As the year end ritual continues for the nambayz who are now graduated into nambayz-family, we were all looking out for that one long break as we plan to usher in the new year. Being the laggards, there was just about no planning in terms of any location/logistics and the week prior to Christmas is when we seriously scouted for some place where we can get assured accommodation. Given the supply-demand mismatch, we were least surprised when we were turned down in all the places we tried; sans one which had a last minute cancellation!
Supreeth yahoo'ed (not googled ah!) and got a laundry list of possible places and Vinni, it was to trip upon a cancellation. The place got booked between 27th-29th Dec and it is called Green Valley, farmhouse in the vicinity of the Dandeli forest reserve. We located this via the travel portal - http://www.dandeli.com/. Dandeli is the North-Karnataka district, about 480 kms from Bangalore. While we were lucky to get the train booked to Hubli on our onward leg, we had to make do with buses back from Dharwad for our return. Dandeli is in between Hubli and Dharwad and these two towns offer a good landing point to Dandeli.
Taking off in the Ajmer express on the night of 25th Dec, it was 7 of us heading out of Bangalore to Hubli - Vinni & Ashwini, Kata & Vinu, Kichi, Deepak (D) and your truly (Vinda). Supreeth and Suwarna had already started with their holidaying spree and were driving down in the car after crossing several others cities of our state to catch us at Hubli. The train journey was quite uneventful as we dozed off and had quite a good sleep. Reaching Hubli at about 6 am, Supreeth and Suwarna joined us at the train station. A jeep was sent to take us to Green Valley which arrived a full one hour late and subsequently it was a pretty long journey via Dandeli. We reached the farmhouse at 12-30 pm.
The CottageThe farmhouse has a very serene and verdant ambience. Cottages amidst the plantations add to its pristine beauty. The icing on the cake is that there are no mobile signals in the vicinity; which means we were all cutoff from the daily hustle-bustle. With over 2 days to spare, time was never a constraint and life seemed blissful. We went up to a small waterfall where we waddled around for an hour before becoming ravenously hungry. Food at Green Valley is commendable and we had some great helpings to ourselves. Evening was dedicated to a scenic location called 'Synthera Rocks'; a large monolithic rock born out of a volcano with water flowing underneath. Indeed I felt overwhelmed at the sight of the huge rock. While swimming is strictly prohibited, it was refreshing to just sit and enjoy the nature's marvelous creation. Returning to our cottages, we had a good round of dumb-charades around the bon-fire and retired to bed looking forward to an exciting second day.
Synthera Rock - This one rocks!! 
Dumb-CThe main attraction of Dandeli is the rafting in river Kali. While the forest safari is yet another interesting proposition, seldom do we get to see the rare breeds of carnivores that rule these jungles like the black panther or the tigers. So we were all looking forward to rafting. Our slots were booked for the afternoon and so we decided to get holed up in another water fall close to the farm house which was slightly bigger than the one we visited on day one. Spending close to an hour playing in the meandering stream amidst the rocks, we returned to our cottage excitedly looking forward to the rafting in Kali. This was one helluva experience. Since we were 9 of us and another couple joined us from Green Valley, we got split into 2 groups for our rafting adventure. The 4 couples got into one raft with an instructor while the 3 bachelors got teamed up with a family of 4 from Bangalore. Our instructor was a well-built Nepali who maneuvered the raft deftly and we thoroughly enjoyed the 9 km cruise. This also included what the rafting world calls 'rapids' - water flowing at quicker than normal downstream pace owing to the rocky bottoms. We crossed a couple of level-2 an one level-3 rapid (level-4 and above is meant for professionals). The last leg included the 'surfing' - the raft goes upstream against the flow at a point where water splashes with a mighty force. I was almost carried out of the raft (though we are all secured with life-jackets and this poses no particular danger, it is fun to watch water staying above it!!) but luckily latched on to the raft, only to be pulled in by D. This experience will linger for sometime.
Back to those good ol' days!! 
The cool falls... 
The Rafting Team
River Kali
D, me and Kichi in the rafting gear
We were drenched to the bone after this and with very little energy left, all we could do was to curl up to our beds after a quick dinner. We were fast approaching the end of yet another memorable outing.
The path less taken...headin to Cavala caves
The jungle squirrel
The Cavala Cave entrance
Snake at the cave
The third day we had the morning open and we opted to go to a cave called Cavala coupled with a quasi jungle safari. While the starting points to the jungle safari and the Cavala caves are the same, the road is split beyond a certain point. We were indeed lucky to spot a bison on our way and a snake awaited our arrival at the cave. Reaching the cave is quite arduous and calls for a trek of about 3 kms followed by walking down around 400 steep steps. We had to stoop down and sometimes be on all 4 to go around the cave which has the stalagmites and stalactites inside. A formation very similar to the symbol of the Shiva-linga (the worldly form of Lord Shiva) is in the heart of the cave and visitors get to see some bats at close vicinity. As we headed back, our year end outing was coming to an end.
Supreeth and Suwarna parted ways as they continued their car-drive getaway while the rest 7 of us headed back to Bangalore via the bus from Dharwad. A much needed break in the midst of nature's glory and refreshing surroundings, this outing helped all of us rejuvenate at least till we set out again in the new year!
The parting shot..Suwarna,Sups,Kichi(background),D, me,Kata,Vinu,Ashwini & VinniPS:More fotos will follow as an online album later and will be posted as comments to this blog!
Labels: Dandeli, nambayz trip, nambayzfamily trip, weekend getaway
¶ Thursday, January 01, 2009 5 Comments
For the last 2 or 3 weeks, I have had quite a bit of local travel and this gave me ample time to just mull over what I have been going through - consciously or unconsciously. Thanks to the airport and the associated drives, this had also been a period of quasi-break from my hectic schedule at work and some time for reminiscing. This is when I realized that for the last 8 months, I have had few good memories to fall back on. Incidentally, my last post on this blog was also 6 months ago!
Work..work..work...No space for anything else. Not that I didn't foresee a radical shift in my job profile from service delivery to pre-sales. But the quantum leap has indeed left a quite zapped. I am unable to catch up on novels/special readings that I so much enjoyed an year ago and of course the innumerable treks/outings that we managed on weekends. These days what I most dread about weekends is catching up on procrastinated work. All this was also a simple reflection of the fact that I am starting to lack that personal time that I cherish the most - to just ponder over life and try to make it a bit exciting.
Frankly, these are no qualms about the exciting work and the drive it brings along. But am lost when I have to think AT WHAT COST? Where do great minds draw a line (a thick unambiguous one!!) and say that is it?
I am damn sure the world out there has lot more wisdom than the one just writing this. So starting a heated debate on a blog that has been slumbering for a while is the best way to rejuvenation.
May the pearls of worldly wisdom make me wiser (and the greedy me also says richer)!
Labels: just some thoughts, random rumblings
¶ Sunday, July 13, 2008 7 Comments
Those first few stepsThe sweden-returned holidaying Deepak (D), Kichi and I (Arvind) decided that irrespective of the group strength, we will make our headway. So we laid out a plan to hit the roads to KP over the last weekend (4-Jan-08 thru 6-Jan-08). A couple of veterans of this trek were already amidst nambayz. Supreeth and Madhu who had already made it to the top earlier provided ample advice on the kind of stuff to be carried along and the tentative schedule for conquering this high-incline rough terrain.
The path less taken
Something on KP: KP is known for its arduous trek path and there are two routes of reaching the top. One is from the side of Somavarpet. From Somavarpet, we have to take a bus to small town called Bidalli, which is 25 kms from Somavarpet and then start the trek from there. This route runs predominantly through the forest area and is apparently less strenuous than the second route which is starting from the pilgrim place,Kukke. In fact, the peak is named after the deity of Kukke - Subramanya (Affectionately called Kumara). Just about a kilometer from this temple at Kukke, is the ascent to KP.
The three of us reached Kukke on Saturday morning at 6-30 AM. Hiring a room for a couple of hours, we freshened up quickly to seek divine blessings at the temple. After a sumptuous, but not heavy breakfast (heavy breakfast to be avoided since the ascent is quite steep right from the beginning), we hit the roads to KP at 9-00 AM. We all needed some warm-up to get acclimatized to the hot weather and the rough tract; but KP offers no such respite. Right from step one, it is a trail of loose gravel with some steep inclines. Kichi was not completely at ease when he started off and this actually helped the other two of us to take ample breaks along with him. Trudging slowly and clicking quite a lot of pics, we reached our first major pit-stop. This is around 2.5 kms from the base of the peak and is a large black rock, enough to house 3-4 tired bodies. Hogging glucose and bananas, we rested for about 20 mins at this place. The next major milestone was another 2.5 kms away. The summer season actually helped our cause. Leeches and broken legs were at large unlike in the rainy days. Moving along, at a neat pace, we reached Bhattara mane (rightly called so which translates to the House of the Chef! Although, the house owner is Mr.Bhat). This place is the mandatory stop for all trekkers of KP and for the last 34 years, Mr.Bhat has been catering to the hungry trekkers with hot, home-made food. The kind of succour this place provides to the tired bodies is unimaginable. What is hidden behind the scenes, that makes this a reality is even more baffling! Each and every consumable that needs to feed the ravenous trekkers need to carried along by the men folks right from Kukke to this place. This is a routine affair for them but that is also a testimonial to their endurance.
The three musketeers @ 'Bhattare Mane' We reached Bhattara Mane precisely at 12 noon; after a 3-hour long trek. Resting for about 2 hours and enjoying a hot meal, we were again set to hit the road at 2-00 PM.
From my past experience of similar treks, I can easily conclude, this has been the toughest of them all. (My dream of a Himalayan trek is still pending!) Bhattare Mane is exactly mid way between Kukke and the KP peak. About 1.5 kms from place is the Mantapa - a stone-pillared structure enough to house 3-4 people. This stretch is also pretty steep and the rocky terrain just adds to the fun! While it can give shelter from rain, the strong winds have to be taken care of. We reached the Mantapa at 4-00 and rested for a while. Kichi was still not completely up to mark since his pace did not match his earlier stints with us. While we still decided to get to the top and then decide where to camp for the night, we were not very sure if we could stay at the top since we had no tents with us bit just sleeping bags. Nevertheless, we started off to the top and reached the peak by 5-15 ambling along the serpentine trails. For D, god knows what, after the lunch at Bhattare Mane, he seemed to sailing rather than trekking. He easily overtook the folks ahead of us and reached the peak first. I was a little slow and caught up with him with a delay of 5-10 mins. Good lot fotos top celebrate our long-drawn expedition, D christening a couple of smaller peaks on the way as 'Uphi Parvatha' (the fake peak) and 'Mini Parvatha' (the mini peak) and some gusty winds was a good culmination. We headed back to Mantapa and felt very proud of our pace. That is where you need to recollect the title of this blog!!
Cuddling in Sleeping bags..........brrrrrrrrrrrr!!
Lead Kindly Light!
With a good home-made chapathis that D had got, we were set to hit the sack. Cuddling up in our sleeping backs, we (Sorry..only I) had the best of the sleep for the times to come. D and Kichi were less fortunate since they found it difficult to fall asleep. Morning was less eventful, and a brisk descent saw us back at the forest office at Bhattare Mane in less than 2 hours. That was when a realization awaited us. The forest office guard told us that the peak that we were atop is actually Shesha Parvatha, and KP is another 1 km from there towards east. What we thought was a dream come true was only partial (A final reference to the caption of this blog!). But that also meant we need to trek this again; probably from the side of Somavarpet. Another lunch, another quick descent to Kukke and our trek was finished. The entire descent had taken less than 4 hours discounting the break of 2 hours for lunch.
Mini Parvatha
Sidda Parvatha
Uphi Parvatha
Where we went...and where we intended!!
This first trek to KP will always be remembered for its duress and the unconquered peak!
Labels: KP, Kumara Parvatha, trek, weekend getaway
¶ Tuesday, January 08, 2008 2 Comments
Weekends that were exclusive to IIMB now are for loitering around with friends. For the four successive weekends post MBA, I am yet to stay beyond a few hours at home. Cricket match for a weekend, friend’s treat for another so on and so forth. I have suddenly realized the void created by the end of the course while also feeling elated for all the time in the world. Some two and half years ago I had put out my initial thoughts of joining this course and how it re-defined meetings at cafes. I have come a long way after that and the whole sojourn has been a wonderful experience. Highs and lows were part and parcel of this long drawn yet well-relished journey and the means indeed justify the end. Being students of the non-residential MBA, I can vouch for the fact that I have indeed missed out on that helluva lot of fun that happens beyond the classrooms in the hostel. (My confidence oozes from the fact that the hostel was the quintessential part of our existence during my under-grad days).But I am being only 90% true and that is because out of the 10 quarters of MBA I was fortunate to spend one of them as an exchange term at Barcelona, Spain. Those were some of the best days of my life! Loads of reminiscences, lots of fun….can’t stop ranting on those times!!
Back home, another of my life’s milestone event was my job change. This is a milestone indeed since I had to make a colossal shift from the bread-and-butter IT delivery to an IT sales/marketing. I myself was not sure if I can make this transition rather smoothly if not seamlessly. Two months into this and I feel I am slowly getting into the groove. Am at it; just at its tip and a mountain is yet to be unearthed.
All in all, I can now safely commit to weekend outings and catch up with a good lot of movies and books that I long lost track of. So far, so good! ¶ Thursday, December 20, 2007 7 Comments
In what was considered the mother of all cricket matches, the grand finale of the T20 cricket world-cup competition (the shortest form of contemporary cricket) ended after a great roll-a-coaster ride with the Indians defeating (deliberate usage since any other stronger verb would down-play the opponent's efforts to stay put) the arch-rivals, Pakistanis. Fortunes swung hard as both teams were desperate to lay their hands on the coveted T20 world cup. Couple of factors helped Indians achieve this great feat- the jinx Pakis suffer from where they have never won over India in any world-cup match and second, a billion hearts beating in synch with Dhoni's men.
A couple of hundreds of those hearts were right here at our cafeteria.
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Glimpse of people at work..err.... at play!Work took a back-seat for a couple of hours when India batted first and scored a modest (by T20 standards) 157. As the Pakis started their batting rather shakily, every wicket meant a huge outcry from the audience still glued to the wide screen sony vega televisions. We were no less than the privileged crowd at Jo'berg and this is what made the match all the more intense and called for an exhilarating watch. With whistles all round when Indians scored sixes/fours or took wickets, as the match approached the end, we could see people flocking every nook and corner of the cafeteria. Such was the fervor of the moment, that people went berserk at the fall of every Paki wicket and danced to glory. As the last wicket fell, the men folks just swarmed the TV (including me) and it took some admin guys to pull us back so that the less raucous crowd including the genteel ladies could catch a glimpse of the ceremonies and Indian victory laps. Long live the aura of Indian cricket!
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All heads and one TV!This post is dedicated to all those who ardently supported and prayed for India's success.
I have always admired Pari and Dharini for their unending zeal for cooking and the food fest at ESADE, called the 'Gastronomic Festival' was the culmination of their efforts. This fest was held on the 24th of November and the MBA students were given an opportunity to display their culinary skills that they inherited from their native lands. Dharini, Lagan(a full time student at ESADE) ,Pari, Rohit and I decided to show-case the Indian ´stuff´ with Tarun and Saurabh being the cheer-leaders. What followed later was simply the Indian magic at work.
The menu we decided was Roti (the quintessencial Indian Bread), Paneer (Cottage Cheese) curry, Chana Masala (Chick-pea) and Rice-Kheer (Rice pudding - the great Indian dessert). Since this was a food-fest, people were expected to taste the food rather than eat it, but the expected tasters were around 80-10; which meant that the proportionate quantity we had to cook was for atleast 25-30 people.
Since all of us are late-to-bed and late-to-rise, we started the marathon effort at around 12-30 in the noon on the day of the fest. Pari and Dharini were out with the shopping list and did most of it as well and we were all set. Rohit has this uncanny knack of making the dough so soft and well-kneaded that any baby can roll it (believe me, am not exaggerating!). So he got into the task of making dough for Rotis and in a short time we had enough dough for around 70 mid-sized rotis. At the same time, Dharini and Pari were busy stewing the curries and making the Kheer. We could all smell the aroma that emanated from the kitchen as things were being doled out. You might be wondering as to where did I fit into all of these. Well, my contribution was cutting the vegetables and aiding the main chefs in ancillary works and baking some Rotis as well.
At 6-30 in the evening, with half-an-hour left for the fest, we were still baking the Rotis, taking turns. Nevertheless, we reached the venue of the fest a trifle late and laid out the great Indian table. Lagan had ordered some Samosas as well, which added to the spice and we slowly had the visitors coming down.
There were tables laid out to represent good lot of countries. Central America, Columbia, Mexico, Spain, USA, Australia et al were serving their native delicacies and some exotic drinks. As people started to come down to our table, we explained them the dishes they were about to eat, its ingredients and its spice content. It was good fun explaining what goes into these different dishes and reminding folks to come back for the Indian dessert after they are done with all the other tables. We also roamed around the hall, tasting the food from other tables. A mocktail/cocktail was brewing in all our stomachs.
We had proof that our food was well-accepted. All of it being consumed in less than 2 hours was a testimonial to this. (Economists argue that artificial scarcity also leads to the same result..but we ignore it for now!) More concrete proofs were to follow.
At the end of the fest, we had the poll for the best food being served. Guess what, we made it to the third place! Mexico (second place) and Holland (first place) were the teams ahead of us. Nonetheless, it was a very ´satiating´ experience. Some of these memories go a long way with us!
For those few memorable ones, click here. ¶ Monday, November 27, 2006 3 Comments
After the excursion to Paris and the ultimate urbane experience, I had a strong desire to visit countryside Europe and its scenic wonders colored by autumn. Having had almost a week off from classes, Dharini, Rohit and I started our 10-day exploration on 19-Oct and headed first to Belgium. The town we zeroed in on was Brugge and we passed thru Paris and Brussels before reaching Brugge. This is a beautiful town with fairy-tale kind of homes and avenues. We visited a couple of churches and walked around the town munching some home-made Belgium chochs. The best part of this visit was the canal ride across the town and it was a wonderful experience as the guide/driver led us thru the relics of this laid-back town. To quote the guide "People here are very religious. We have 17 churches in Brugge. People here are also fun-mongers. We have 420 pubs". Brugge is aptly called the 'Small Venice'.
Starting in the evening, we came to Lueven, another wonderful town where we met my under-grad classmate, Kaps and stayed put at his place. Roaming around, we discovered that this is an exclusive student town with a student population of 30,000. More interesting statistics reveal that 20,000 of them are GIRLS!
Early morning, next day, we left to Amsterdam. Madame-Tussad's museum was our first point of stopover. This museum hosts the wax statues of eminent personas across the globe. Those statues look next to real stuff and it was fun flashing cameras as we rubbed shoulders with some all-time greats. Then on, we went to the Van-Gogh museum before taking another canal ride across the city. Finally we roamed around the streets of Amsterdam before leaving to Germany.
Taking an overnight train to Berlin, we reached Berlin in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately for me, I sprained my ankle on the way and so I decided to keep low in Berlin. So I just restricted myself to a site, which had a remnant of the Berlin wall, and a museum that outlined its history. It is literally a hair-raising tale in history. The next stop in Germany was Oestrich-Winkel, a serene village close to Frankfurt. This village has acres of vineyards and is adjunct to the Rhine River, a sight to savor. Two other exchange students, Hemant and Sohail, stay here and we joined them as we decided to go on together. We took the Rhine river cruise that cut across the forested hills. With the weather keeping good, this ride was an absolute bliss. Reaching Cologne, we took a train to Vienna.
Vienna is a city of museums. This has more than 70 museums, all hosted in exotic buildings. More than the monuments, we found the walk across the city very refreshing and it culminated with our visit to the royal palace of Vienna. The palace is an overwhelming structure with an equally beautiful garden in its backyard. We spent more than two hours in this place and it was time to bid good-bye to Vienna as we headed towards Stuttgart.
The visit to Stuttgart was dedicated to the Mercedes-Benz museum. This museum walks us thru the origins of the most revered car brand on earth and exhibits of both the relic and modern Merc's. Now on, started the most interesting part of our outing.
We decided to hire a car to roam around the rest of places and starting from Stuttgart we headed to Tittisi, a town amidst the Black-forest and famous for the cuckoo-clocks. With Sohail at the steering wheel, we hit the auto-bahn, the only road on earth where there are no speed limits. After about an hour of travel, during which we had covered 80+ kms, we started to feel that we are not moving right as the legends on the map we referred to were never in sight. We cruised into a near-by village and knocked on the doors of a garage. The person there had a smart laptop with a canon printer and was kind enough to get a detailed version of the route map. We realized we had come in the opposite direction.
Since daylight is limited in autumn, by the time we reached Tittisi, it was around 8 in the night and the whole town was shutdown. We could not roam around the black-forests and had to stay in our car for the night. We woke up to a misty and chilled morning and to see daylight we had to wait till around 9-00. So decided against visiting Black-forest and headed to Salzburg. Cutting thru the small towns and villages in Europe, the drive to Salzburg along the country side and patches of auto-bahn was an amazing feel.
Salzburg is known for its ice-caves that open only for a few days in the year and we were lucky to visit it. This cave is at the top of a steep hill and is covered with ice inside. Some fancy structures are made out ice naturally and are as old as a couple of thousand of years, although this cave was discovered some 200 years ago.
After about 8 days of uninterrupted travel, I was feeling a little unsettled and decided to cut down on more travel and relax a bit. While Dharini and Rohit retained the enthu to carry on to Florence in Italy, I decided to visit my bro-in-law (actually would-be, better known as one of my close friends), Kata in Hildesheim near Hannover. He had a spacious apartment and cooked some great Indian food for me. Just lazing around the city, we played pool, bowling and had a ball of a time. On the last day, we visited a theme park along with his Bosch colleagues. This park has the world's steepest wood-roll-coaster, rightly called the "Colossal".
Sunday, Oct 26th, marked the end of this outing for me and I was all set to get back to studies at Barca.
For those frozen moments of fun, click here.
