Contrasting weekends
Weekend of 10 Jun '05:
Saturday night 8.30 p.m. JP get's an idea - why don't we go on an unplanned trip to some trekking place, right now. 9.45 p.m. JP, Arvindh, Srinath and Kichha are at majestic bus-stand trying to figure out, where the heck is this place called Charmadi ghats and how does one get there. 10.30 pm. We all, board a bus to Dharmasthala.
Next day at Dharmasthala, trying to ask locals, about some falls / place to trek around with JP's half baked Kannada. ( I haven't seen him utter anything other than 'eshtu' and 'barthaagitha' ). Half a day is spent climbing a slippery hill, with dense forest and leeches having a feast out of us, trying to head to some falls, with just the sound of water as our only direction guide. The higher we climb, the more denser the forest becomes, inhabited by more leeches and other weird insects. Finally, ended up at a thin stream, which can no way be compared to anything remotely to a falls. Decide that, we'd rather take bath in a house / room, rather than risk the leeches getting onto other ( forbidden ??!! ) parts of our body.
Arvindh says, alcohol keeps leeches away. And there goes a bottle of vodka onto our feet, palms and hand. Though I should say, not everyone is happy with this idea - reasons varying from, people considering vodka as too obnoxious to be applied on the body to people considering vodka as too valuable to be wasted like this. Me, neutral - anything to keep the leeches away. The only other time I've seen booze being wasted was, when we had used bacardi to flare up a camp fire. But, heck, it was an office sponsored party ;)
So, we decide to climb down, to reach on time for the jeep which we had asked to come back to the foothill. The way downhill turns to be more testing, because of the tiredness, slippery path and my worn-out woodlands, that had nothing left in the name of grip. Somewhere near the foothill, we ask a local for some place where we can take bath. He points us to a stream that was much larger than the one we saw uphill. And, this being near the base, there weren't many leeches either. With relief, we all jump into the stream, have a satisfying long bath, and eat the packed food we had brought. The jeep arrives half an hour late ( luckily for us ), and we take the jeep directly to Dharmasthala bus-stand.
We take the first bus back to bangalore. The questions that still remain unanswered are, why was the bus conductor scaring us about the place on the previous day and what happened to the group of 10 people who apparently had gone trekking to the same place the previous day, about whom the village locals were asking us. And... why would naxals hang around such a wretched place ( as told to us by some friends ).
Finally, reached home at 3 in the mid-night. PEACE !
Weekend of 17 Jun 05:
Spent the whole of saturday, saturday night and part of sunday evening in office working furiously on a monday deliverable. Finished the work at 2 in the mid-night on sunday. PEACE !
Saturday night 8.30 p.m. JP get's an idea - why don't we go on an unplanned trip to some trekking place, right now. 9.45 p.m. JP, Arvindh, Srinath and Kichha are at majestic bus-stand trying to figure out, where the heck is this place called Charmadi ghats and how does one get there. 10.30 pm. We all, board a bus to Dharmasthala.
Next day at Dharmasthala, trying to ask locals, about some falls / place to trek around with JP's half baked Kannada. ( I haven't seen him utter anything other than 'eshtu' and 'barthaagitha' ). Half a day is spent climbing a slippery hill, with dense forest and leeches having a feast out of us, trying to head to some falls, with just the sound of water as our only direction guide. The higher we climb, the more denser the forest becomes, inhabited by more leeches and other weird insects. Finally, ended up at a thin stream, which can no way be compared to anything remotely to a falls. Decide that, we'd rather take bath in a house / room, rather than risk the leeches getting onto other ( forbidden ??!! ) parts of our body.
Arvindh says, alcohol keeps leeches away. And there goes a bottle of vodka onto our feet, palms and hand. Though I should say, not everyone is happy with this idea - reasons varying from, people considering vodka as too obnoxious to be applied on the body to people considering vodka as too valuable to be wasted like this. Me, neutral - anything to keep the leeches away. The only other time I've seen booze being wasted was, when we had used bacardi to flare up a camp fire. But, heck, it was an office sponsored party ;)
So, we decide to climb down, to reach on time for the jeep which we had asked to come back to the foothill. The way downhill turns to be more testing, because of the tiredness, slippery path and my worn-out woodlands, that had nothing left in the name of grip. Somewhere near the foothill, we ask a local for some place where we can take bath. He points us to a stream that was much larger than the one we saw uphill. And, this being near the base, there weren't many leeches either. With relief, we all jump into the stream, have a satisfying long bath, and eat the packed food we had brought. The jeep arrives half an hour late ( luckily for us ), and we take the jeep directly to Dharmasthala bus-stand.
We take the first bus back to bangalore. The questions that still remain unanswered are, why was the bus conductor scaring us about the place on the previous day and what happened to the group of 10 people who apparently had gone trekking to the same place the previous day, about whom the village locals were asking us. And... why would naxals hang around such a wretched place ( as told to us by some friends ).
Finally, reached home at 3 in the mid-night. PEACE !
Weekend of 17 Jun 05:
Spent the whole of saturday, saturday night and part of sunday evening in office working furiously on a monday deliverable. Finished the work at 2 in the mid-night on sunday. PEACE !
posted by Srinath at
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
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