Thenara thenara....

Unlike my usual trips, this one had a lot of preparation. Not by me :D, but still, we were well prepared. 'Born to be wild' & 'Maappi' started this crazy idea off as they were driven to the edge of sanity by the working hours at their internship. To start off, I would've called it nothing more than a fanciful dream. But, as has happened some times for me, I was proven wrong. The dream came true, and we ended up driving more than 5000 miles in a short span of 7 days.

I was apprehensive to begin with, thinking (out loud) of all the things could possibly go wrong and of the easier options open to us. Even after thinking of all these things, and debating (though briefly) about the options, we went ahead with the plan of a road trip to the Grand Canyon.



'Naanga Ettu Per, Engulukku Sense Endral Ennathu Ennu Theriyathu', this is what who ever heard of the trip said. But what the heck, we enjoyed the trip to the maximum extent possible... taking pics left right and center, without a care in the world (we had lappy's with us, so memory limit was not an issue). We ended up taking close to 5000 pics, with 5 cameras taking up 30 Gig of space.

We went through 12 or 13 states and celebrated BigB's birthday in 5 different states, starting off in New Mexico followed by Texas, where we cut the cake. We stopped for a fantastic lunch at a place called Gopuram in Oklahoma City. After a week of fast food, this was a welcome relief, which was relished by all of us.

We were dead tired when we came back on Saturday morning... but who cares... we did something which all of us enjoyed a lot.

All Forward...

The whitewater rafting trip began nice enough. For once, I thought I'd remembered to bring everything I needed along with me, alas, I was wrong. As usual, I forgot one item (This item changes from trip to trip, but for every trip I've gone on, I've inevitably forgotten one item). This time, it was my towel. This didn't cause much of inconvenience as there was a WalMart near our camp grounds and I was able to buy a new one quite easily.

I was 10 minutes late getting to the pick up point and I was one of the last person to get there. Whatever you say about them, Americans as a culture are damn punctual. One thing, we Indians lack. There is even a joke going around that IST stands for Indian Stretchable Time... :D. Once I got there, I realized that I was not the only one without friends there. There were a couple of others like me. I thought I could strike up some conversation with these folks, but unfortunately we were put into seperate vans. There were 4 of them, all Fords, each capable of holding 15 people and each one filled to near capacity. There was a lot of chatter in the van about anything and everything. Soon a friendly game of 'Uno' followed in which I too took part (the second time around). But apart from that, I didn't actively participate in the chatter that much. Anyone who knows me, would be surprised at this statement.



Due to large number of people in the van, we made several stops en-route to the camp. We stopped for lunch at a place called the Golden Corral. This, like everything else in the US, is a chain. But what the heck, they had good food, greasy - Yes, but good none the less. And I didn't care about how mcuh grease was there in the food either. For $11 + tips you get a really filling buffet meal here. There were puh-lenty of stuff to eat. So much so that I didn't get to the desserts section. I was pretty much stuffed by the time I got through the main course and the fruits. But I heard the desserts were really good. One of the guys in my van puked and was promptly given the name 'Pukey Pukerson' or something. I'm not too sure about the last name, but 'Pukey' was definitely part of it.



Well, after such a satisfying meal, went on a short trip to see the local legend 'Moth Man of West Virginia' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman). It was, mmmm.... interesting, to say the least. After countless other stops we reached the New River Gorge/Bridge. Man, this was a monster of a bridge. There was a spot near the bridge where you could take pictures of it. It was so very beuatiful. You get a panoramic view of the valley from here. Unfortunately I don't have a panoramic photo of the place :(. For now, these will have to do. The small bridge you see is the one which was there before the new bridge was built.



Following a brief stop here, we moved on to the camp grounds. There was a volleyball court there and we played 3 rounds of volleyball. Though my team lost two of the three matches, it was fun. We had dinner at 7 or 7.30. We built a small camp fire and sat around that for the rest of the evening, eating roasted marshmellows and trying to pass the time. We turned in early as we had a big day coming up and we need to get up early for it.

Sunday was pretty chilly. After having put on the wet suits, PFD's and helmets, we had a quick lecture on what is to await us (as if we already didn't have enough of it during our classes at OSU). This lecture continued all the way to the river. After the build up that was given at OSU, I was slightly anxious as to what was to be expected. But by the time we got through the first set of rapids, I was okay. Actually it was kind of anti climatic if you ask me. We were expecting something much much worse, and what we got was not that bad. And in a wierd sort of a way, I felt a bit let down. Actually I know I shouldn't feel that way, but somehow I just did. We did the rowing reasonably well as a team and we got through all the rapids with relative ease. Next time, I'm definitely going to sit in front of the raft to experience more adventure ;) :D. We successfully navigated, 'The Meat Grinder', 'The Greyhound Bus Stopper', 'Millers Folly', 'Thread the Needle' and a bunch of other rapids. At the end, we just picked up our raft, loaded it up onto a trailer and went back to the camp grounds pretty happy.

Following a crazy idea.

One fine saturday morning, when me and Sabari were chatting about anything and everything, as we usually do, one of us (or maybe both of us) got this idea of going around Chennai on our bikes and taking pictures of all the places to make kind of a picture encyclopedia of the city we called home for nearly 3 years. After a few minutes of in-decision and reality checks we decided that this was indeed a trip worth undertaking.

We started off from that most famous of all places, the place that a dear friend of mine calls a country within the city, 'Mylapore'. After taking a few pictures of the tank, which happily had water thanks to the many bouts of torrential rain we had, and the schools of fish in the tank; we began our eventful journey to explore the less frequented spots in Chennai like Foreshore Estate.

Unfortunately, our foray into Foreshore Estate came to a rather sticky end when I stepped into a pile of something which I rather not mention (I still have a picture for anyone who is interested!). After having failed at the attemt to find water to clean my feet, we decided to go to the nearest sure supply of water - Marina Beach. My friend was busy taking pictures of anything and everything while I trudged forward in the sand towards the sea. After having cleaned my feet in the saline water, we began our journey to the north of Chennai starting with the Cooam estuary, past Parry's Corner to reach 'Burma Bazaar' - the place to get pirated items in Chennai, which coincidentally happens to be opposite the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (hey I'm not complaining).

As we were taking pictures, we made slow progress, passing the High Court and the old bus stand to reach Chennai Central - that Mecca for many a weary mallu yearning for the taste of good water. Having taken a few snaps of those hallowed grounds, we moved on to Mount Road through Egmore. We finally hit Mount Road near the Spencer's junction. Ohhh, how many times did we come here with our friends, to spend hours window shopping, getting lost in the many corridors and just maybe buy a t-shirt for 100/- or 150/-.

As the light turned green, we turned right and headed towards Gemini flyover and T-nagar. And we would've gone into T-Nagar as well, if only we were up to the challenge of facing the almost impossible traffic. Having faced the north Chennai traffic for half a day, neither of us were mentally up to the challenge of facing the traffic in T-Nagar. So after a minute of contemplation, we went straight at Teynampet signal instead of right and headed straight for home and a nice lunch.

Athirapally & Vazhachal

A couple of weeks back, me and a friend of mine went to the Athirapally / Vazhachal falls located in Chalakudi, Kerala. We took the Chennai - Aleppy express and reached Chalakudi station (half an hour late) at about 7.30 am. After breakfast at the local bus stand, we set off to the falls in one of the private buses that ply between Chalakudi and Athirapally.

The fact that one of us knew Malayalam, the local language, helped us immensely in the journey. We made camp at a KTDC motel up there. We later found out that this motel, with just two rooms, is the only such place in Athirapally. Thankfully, as the tourist season was just starting, we were able to get a room there for the day without prior reservation.

After having freshened up, we made our way up to the falls which was about 1 km from the motel. Based on the input from a friend of ours, we'd decided earlier that we'd visit Vazhachal falls on Day 1 and Athirapally on Day 2. We took a private bus from Athirapally to Vazhachal. The bus made the 5km journey in under 20 minutes and at 1 pm we were standing in front of the forest officer trying to explain why we hadn't obtained tickets from Athirapally itself to visit the Vazhachal falls. Yes folks, you have to get tickets at the forest office in Athirapally to visit the Vazhachal falls!

Fortunately or unfortunately, we hadn't arranged for our own means of transportation up there. And as the next and the last bus of the day (or so we were led to believe) back to Athirapally would only come after an hour or two, the option of going back to get the tickets was ruled out. So, after convincing the forest official that we would go back to Athirapally and get the tickets we entered the Vazhachal falls area. The falls itself was beautiful and park was neatly maintained. We walked around the falls for a while and finally found a suitable spot near the water and due to the heat, promptly fell asleep. We were woken up half an hour later by a surprised security officer of the park and were asked to move away from the water. He added that he didn't want us becoming another "statistic".

Having been so rudely interrupted from our reverie, we walked a bit up stream where the water was a bit cleaner. Due to the heat, I decided to take a dip at a place where the water formed some sort of a small rapids. I got into the water, and despite the heat of summer, brrr was it cold! It was a struggle between me and the water of the rapids, me trying to hold on to some rocks and the water trying to wash me down stream. My friend who had the camera with him tried in vain to get me to face the camera. It's not as if that I wouldn't have posed, but I just couldn't hear a word he said over the roar of the water. So after some 20 minutes of struggling with the water, I decided to call it a day and climbed out.

A forest guard, with whom we had struck up a conversation, told us that there was a bridge about 1 km from the falls and a dam 3 km from the falls. He also mentioned that there was a good chance of seeing wild elephants from that bridge. We were excited by the idea of seeing wild elephants and decided to walk at least to the bridge and try our luck. On our way to the bridge we saw a few wild squirrels and stopped to take pictures of it. Having taken it, and feeling proud for having managed it, we walked on towards the bridge. A few meters down the road, we saw people coming hurriedly towards us. The guy in front said that he'd just seen some wild elephants on the other side of the river and as I had a camera asked whether we were interested in taking photos. Having heard this, we began to run to the spot where they'd seen the elephant. We went down a bit towards the river with him, but unfortunately we missed the elephant. At that moment, we rued ourselves for having spent those few minutes to photograph the squirrels.

Having reached the bridge we decided to start walking back as it was getting late and we had to walk back all the way to Athirapally. The conductor of the bus in which we came from Athirapally had claimed that the next service of his bus at 2.45 pm was the last one back to Athirapally. Somehow, at that point, we believed him. And as going back to Athirapally by that bus would leave us only very little time to explore Vazhachal we'd decided that we'll walk the 5km back. We didn't know that he was pulling our legs until we got back to Athirapally. But the walk back was very enjoyable and we inwardly thanked the conductor for forcing us to walk back.

On our way back we came across the "Chapra falls" which had run dry as it was summer. On some crazy notion we'd decided to climb it. We'd made it quite easily to the half way point, but felt that it'd be dangerous to go all the way to the top. So we stopped there to take a couple of snaps. At this point a police jeep came along. I was afraid that they would scold us for having dome something like this. But luckily they just sped along. Maybe the fact the falls weren't that slippery at that time due to the lack of water caused them to ignore us. We went off roads at 3 or 4 places and saw some absolutely beautiful sights because of it. Slowly but steadily, we reached Athirapally at about 6. Just as we reached, a bus coming from Vazhachal overtook us and stopped at Athirapally. It was only now we realized that the conductor was pulling our legs... :D.

We sat at a view point watching the Athirapally falls until the moon came over them. This was truly a sight to behold. We then walked slowly back to our hotel. Having lived in a city all my life, I felt very odd at the almost eerie silence that encompassed us at night. Imagine, no TV, no horns, no screeching tires... nothing. We couldn't even hear the roar of the waters which was constant all throughout the day. Pin drop silence! We sat in the balcony till 12 or 1, chatting about anything and everything, and then turned in for the night.

As we'd to vacate the room before 11 am on Day 2, we settled the bill and went with our bags packed to Athirapally. We swam for a while in the lake before the falls. But we ended up bumping our legs against the rocks quite often. So in the end we just sat there in the cool waters. This was a welcome relief from the sweltering heat of the day. Having finished our little dip, we made our way down to the base of the falls. We sat there for quite a long time just enjoying the spray of water from the falls.

There were a lot of interesting / enlightening chats and conversations we managed to strike up with the forest guards, but that's for another blog.