she is in for Gokarna apparently she was also planning for gokarna and thus the plan was on !

Once i returned from Hyderabad i had just two days and i who is certainly not a back packer managed to stuff up all my clothes in two HUGE bags and my camera and the tripod stand. Paran and his sister (Indrani - hereon referred as didi) came to sony signal picked me up then we picked up Karishma and we reached gandhinagar. Had nice fish and rest of the stuff i forgot (Good omen to eat fish before you start anything). There i met Rwittik ( Didi's husband - here on referred as Gangnum) and then came Tina and Rakesh. And we hopped on the bus it was my first time especially on a sleeper bus and i just LOVED it. Well i don't remember much but the fact that my window had a brain of its own and was opening itself in every 5 mins, anyways i managed that with my hand and slept off.
When i woke up i saw beautiful mountains all around, lush green and a narrow black stream of road, so picturesque. Then slowly everyone woke up and finally we reached our destination "Gow Karna - GOKARNA" we hired two auto's the lean ones that is Tina, Paran, Karishma and Rakesh got into one auto and Me, Didi and Gangnum got into the other. Initially lovely uphill and downhill roads and then came the bumpy ones, Felt that the auto can just get scattered into pieces any moment. Anyways we reached a plateau a barren land with no signs of sea or beach anywhere but the air was sultry ;) which was a hint that i was near. We started walking well lets say climbing down the mountain and all of a sudden there i saw the lovely, serene, clean beach called "Kudle", Paran had spoke to a person who owns few shacks there so we directly went which was right on the beach, my body said go to the room and heart said leave it all just jump in the water, well i listened to my body and went to the room. It was beautiful, clean with western toilets and a HUGE bed, well ventilated with millions of mosquitoes. We quickly changed and got into some skimpy clothes and we all went to EAT.
The shack served great Israeli food, i ordered baked beans breakfast with lemon tea and rest all ordered different stuff, we all dug into each others food. Gawd let me just state once for all that one you eat there you just cant eat anywhere else the food is so damn good. I wanted to touch the water so i finally went running touched dipped my feet and then came back, me and gangnum went to play Frisbee for sometime in the beach and it was just play time from then on. After sometime we all were in the water playing the "Monkey in the middle" and what not! It was absolute gala time. We returned took shower and went to eat lunch it was a beautiful place with nice seating joints walls painted with Shiva and full of fire ants (fortunately they din bite us)  we kept planning what all we have to do for three days, well to start with we went for Shopping :). Suggestion to all, if you go to Gokarna you must shop.

Terrific trekking to Madhugiri

The Columbus day off on 8th October came quite handy for a traveler like me... Reached home from work around 12ish on Friday with a relaxed feeling of "NO WORK" for next three days .. din really have much in mind.. so usual Saturday doing household chores.. And out of the blue i start chatting with Donnie (My school friend) and guess what we plan a trip in 4 minutes conversation. Donnie mentioned of his friend Anushree would join too but Alas ! she couldn't (Anushree next time.... come what may, U R coming with us !... period ). So I fueled up the car, charged the battery for the camera, and went to bed early to start for Madhugiri (Yup that's the place !) The plan was that I would pick up Donnie on the way and then we would move as his place comes on the same route.
5:00 AM - The Day Began
I have an inbuilt alarm in my head and i just got up exactly at 5:01 realizing that I promised Donnie i would start at 5 ;) but of course i couldn't so I quickly took a shower packed by stuff took a bottle of water and the Journey began.
Destination : Madhugiri Fort near tumkur.
Distance : 110 kms from Koramangla 6th block.
Road : Very good NH4 except a patch of 2 kms (Super Bad).
I reached the petrol station opposite to the platinum city as I was suppose to pick up Donnie from there. While waiting I started cleaning the windscreen as the Wiper in my car isn't working :(. Anyways he showed pretty quick. We both were quite hungry and the McD which was adjacent to the petrol pump added fuel to the fire but at 6:50 AM they were certainly not open. So we finally started again at 7:00 AM sharp.
The road was great we were on NH4 which goes to Pune via Tumkur. All thanks to Google map. The weather was so great that Its absolutely impossible to express... I was windy, cloudy, drizzling at times and the greenery !!! The very view of the looong stretch of road where you don't get to see the end and all you are suppose to do is just drive !!!
Our huger made us stop and enter Kamat Upachar we had Idli wada dosa tea and coffee... and hopped on the road again ! On the way we had few stops here and there and guess what our love for the road made us skip the road which takes us to Madhugiri Thankfully we realized and took a U turn and got on the right track.
After we took the turn we were pretty much considering every mountain as Madhugiri until we saw a mountain which was so huge that half of it was covered by clouds and we could see some structures here and there and That was it Donnie started clicking and I pressed the accelerator.
Finally we were there. We took the Bag the tripod and the camera. The biggest mistake we did was we did not carry water with us (we realized the price of every drop of it)
Initially there was a paved way to walk on then began the stairs (which gave me a though of oh god again climbing ... how i wish what was awaiting ... then i would have thanked) after few steps the stairs went missing and all we found is some carved markings to place the feet.
Initially that seemed fun but later when we saw water flowing through them we got scared but thankfully there was a railing to hold and climb. We were taking rest at every 20 steps and calling it a good spot to capture in the camera while the actual reason was we needed to catch breath.
While we were doing all this we met a group of school children from a nearby village accompanied by 2 teachers and as my friend rightly mentioned they were descendants of Superman ! What energy man .... The climbed the entire mountain talking singing gossipping all the time and after reaching on top they danced sang ate their packed food from home in boxes and and climber down Happily !!! we both just stood AMAZED !

Well so on out way to climbing the stairs slowly disappeared and all what we found was a rod to cling on to and some markings made where we could step to climb ahead. After a certain steps we was so scary that we felt we were 60 degree inclined and leaning forward from where all u see is a steep FALL... I decided i will see one step at a time and march ahead.. anyways we crossed that and after sometime even the footstep marking were not there neither was there any rod to cling on to its just you and the Slope...
Finally when we reached on the top It was Just Beautiful !!!!
All mountains around and breezy.. with small puddles of water all over We were ON with the camera and our eyes trying to capture as much as we could. While we were doing all this one thing continuously haunted me was the fact that we would have to climb down all the way back in the same manner and that was just scary !!!
Oh  by the way i forgot to mention while climbing my trousers tore off and It was HUGE tear... thankfully ppl were bothered about their life more than what was seen underneath my pants so i was fine..
So after sitting for quite sometime we felt it was time we face the fear and start climbing down I tied both my shoes to my waist and Donnie kept his in the bag and we started with out journey with an extra Fanta bottle which we couldn't throw considering we did not want to litter the place to it was in my T shirt. So me + empty fanta bottle and donnie + bag + the camera stand and guess what climbing down was actually easy. I certainly can not negate the fact that at times i was scared but not as scared as climbing Finally we got the steps and then the road and it was such a HUGE Relief..
We first rushed to drink water ... and it was Life we drank not water then we drank bindu and then we started our journey back to Bangalore. Road was cool as usual fully content eager to load pics on facebook and show the world. Talking about those kids and listening to Swades we were returning to the City.
and then we had a food stop at KFC and we had bucket chicken :) then returned to Donnie's place and started seeing the pics......

So... after quite a long time I have come back to write something...

Well obviously I have been pretty busy... which made me not to visit here often... I thank all those who had patience to wait and all those who read.

So i haven't been able to travel much, the only travelling i have been doing is just to and fro between Bangalore (my work city) and Hyderabad (my home)... but the good news is i have been Cooking ;)

So I will not start sharing my cooking recipes... I will start with my favorite ... basil chicken 

Trip to Nandi Hills

Place: Nandi Hills, bangalore, Karnataka.
Distance: 65-70kms from bangalore city.

It was friday and we were busy in our usual stuff. I see Tina calling me and Fijo sitting beside her and the way she called I could feel there is something interesting which is going on in her brain. I with my usual excitement went running to her and then she shared her Million dollar idea she said "I think we should do a small trip". It did not take me a fraction of a second to stand in agreement with her. I called Pavan, then came Adi, then Anusha.. Kiran ... Sada.. Preeth .. chris and so on ... We planned for god knows how many places. We went on cancelling all plans, there was a point when we thought we will go for jogging to lalbagh (look at the desperation of going out). Anyways the discussion faded out and we all went back to work.

Me and Tina couldn't let it fade away, I opened my Outlook weekend Getaway guideand started hunting, in the mean time someone in my team started talking about Nandi Hills (Yes finally the place is introduced) I was charged called Tina told her the place she told Pavan then sada and we were ON.

We arranged 4 bikes and we were 8 people. It was raining outside (well lets say it was drizzling).. We somehow managed to finish our work, I arranged a pullover from Sumit and we steped out. Fuck ! it was actually raining ... It did not take any time for us to get drenched... I stilled loved it.

Pocharam - The Bird Sanctuary

Place : Pocharam Bird Sanctuary, Medak Dist, Andhra Pradesh.
Distance: 120kms from Hyderabad.

Places to see: The Pocharam Wild life and Bird Sanctuary are the two things any nature lover would like to see, but apart from these places there is a very huge Church which falls under the Medak Dist. In order to visit the wildlife sanctuary or the bird sanctuary you would need to take approval from the forest officer. Another thing which one must see and enjoy the feeling is the super old house which is known as the Inspection Bungalow. It’s a house which was built in the year 1418A.D. but it is still in pretty good condition.

It’s my Bhabhi who discovered the place of course from Internet and then we planned on visiting this place in the next coming weekend. I started googling the route and my brother checked on mapmyindia and finally we found the route it was a pretty clean and straight route. We started around 5o’clock in the morning on a Sunday and to our surprise we were there in Medak in 2hrs though we drove pretty slowly and we were very happy about that. The people there unfortunately couldn’t guide us to any inspection bungalows or something but whatever we had as printouts from google map we started moving further finally we reached the destination.

Few things to keep in mind when you go there:

• On the way you will find Narsapur forest and in my last few trips I have encountered some things like people sleeping on the road at night, you might feel you should help them but a strong suggestion DO NOT GET OFF FROM THE CAR, as this can be a false prank and you might be attacked.

• Try to keep your speed slow when driving through the forest though the roads are amazing and you will feel likely to speed up but it’s for the safety of the animals in the forest and always stop whenever you see some animal crossing the road. I have encountered few and those were real treat to your eyes.

• The route to the inspection bungalow is off track from the mail road you have a very small signboard showing the direction to the Inspection bungalow follow that it’s a village route and It will take you to the Inspection Bungalow.

• In the inspection Bungalow you have lots of monkeys and I have seen few snakes Just be careful always remember if you do not harm them they won’t hurt you.

So.. back to my experience …. We reached the inspection bungalow around 7:45AM. It was a beautiful morning lots of birds chirping sound of water and just the peace you look for when u go for an outing. We had some stuff with us to make tea my mom and dad started doing that while we (me my brother and bhabhi) started exploring the place. The view from the house is awesome you can actually see the islands I always wanted to and I still want to go to that place with a boat with me so that I can do some boating out there. Anyways so we got in the water it was amazing absolutely crystal clean. It was FUN !!! then mom and dad joined and after we got off the water we played for sometime ventured the house and then we started way back home. This was the first time when I went there. I went there once with a very good friend of mine it is still the most memorable trip for me. Then I went with Avik .. and then there is this trip in which I lost my car key in the DAM (till now the most hectic and tiresome trip..)

It’s a place which is 2and half hours away from the city and a place where you would just want a bottle of wine and the sketchbook..