Goa Trip

Date:28 April 2006 to 31st April 2006.
The Goa tour plan was the brain child of Shafeeque, who decided one fine Monday that we should go to Goa that fine Friday. Like most under-prepared and non-planned ideas, this was a major success.
In those short 4 days he got hold of 6 friends to travel along with him though he did not get any tickets!

Participants:
Shafeeque alias captain
Rohit alias ulta
Azim alias azi
Suraj alias cheenja
Joseph Antony alias poolu-vayan
Shailesh alias Muniyandi
Abraham Menacherry alis abru

Muniyandi started from Madras, four of us from Bangalore joined him in the general compartment of "Chennai-Vasco" express and two others came direct to Goa from Kerala.
Train ticket cost from Bangalore to Goa (Vasco) was 150 per person.
The overnight journey was tiresome coz we did not get any berth to sleep in. Five of us had to share one berth. It was un-eventful except that the train started late and we drank a bottle of Vodka in the train (Punishable under Indian law!) and spend most of the time near the door (again punishable under Indian law) with the cool night wind in our face. Two of my company were ardent smokers and they smoked their fill all through the night (punishable again, but the law be damned!! with a few pegs in one's stomach everything is lawful).

We reached Margoa at 12 Noon sharp. It had taken us 14 hours to reach from Bangalore.
In the Rly Station we met up with the other two traveling from kerala. Some local bike-taxi men came up and told that they knew the best places to stay around Goa, anyways we went along with them, 3 in each bike to Colva. On the way the Goa police flagged us down, but due to the law being an ass the intelligent bike fellas were able to talk out of that one.

They took us to a very decent looking place called Caza Roiz, very near Colva beach. It was a very "family" type place with the room rent being 200 per person per day (after haggling). This is the off-season rate though. During season time it could be 4 to 5 times higher. The rooms were very neat and tidy and spacious, the bathrooms very clean. I would recommend this room to anybody traveling with their family, but bachelors really have other options. These guys don't entertain any sort of rowdy-behavior or loud noise or getting into drunken fights, anyways we came back to our rooms only for sleeping so there was no problem.

Goa is gem of a holidaying centre. The people here really understand the concept of holidaying. Like most tourists we too had come with a big itinerary of places to visit but the itineraries go for a toss in Goa. The whole "laid-back" attitude can really get into you. For example on the second day of our visit we went for a biking trip, our plan was to visit 4 beaches and one port we ended up visiting one beach and no port.

We started of our visit with a dip in the sea. It was terrific; bathing in the sea is not so common for land laggards from Bangalore, so we enjoyed it to the hilt. Of course we had downed many a bottle of Feni before we went in for the dip; there was a sign on the beach saying "bathing after alcohol consumption is dangerous". I tell you it is a load of crap, just don't go too far into the sea and you will feel right on top of the world... water all around you, water inside you.. ah the feeling is too good.

Next was dinner an outdoor in a restaurant just outside Casa Roiz. I forgot its name, but the food there was terrific. We went there for most of our meals on each day. As night "dawned" we decided to go to some discotheque, and let loose all that bottled up energy. But to our dismay we found out that the real good discotheques were about 60 km away in Calangute. But then when did a mere 60 km stop us from our destiny, we booked a cab(Rs 1.8k after haggling, usually it is 2k and during the season, you will have to sell you home to pay for it), went to Calangute and paid an entry fee of Rs.600 to enter the Titto's discotheque. Saturday usual rate is Rs.800. We were all rather pissed off by that time coz it seemed that we had already spend twice our estimated quota.

Initially it seemed that the entry fee was not worth it, coz, there was a distinct lack of the fairer sex on the dance floor. But as the night progressed they came in droves... to cut a long story short we had one "rocking" time. Each and every muscle in my body ached as we left for home by about 2 a.m in the morning.

Sunday must have dawned beautifully; I was in bed so can't vouch for it. After having a late break fast we decided to go biking. When we went to get rental bikes (Rs.400) at the Colva beach, we were shocked to hear that there was not even one bike remaining there, all of them being rented out to some big group that had come before us. This was a blessing in disguise, for in search of bikes we reached Margao and to our surprise found out that the going rate there was only 250.

We made some really ambitious plans about visiting a number of beaches and ports, but the less said about the plan the better. The Goa'n charm permeated our very being... infact the speedo hardly ever went over the forty mark, you really dont feel like doing anything fast in Goa.

The ride was from south to north of Goa, we covered about 150 km or more but at a gentle pace, soaking in all the sights, taking time to drink Feni (but not too much of it, we may be irresponsible but not criminally so) at most stops and generally getting a feel of the Goa'n way of life.

We went to Calangute the only beach we could actually visit, an we just about reached Vagator beach but it won't count as a visit coz we spend too small a time there and missed sunset by a few minutes. Calangute is considered to be "The best" beach in Goa, but as happens to "The best" beaches in most places it was heavily overcrowded. If you ever visit Goa you must visit Calangute but make the visit very short coz the crowd there is a big turn off.

The two who had come from Kerala departed that night. Unfortunately they missed out the best part of the trip. After their departure (at about 12 pm in the night, some train from Margao) we decided to take a stroll through Colva beach. It was an absolutely exhilarating experience. There was a cool night wind as we walked through the sands; it was thoroughly refreshing, soul-cleansing stuff. I felt as if I were alone in this world, at peace with myself, as if everything was right with this world. Believe me a night like that could make Attila the Hun philosophical. Another thing of interest that we noted was a number of people sleeping on the beach, with the sand covering their entire bodies. We gawked when we saw the first guy buried in sand and snoring away happily but later we saw that this was a common practice, the beach was littered with these "sand burials".

Monday must have dawned beautifully, again I was in bed... but today was the day of our departure, and we had to leave at 5 p.m. We could book bus tickets to Bangalore from the Margao bus stand. bus ticket Rs.400 per head, bribe given to official to get the tickets - Rs.100.
breakfast was from a hotel near the beach. I had had enough of Feni, and the others too wanted to try something else for a change. So we decided upon wine. We had two bottles of champagne (local stuff but real good) some pegs of Whisky and then I ordered "Peach Schnapps" a really cool drink, it tastes good, smells like spirit and gives you a very laid back kick. It's a good drink when in Goa.

Later we visited the beach again, this time a guy came up and told us that we could do Para-sailing for Rs250. It was Rs500 in Calangute beach the day before, so we jumped at the offer and went for parasailing. It was an awesome experience, the sea below you, the wind in your ears and the roar of the waves all combine to give you a real thrill. It's really worth for 250.
Later we took another dip in the sea and then it was time for departure. We reached exactly on time for the bus, and had to jump in fast. Unfortunately during the hurry we forgot to buy any drinks that we had promised our room-loving friends back in B'lore. This later caused some "avoidable-injuries". Anyways we were back in B'lore by 7 pm the next day, with some good memories and a nice tan.

Bangalore Yelagiri Bike Trip

This post is dedicated to that lunatic fanatic biker "Rameez Latheef".

"ollathu kondu onam polae"
-Malayalam proverb meaning live like a king with what you have.

If you have a Yezdi bike and enough money for filling the insatiable hunger of that powerful beast then you really can become a king on the road. No wonder they named one of the versions "RoadKing".

On a fine Sunday morning(29-May-2006) at the unholy hour of 6:30A:M I found myself sitting on top of a Yezdi bike, the sole reason being that I had not got a ticket to my native the previous Friday. The destination was "Yelagiri" in TamilNadu. 6 more guys came along for the trip. The cast and crew included, 2 Yezdi bikes, 1 Bajaj Discoverer and one Honda Unicorn. The people who participated were
1)Abraham Menacherry(me)
2)Rameez Latheef(Crazy Yezdi Bike owner)
3)Isaac Cheriyathu (Even more Crazy Yezdi Bike owner)
4)Shyam Chand Kalakad(Unicorn owner and my adorable roomie)
5)Jiju K George(My hostel-mate and hmm... the odd man out)
6)Naseeb(Poor Bajaj owner)
7)Jagadish(Poor Bajaj Pillion rider)

at abt 7 A.M we all had congregated at K.R Puram. The streets were deserted, we made good way in a short time span. Our first stop was at Hoskote on the Old Madras Road. We overshot it by a mere 7km before somebody got the idea that we were on the wrong track. The next recognizable spot on the map (yeah we had one) was the village called Malur. With all due respect to the utterly useless guys in BDA(Bangalore Development authority) the guy who made/maintains this road is even more incapable than you guys. In fact one shouldn’t exactly be calling it a road, it was more like a bit of tar spread around the potholes.

By 9 we had covered 100km even on those inhumane tracks. Our next major stop was at Bangarpet. It’s a small town like any other in south India. Here we had our breakfast from a small vegetarian hotel that was very overcrowded. The crowd was there for a good reason too, the food was very good.

From the map we saw that it was easier to go via "kuppam". But at least 4 people testified that there was no such road. We were crestfallen but fortunately just as we left the hotel we ran into a guy with an Enfield bike. He looked like the sort who would know the road to kuppan and he did know it!!!.

The route to be taken was via the Kolar Gold Fields. And what a road it was! This is what one will expect from a country road. Smooth surface, non-existent traffic, green surroundings and flowing curves that will satiate the thirst of even the most eager biker. It was a breeze from KGF to Kuppom and from Kuppom to Nattranpalli. Only difference was that ‘Halli Darigalu’ turned into ‘Uri Darulu’ and then into ‘Kramathu Salaigal’ in a matter of a few kilometers as we crossed two state boundaries.

Kuppam is a model town in Andhra, it is a beautiful serene place with flowing green fields having who-knows-what-crop and golden hay stacks bunched all along its roads, in fact its one village that would definitely get my vote for the "model town thingy".

On the way from Kuppam to Nattrampalli we stopped our bikes to take some snaps; we had not seen even one vehicle in about 20 minutes of traveling on that road. In our over-confidence we parked the bikes right in the middle of the road. Shyam's bike was right in the centre, after taking the snaps we were all climbing back on to the bikes and shyam was taking a leak when one Indica came zooming up the bend, Shyam (with his fly open) jumped into the middle of the road and waved his hands to stop the car, it was totally hilarious, actually the car driver had seen us and had slowed down so there was no real danger.

Another highlight of the ride was the much awaited battle between Rameez’s Roadking and the Unicorn. But again, it turned out to be a no-contest as the four-stroke Honda could not match the mind-boggling acceleration or the top-end speed of the sturdy quarter-liter Czech crotch rocket at any time during the ride. Both the Roadkings were miles ahead in the hills as well as during the highway run. One thing noted was the discrepancy between the speedometers of the bikes. When the Unicorn speedo was showing 120kmph, Rameez’s Roadking was showing 110kmph while my bike’s speedo was showing around 100kmph, all at the same speed. Both the Roadkings clocked 125kmph according to Rameez’s speedo and that would have been over 135 in the Honda speedo. Only thing that marred the image was the pearly Roadking’s engine getting seized after a long stint of speeds over 120kmph.

Due credit should be given to the Discover, which has not a 125cc heart, but a 110cc one, and still coped up with the other bikes boasting displacements of more that twice. It is not to say that the Discover was competing with other steeds, but it never got too far behind for us to wait for it at any time.

Having bypassed Jolarpet town we reached the foothills of Yelagiri by about 12 P.M. Next was the 14km ride to the top of Yelagiri. True biker that he is, Isaac left us all far behind, and then waited at each bend for us to catch up. The view while riding to the top is stupendous, you can see the valley below stretching for miles on end with rolling green fields and water bodies between them, and the thread thin roads, snaking through them. We stopped at many points and took a lot of snaps, with this view as the background. Actually the only thing we got in the background was the blue sky and the clouds. The valley was too far below.

By 1PM we had reached our destination. Lunch was from a tidy little hotel called "Surabhi" right next to the road leading to Yelagiri’s small lake. We had tomato soup, chicken fry, chili chicken and chicken fried rice. The food was ok, the soup was not. The options we now had were a trek to swami-malai and boating on the lake. We decided upon trekking.

On the way was this giant banyan tree, all of us got down and rested in its shade for some time, but the primate in shyam awoke and he took some snaps of himself hanging up-side down on its hanging branches. The trek would have been a non-starter if not for shyam and Naseeb who pushed us awake from the all empowering seduction of a siesta. After much bickering on the benefits of a good sleep and a good trek, we were back on our way to the village called "Mankalam". After losing our way a couple of times we reached the village. We parked our bikes and left our helmets in the care of the villagers there and started off on our 4km trek. After about 1km Jiju, Rameez and Isaac backed out.

The rest of us continued, initially the climb was ok and we were able to make good ground, but after some time all the junk food, late nights and no-exercise regime that we worship started taking its toll I was finding it hard to catch my breath. The path itself was not very arduous; it had some widely spaced stone steps and well beaten path in other stretches. Fortunately everyone who was climbing along with me except for Jagadish (who seems to be in prime form) was as tired as I was. We would climb for 5 minutes and take rest for 10 and this would continue. The villagers who had seen us going up had rightly judged us to be pampered town brats so they send up a kid to keep us company. The ease with which this guy was climbing gave a mighty complex. He offered to carry my bag for me after some time, but I declined, I was tired but I did not want to muddy the reputation of us town brats!

After climbing for what seemed to be forever (it was actually just over an hour) we reached the summit. There was a small temple there between two huge boulders (each one would be twice the size of my office) we took more snaps and rested for some time. Another strategic point on the hills had a boulder and an iron ladder attached to it. We went up the ladder and the view from there was...... well to experience that you have to be there, words are inadequate to explain the thrill we got. On top of this boulder was an iron railing to prevent any misadventure. It is really steep on three edges and I did lose my balance on the top so it was there for a good reason.

By this time the climate had chilled and there was a strong cold wind blowing at us. It rejuvenated us completely. After spending about an hour there, we went down, the climb down was a breeze, we almost ran the whole distance, and met up with the other three. We had tea from the local chai shop of the village, and one thing that we noted about this village called Mankalam was how neat the whole hamlet was... every little road was swept clean, every courtyard was spic and span all in all another good candidate for the "Model-village-thingy". Next destination was the lake, but since the time was already nearing 6pm we did not go boating.

On our way back the skies opened up with a mighty roar and we were pelted with furious rain. Each drop felt like a tiny hammer on our skin. This was really the most thrilling part of our bike ride.

The only major incident that happened during this rain-ride was a dog jumping in front of shyams bike. I and Rameez were just behind him so we were able to get a clear picture of what happened. When the dog ran into his front wheel shyam showed terrific presence of mind, his bike did not even waver, in the rain, with that speed, if he had braked or tried to take a sudden turn it would have meant disaster. Jiju was the pillion rider, he also did not move or jerk around even when he felt that the dog was going to crash against him, fortunately it did not. Anyway the dog got dragged for about 2 seconds and he slid for another two in front of our bike before he came to a stop in the middle of the road. It seemed that only his front leg was injured. Within one hour the rain had ceased but the wind was still very chilly and I felt like I had nearly frozen on my seat.

With ought any more incidents and with God's grace we were able to reach back safely.

Kodai Munnar Trek

Participants:
Shyam Chand
Sandeep Raja
Pavitra Rao
Vimla Mothi
Malini Narasimha
Mihir Joshi
Kabir Joshi
Abraham Menacherry
Dev Balaji(Guide)

Hosted by Nature Admire, cost 3500 rupees, including food, stay(in tents/guesthouse etc) and pickup and drop to Bangalore.

Was it worth it? Since we could not complete the trek I can’t say for sure. Its a three day 10 + 21 + 10 km trek starting from Perijam lake in Kodaikanal to Top station about 30km from Munnar. Perijam Lake is situated about 30 km from kodaikanal. It’s a forest area and you need the forest dept's letter to go to that place.

We started the expedition from Bangalore on the night of 29th of March 2006. Transportation was in a Swaraj Mazda, it was a reasonably comfortable drive. We reached Kodai by 30th afternoon and had our lunch at a reasonably good place called "Goldan Parks Inn". Now we went to the office of the Forest Dept to get our letter. They acted like true govt: office and gave the letter after a long delay.

Next stop was Perijam Lake. The road to this place is along a forested area; fortunately it had a good tarred road through it. Halfway through our journey to the lake, we were stopped because of a tree that had fallen right across the road. We made good use of this opportunity to take a lot of snaps; also we packed our backpacks with all the necessary items for the trek and put the rest of the stuff back in the vehicle. Within half an hour the workers had cleared the tree off the road, and there was this woman working there who was kind enough to give us good "walking sticks" which she cut off from the fallen tree.


On reaching Perijam Lake we disembarked and started our trek, we made slow progress because of the weight of our backpacks. It is tougher than it seems to walk with a 15-20 kg load on your shoulder. You get tired pretty fast and your shoulders and back ache like mad. But after about 20 minutes you will get into a rhythm and then its fine.

The whole area is absolutely beautiful, the Kodai section of the trek is more of a pine forest and it’s near the Munnar section that the forest turns into a tropical evergreen type. I have always considered pine trees to be the "celebrity-good-looker" in the family of trees and here was a whole forest of em.

On our way to our first tenting point about 10 kilometers from Perijam Lake there were two occasions that really stood out. One was when we found the skull of a bison, it was really huge and heavy and it had such majestic rounded horns that it must have been one of the alpha males during its life time. We took a lot of snaps with the skull in different positions. The second situation was that we were lost in the forest at night, this arose because of a number of factors, we had started our trek late, we were slower than our guide expected and there were two kids with us (Mihir and Kabir are just passing on from 8th to 9th standard) who got a bit scared as the pitch black of the forest night descended on us. Anyway to make a long story short we had to trek a little bit extra before we could reach our destination.

I liked this "getting-lost" part, its where all the fun and adventure is, not knowing whether we will reach our destination, and what to do for the night is a rather funny feeling to be had, but looking back its such situations that make an expedition more memorable.
At our destination we bundled ourselves into a 6 by 7 foot room and had our dinner. There were two sparrows in the room before we arrived and we had to get rid of them before we could get in. It was an open room with no door and broken windows. Balaji had noticed elephant dung outside the room and this caused a bit of worry for everyone. Fortunately none of the jumbo’s came visiting during the night.

Since we could not all fit in to the room, it was decided that the "boys", me, shyam and Sandeep would sleep out in a tent. It was my first experience of sleeping in a tent. Balaji fixed us the tent in hardly 15 minutes and then we put in our sleeping mats and sleeping bags and went to sleep, well not directly to sleep coz we were all a bit scared about the elephant dung or at least its owner. It was very cold during the night but we managed to brave it. I had a reasonably good sleep and since I am one big snorer I am sure that the other guys did not get too much of the same.

The next day I awoke and did my morning rituals in the forest, we had our breakfast and were all set to start off on the second leg of our tour. This would mean about 21 km of trekking to a forest guest house. Till now we were following a jeep trial but going ahead we were to follow a single-man path through the thick forest, also the altitude would change dramatically from about 5000 feet to a high of 7500 feet. At this high altitude breathing is tougher especially with the loads that we were carrying.

I was very thrilled regarding this second leg of the trek, unfortunately one of the girls fainted just before start of the trek and Balaji decided that it was too risky to carry on. So we decided to retrace our steps back to Perijam Lake. The poor girl was real crestfallen but then it could have been anyone, we were all still tired from our night-trek on the day before. The way back was as good as going through a new route since we had not seen the surroundings in the pitch dark of the previous night.

This time instead of using the jeep track we used short-cuts through the forest to reach Perijam Lake, we lost our way a couple of times and most of our short-cuts turned out to be long-cuts but anyways it was fun. Also since we had the whole day with us to complete the 10km trek we stopped here and there to take a lot of snaps, climbed atop a huge rocky hill to get a view and stopped by a brook to take a long break, in short the trek was more like a picnic in the woods. By afternoon we had reached Perijam Lake and had our lunch from a local canteen.

We rode back from Perijam to Kodai on the back of a truck which had none of the flaps to cover its three sides... it was an absolutely thrilling experience, it was a first for everyone and all of us enjoyed this ride to the hilt. I think this will be one of the experiences that I will never forget about this trip. Thinking of the way we tossed around on the back while the truck negotiated hairpin curves at high speeds still brings on the goose bumps. Fortunately we took a photo/video of this.

We spend the night in Kodai in a hotel called "Clifton" it also had the name "JH Residency" don't know why both names were displayed together. This was a rather cheap but very cozy hotel. We had to pay only Rs500 for 9 people, and we easily fit into two rooms. Am not sure about the in-season charge for this place.

The next day was more of a picnic with the kids going for boating and some of us going for cycling around the lake in Kodai. We took a lot of snaps, did a bit of chit chat at a local hotel and later that day we returned to Bangalore.