Reminiscing Pleasantries

When time and cellphones don't matter!

2009-01-01T00:03:00.000-08:00

Nambayz-Family Year-end trip to Dandeli

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 Cottage

The 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-C

The 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 & Vinni

PS:More fotos will follow as an online album later and will be posted as comments to this blog!

One for the contrast with my blog title!!

2008-07-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

Suddenly I am aging at a lightening pace!

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)!

Trek for Fun to................Whatz in the Name!!

2008-01-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

With the dwindling number of bachelors in nambayz (our local boys gang), treks/outings (read weekend get-aways) in big groups is a distant dream. I am being unapologetic about all this given the priority shift that comes along post marriage. So when we floated a plan of realizing our long pending dream of conquering Kumaraparvatha (KP - the second highest peak in Karnataka), only 3 out of the 15 nambayz happened to see the light of the day for this proposition. Well, actually not a completely honest statement!!

Those first few steps

The 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!

Those were the best days of ma LIFE….

2007-12-20T01:38:00.000-08:00

It’s been quite sometime since I penned down my thoughts – off late they have been random and vagabond-ish. More so, after my first job change in the last 5 years; this happened two months ago. This was alongside my completion of my non-residential MBA (PGSEM-IIMB) last month. Guess it takes this much time for reality to set in. I was unable to stand still and think even for a little while with all these and was just going along with the speedy flow of events and thoughts. Now it’s time for some nostalgia, some deliberations and still loads of random thoughts!

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!

Incredible India!!

2007-09-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Cent percent in Twenty-20

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.

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!

All heads and one TV!

This post is dedicated to all those who ardently supported and prayed for India's success.

Gastronomic Fest @ ESADE

2006-11-27T04:23:00.001-08:00

Who said cooking ai´nt fun?

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.

Around Europe in 10 days

2006-11-02T06:35:00.000-08:00

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.

A Weekend in Paris

2006-10-17T04:49:00.000-07:00

"Awesome is an understatement"

I am in love…….with Paris!

Our first weekend outing away from Spain was to Paris and Nice and the weekend could not get any better. Still in the grips of the awesome beauty of Paris and fallen heads-over-heals for this enthralling city, I think Paris would be the best city ever that I have visited and probably would visit in the future.

Starting on the evening of Wednesday, 11th Oct from Barcelona, Pari, Rohit and I reached Paris on the 12th morning. We were lucky to accost Asim, an exchange student from IIMC and we were put up at his apartment, which was also shared by two of IIMB students but had traveled to Germany and one other IIMC guy called Arpit. The first day of Paris was meant for two wonderful monuments; The Church of Sacred Hearts and the Pantheon.

The Church of Sacred Hearts is a huge church built out of the contribution of many philanthropists and is encircled by lush green gardens. The elevation of this place is such that we get a bird’s eye view of Paris. We roamed around this place for quite sometime admiring the church interiors and the well-fed pigeons. Moving on, we visited the Pantheon where a guide led us through the historical significance of this edifice. This was a church earlier and then converted to a national monument and is the second tallest monument in Paris after the Eiffel tower. A unique process of “Pantheonization” is followed where French national celebrities are buried with national respect and there are a lot of criteria to be met before one is entitled for this. Personalities like Madame Curie, Alexandre Dumas et al are buried here. This also houses a long pendulum that is suspended from the roof with a golden ball weighing 47 kgs hanging from it. Atop from this building we could see the city of Paris and more importantly a wonderful view of the Eiffel tower. Both these structures were overwhelming in their architectural construction and left us overawed. The last of the destinations for the day was the Bastille, where we had a leisurely walk along the River de Siene and on the way back helped ourselves to some wonderful Pizza.

As we planning for the next day’s explorations, two other IIMB fellas, Abhi and Sonia, on exchange from Vienna arrived to Paris and it was more-the-merrier for us. Paris is filled with so many centers of attractions that we had to really pick the best of the best and we zeroed in on the world-famous Louvre museum and the Eiffel tower. Louvre museum has one of the most fabulous collections of artifacts and paintings that span across centuries and once has to see it to believe it. Sonia and I took the audio guide that had the excerpts of the famous movie “The Da-Vinci Code” and the guide, in the voice of the inspector, Bezu Fache, led us across the various points of the museums where the actual shooting took place culminating with the location where “the blade meets the chalice”. It was indeed an enchanting experience as we were tracking the ever-obscure professor Robert Langdon in the curvy paths of Louvre whilst unraveling the mystery of Da-Vinci’s wonderful paintings. The Louvre is so big that we could easily spend a couple of days exploring the entire museum. It has Egyptians relics, ancient Greek sculptures, French and Italian paintings and the royal artifacts used by the French kings including Napoleon the Great. Looking at these, I felt jealous of the pomp and glory with the kings of the yesteryears spent their lives. After spending about 5 hours, we were able to cover about 60% of the museum area and time was fast running out. After some quick looking around, we decided to move on to the Eiffel tower. It was a nice walk from Louvre to Eiffel tower. Standing at the foot of the tower, we realized that it was a dream come true for us to be alongside of this architectural marvel. We also took a ride atop this 320-meter high tower and it was a heavenly experience to be standing on top of the tallest structure in Paris.

The last day in Paris we visited the Notre Dame which is the most sacred cathedral in Paris and walked along the wide roads of this city sighting the innumerable palaces and cathedrals. The last of the stops was the Arc-de-Triomf, which is a gateway structure built to commemorate an old French king’s victory. This arc is at the end of an amazing walkway called “Champs Elysees” (pronounced as Shan-Elyse) which has showrooms for almost all kinds of stuff and their leading brands.

As we headed to Nice, it was time to bid adieu to Paris and we parted ways with Sonia and Abhi.

Arpit joined the three of us for the one-day Nice trip from Paris. The sight of the azure waters was a welcome sign for us to take a dip in the sea and the rest of the day was for loafing around the city at a leisurely pace. We went atop a small hill and had a stroll in a good park while enjoying French snacks. As it got darker, our journey through France was at its end and we returned to Barca with loads of sweet memoirs.

For fotos...click here...

First weekend getaway from Barca.....

2006-10-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

Lifez been this....freak out...freak out and keep freaking out.... (atleast till now).....

Now that life is pretty much settled at Barca, we thought we should start exploring Europe and what better place to start than Barca. The first weekend here (Oct 7 n 8) was meant to be a seaside outing alongside of a visit to a couple of cathedrals around Barca. Dharini had left to France and so it was for the rest of us to getaway this weekend.

On Saturday, we decided to visit "Tossa-de-mara", a hot tourist destination which hosts a old fort and two enchanting beaches and this place an hour's drive from here. We walked around an old and dilapidated fort clicking our cameras all the way. Better things were to follow.

Deciding against dipping into the waters of the main beach, we took a boat cruise from the main beach to reach another smaller, nevertheless more serene beach. Along the way, the boat sneaked into few caves that were carved out of the behemoth rocks and it was sight to behold. The boat we went in had a glass bottom and we could see lots of coral and small fishes as we cruised along. The destination of this ride was the wonderful beach with its not-so-crowded sands.

Pari decided to stretch himself on the sands with the weather aiding his cause as he listened to his iPod. Rohit, Saurabh, Tarun and I decided to get a feel of the water, which was too tempting to resist. Lying in the cool crystal clear waters with the sun shining bright was heavens down to earth. We dragged ourselves out of water after around 2 hours of fun in the blue waters.

Coming back home, we had little energy for something more and all we could do was to hog and crash into our beds.

Sunday morning, we were up early to catch a train to "Girona", 1.5 hours by train. This city is quite old and has retained most of its antiquity thru its buildings. There are two monumental cathedrals, one of them dating back to 1733. We also visited a church and couple of museums and it was a good outing. One museum hosted the memorabilia that brought out the evolution of modern day cinema and it was an interesting sojourn along the memory lane.

Getting back home, Pari and Tarun cooked some wonderfully spicy Indian curry and it was a perfect end to our weekend revelry.

It's time for Euro-scan. We plan to go around Europe in the days to come and I am all excited about the upcoming prospects of visiting Europe's name-to-fame places.

For the fotos of this weekend, click here.

So long...........

Ma life at ESADE....Those first few days of Student Exchange

2006-10-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

I am so elated about this whole prospect of studying for my one term of MBA in a foreign university that it has taken me around a week's time to do a reality-check and start blogging.

Being a student of the non-residential MBA program, the opportunity to go on a student-exchange to Escuela Superior de Administration y Direccion de Empressa (meaning Masters' school of Administration) , in short ESADE at Barcelona, Spain was a welcome break from work and time for student life at its fullest.

Three other full-time MBA students from IIMB (Dharini,Pari & Rohit) and two from IIML (Tarun & Saurabh) thought we will chug along together in this newland of Barca. We arrived on the 28-Sept and stayed put in a youth hostel called alberguinn and this was a neat place for a make-shift home before we settled in our newly found home, away from our homes in India. The apartment turned put ot be wonderfully well serviced, spacious and also in the heart of the city. We owe this discovery to Tarun and Saurabh.

Although nothing major has transpired after our landing in Spain, we have tried to explore Barca a little. Barca is a pretty clean city with friendly people and we have not had any major problems with language, although English is not as wide spread as Spanish. Nevertheless, we are chilling out here. Few good walks in the many parks of this verdant city with a cool climate has been very refreshing. Our daily schedule is pretty much fixed; a quick break-fast in the morning with classes running to latest till 6-00 and then looking forward for dinner. Pari and Dharini do the bulk of cooking (Indian spicy stuff....my mouth is watering even as I write this) and it is alleviating our problem of missing Indian food to a great extent.

More interesting would be the weekends to come, when we plan to visit Madrid, Paris and other major European cities. So then I would have lots to write.

Before signing-off, a foto of all six of us....................:D

For more fotos of our first few days, pls check my online album.

Montreal Memories - Team IIMB @ JMSB

2006-01-24T01:37:00.000-08:00

Circa 2005: Starting June 05 we had to tell ourselves that travel is a strict no-no; be it local over weekends or international for client visits. We had started pursuing our non-residential postgraduate program (PGSEM) at IIM, Bangalore with weekend classes.

Circa 2006: January 1, 2006 four of us get to land our feet in three continents; Asia (Bangalore), Europe (Frankfurt) and North America (Montreal). Courtesy PGSEM.

Somewhere in September 05 students at IIMB received an invitation for participation in the international case competition from John-Molson School of Business (JMSB), Concordia University, Montreal. It was their 25th anniversary. In order that a team could represent IIMB, a case analysis was supposed to be carried out and teams would compete against each other locally. Bijesh, Monish, Nelson, Vignesh and myself (Arvind) thought it was definitely worth a try. Owing to personal constraints, Nelson opted out and the remaining four of us formed a team. And we are forever happy to say that our team got selected to represent IIMB. The sojourn for upholding the brand called IIMB in Montreal had begun.

The competition also required that a coach accompany us. Being first timers at this competition, which has a history of a quarter of a century, we were not very certain about the rules and regulations. So a coach who could interface the whole team was imperative. We approached Professor Abhoy, who willingly agreed to accompany us. Given the fact the all of us are working professionals and weekends inevitably are reserved for classes, it was hard for us to put in more than 3-4 hours a week towards the preparation. We borrowed cases from Prof. Abhoy and most of the Sundays were spent at Bijesh or Vignesh’s place, for bare minimum preparations. Our feedback sessions with Prof. Abhoy helped us work on our analysis and presentation areas. Days rolled by quickly and our departure to Canada was fast approaching.

Prof. Abhoy had a tight travel schedule in December. A string of holidays in the last week of the month proved to be a dampener for VISA processing. Owing to some unavoidable circumstances, our prof’s VISA got unduly delayed and unfortunately he could not accompany us. Prior to the day of departure, he wished us all well and the four of us left Bangalore on January 1st, 2006 and reached Montreal the same day via Frankfurt.

Day I (Jan 1,06)
Our arrival was two days prior to the actual start of the competition. After a whopping 20 hours on flight, we had the first glance of snow and the feel of impending cold at Montreal. Huddling up at our youth hostels, we did little but sleeping. A short walk in the evening snow was enough to push was back to rest.

Day II (Jan 2,06)
The venue of the competition was Hilton, situated at downtown Montreal. The scheduled program for the day was the coaches briefing and we could garner some details about the competition, albeit not fully. Then came the windfall. Vignesh, on our transit via Frankfurt to Montreal was seated next to Dr.Klaus, the coach from University of Paderborn. Dr.Klaus has been coaching teams from Paderborn for more than 10 years. He had a good chat with him and during the course of discussion; he was told that our coach could not accompany us. Incidentally, Univ. of Paderborn, had an assistant coach, Sebastian, who himself was a participant last year. During the meeting, he volunteered to steer the ship for us; a bond we will cherish forever.

With no official events in the daytime, we decided to stroll around Montreal. The chilly winds with temperature hovering around –10 C, it was polar climate for Bangaloreans. But the spirit to explore the city drove us to quite a few places. We visited the Concordia and McGill university campuses, flashing the cameras as much as possible. The evening marked the opening ceremony of the competition at the Museum of Montreal. Draws were announced which placed the 36 competing teams in six divisions. We were in the second division, alongside of the host team, JMSB and four others.

Day III (Jan 3,06)
The schedule for the cases was quite hectic. Two cases per day, five in total at the divisional level with one for semis. Finals were on Saturday, the 7th Jan.

A brief on the competition – Each team plays against the other five at the divisional level. Toppers of the division move to semis; and the next three toppers, irrespective of division, also make it to the semis. Semis will be for three groups; and winner from each group competes for the coveted trophy in the finals. Each case analysis is for three hours (barring the one short case, which is for one hour). Each team of four team members sans the coach, works in a room, without any external interactions and within the three hours comes up with a solution to the problem posed in the case and prepares acetates for the presentation. Right after the analysis and preparation phase, the presentation follows for 25 minutes and 15 minutes of Q&A. The competing teams as a whole are rated on a scale of 11 i.e. 7-4, 8-3 or higher scores indicate that the team having better score has won convincingly. An additional 30 points is awarded to the winning team. A 6-5 is a close call and hence the winning team gets 20 points and the losing team gets 10.

Our first opponent was the host team. We were a little apprehensive but our coach, Sebastian instilled lot of confidence and we went ahead with our case analysis. It was a company called Ryovac and the case about their acquisition spree and accelerated growth. We presented the case and the results were due after we finished the second case for the day. The second was based on CRL, a specialized poultry egg producer aspiring to acquire a Mexican poultry farm. Two cases a day was good enough to drain us out completely and favorable results alone could lift us up. Sebastian acceded that the first was a little tough call for the judges while we were better in the second. The results were up by the evening and we were pleasantly surprised to have 8-3 and 7-4 victories respectively. It was party time.

That evening we had a choice of attending a dinner or whiling time at a local laser game parlor. We decided on the latter. It was fun to shoot at each other in the dark maze with laser guns. We retired to bed thinking about the next two cases.

Day IV (Jan 4,06)
This was the day of the live case and the short case. Cirque-de-Soleil, a circus company was selected for the live case. The Corporate VP had a presentation following which we had a analysis and presentation. The second case was a short case on ExonMobil. One hour of number crunching is what we did in that. At the end of the day, we had the results for the morning case and we had a 7-4 victory. So far, so good. That night, we joined our extended team of Paderborn and team from Tennessee for dinner and it was gala event.

Day V (Jan 5,06)
We woke to a small shock when we knew that our last victory was a close 6-5. In fact, it had another consequence. It would potentially hamper our chances of winning the divisions’ topper award. The other teams with a four case victory were ahead in total points tally. Sebastian again urged that we should just try our best and leave the tallying to the organizers. The last case was that of Wal-Mart in China; an interesting case to end the divisional round.

A luncheon banquet was arranged prior to the semis. All the teams were on the tip of their toes to know if they had made to the next crucial round. As we love to have, our team had a victory of 8-3 in the last case. A pleasant surprise was that ours was the only team with an all-five-case victory and we topped the divisional rounds. We were just two steps away from what we presumed would be the most defining moments of our lives.

Semis were in groups of three and the case was NYK, a shipping and a terminal operator company planning to acquire another terminal operator. After our presentation, we also witnessed the other two groups from our group and we knew instantly, it was a close call. The results were due at the theme party that night.

The theme party began at 8-00 in the night and we got to see people in varied outfits. Just before the partying began, the results were to be announced. We had lost out to another team from our group and it was rather a not-so-cheerful end of our outing. But it did keep up with the statistics of this competition – no divisional topper has ever been able to win the trophy. We partied hard with all our new friends from different countries and retired to our rooms very late. There was nothing officially waiting anymore for us.

Day VI (Jan 6,06)
While we failed to reach the finals, we surely made lot of friends, not just from other countries but lot of Indians residing in Canada as well. Some Indian students at JMSB were volunteers to this event and three of them got very close to all of us. Deepesh, Phalguni and Amudhu were volunteers at the event and they invited us over lunch on Friday. Deepesh had prepared wonderful Pav-Bhaji and we savored thoroughly. They surely made our life easy by serving us spicy Indian stuff. We roamed around Montreal again, for some shopping.

Evening was the official presentation ceremony. The winner was John Molson B-School, but all of us there had loads to carry back; those wonderful moments that would go along with us for years to come. For us, we had the divisional toppers award and a pleasant surprise in the form of the team-spirit award that we shared with Tennessee.

Day VII (Jan 7,06)
The last day in Montreal was quite short. We just had time to bid good-bye to all our friends and it was just another 20 hours that separated us from our routine life. We shared our flight till Frankfurt with our extended team from Paderborn and parted ways with pleasant memories.

Big thanks to our institute, for encouraging us to participate in this event, to our coaches both at home and abroad for their valuable guidance and the organizers of the event for their immaculate and meticulous planning and execution.

For those frozen moments: http://community.webshots.com/album/542530768ygPpUW

For more on the competition details: www.mbacasecomp.com

"Anything can happen over Coffee" A tribute to my first quarter

2005-08-10T23:43:00.000-07:00

A wonderful setting for a romantic evening. A lull after a downpour. I was waiting for 'you will know who' in front of 'Coffee World', Koramangala yesterday evening (10-Aug). It was a planned outing. There were supposed to be four of us but one person had to travel on a short notice and so the rest three of us met up.We thought we cannot meet up at our house owing to some personal constraints and hence decided on this quiet and serene location. The meeting went on for about 2 hours and we did achieve some milestones."Anything can happen over coffee!"

Does the header and the above contents make you feel I am leaving you perplexed. Let me bring about some clarity. Life has changed since I started doing my post graduate program in Mgmt, a non-residential weekend course. I wanted to pen down some experiences as a mgmt student but what I lacked was time. Now that the first quarter is all set to end (which also means the second is just round the corner), I thought further delay would dampen my spirits of sharing the thoughts. The final nail on the coffin was our outing yesterday at the Coffee World, Koramangala.The other two people whom I mentioned were Bijesh and Monish. Nelson, the fourth member of our project team had to travel and could not join us at this historical meeting. We met to discuss our project on Strategy Mgmt and some pending assignments of Financial Accounting. Gone are those days when these were places meant to be hangouts for new acquaintances while sipping some caffeine. Bijesh's place was busy with guests and Monish's house and my place are li'll too far. So the place we zeroed in on was this.It was a productive meeting though and we did make significant progress in our project.

Well, the feeling of a fully occupied student is slowly creeping in and I am craving for time, but the experience is nevertheless wonderful. Weekends earlier simply meant movies,bowling and freak-outs. The whole definition is now changing. I would not say I am undergoing a radical change overnight, but I am taking it in little ounces and assimilating the difference.

All in all, it's been an enriching experience, exposing us to a whole new world of theories and models, lively discussions and case-studies. Guess all these lend lot of practicality to the whole course as such. This is just the beginning though. Another whopping 11 quarters (i.e. 2+ years) before we are draped in the black gown. "So Far So Good!"

Call of the Wild (Mar-05)

2005-03-08T01:48:00.000-08:00

Our under-grad tronics junta was (in)famous for lotsa outings during our college days. Once out, we found it really hard to get going together, different work places, and different commitments. But then there was always this desire re-start and get going again. Thanks to Kaps, who almost pressed on all of us to make that a reality. Dates fixed quickly as 4-5-6 March, (really dunno watz sacrosanct about them), and place being Jungle lodges at Bandipur and BR Hills, mails came pouring in as to who would ride the bandwagon. Kaps, Sandmap, Torvi, Batani, Naveen, Gopi, HC and myself were the initial eight. Just as I thought I was in for sure, I had to drop out owing to unscheduled work. So Ballu came in to the hikers group. Now, I guess you are wondering why am I writing this blog…J

As usual, no trip is complete without lasts-minute inclusions/exclusions. Gopi and HC dropped out on the last day. Ballu, unfortunately met with an accident and could not make it. So now the number was down to 5. That was when I re-joined, coz my unscheduled work got rescheduled to a later date. Thank GOD!!

Abhay, a colleague of Kaps, decided to jump in on the day of departure and so it was for the seven of us to respond to the call of the wild. Leaving Bangalore early in the morning we headed towards the Bandipur Jungle Lodge-Resort (JLR). This is a chain of resorts at different forested locations. Harsha, a naturalist working there led us to our rooms and we whiled away the time on the well-laid hammocks till lunch was served. After a long hog, Torvi, Abhay and myself went on a short hike to the adjoining hillock. We were lucky to spot a running hare on our course.

At around 4 in the afternoon, we set out on the jeep-safari into the Bandipur forest, which is that part of the Western-Ghats range called Nilgiris. This is a dry deciduous forest and at this time of the year is quite dry. Accompanied with Harsha and his keen sense of vision, we could spot some rare birds and lots of animals. Crested Serpent Eagle, Barbets, Racket tailed Drongo, Woodpeckers and Peacocks were notable amongst the birds. Lots of deer, wild boars, Elephant, Gaur (Indian Bison), mongoose, Languars treated our eyes. What kept at bay were the predators, the prowling leopards and the royal tigers, though we heard the alarm calls often from their preys at a distance.

Returning from the safari, we had little to do. A documentary on Nilgiris forest and a game of cards after a heavy dinner was enough to call it a day.

Saturday early morning, we went to Gopalaswamy hill and had a short walk into the jungle. This hill is known for the elephant and gaur populace. Harsha led us to the place where he had placed a camera to take pictures of animals and we found it being trampled by angry elephants. We visited the temple on the hilltop and returned to our resort, all set to move towards K-gudi (BR hills) JLR.

Reaching the K-gudi resort in the afternoon, we lazed around and basked in the huge hammocks. Again at around 4, we went on another jeep-safari. Almost the same set of animals and birds were found here as at Bandipur, but at a lower density. Vegetation was a lot greener though. Teak and Rosewood trees are not a scarcity here .The forests around here area blend of dry deciduous, wet deciduous with patches of evergreen tress.

Returning from the safari and settling around the campfire, we played Dumb-charades, only to be interrupted for dinner. Later, ambling around we retired into our tents, getting ready for the morning trek.

An early morning trek/walk to a watchtower amidst the forest was a real refreshing experience. We could also spot few herbivores on our way. As we walked back, we were fast approaching the end of our sojourn.

Way back to Bangalore, we visited the Biligiri Ranga Temple. Reaching Bangalore in the afternoon, we parted ways loaded with lots of sweet memories to cherish.

Foto Collections: http://community.webshots.com/user/bsarvind_china_trip3

2005-02-01T22:15:00.002-08:00

Victoria Memorial

2005-02-01T22:15:00.001-08:00

World Heritage Toy Train

2005-02-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

Revealing its true colors!

2005-02-01T22:14:00.002-08:00

Lead Kindly Light..

2005-02-01T22:14:00.001-08:00

Tea gardens of Darjeeling

2005-02-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

Nature's swing

2005-02-01T22:13:00.002-08:00

The Rhino Delight

2005-02-01T22:13:00.001-08:00

Elephant Safari @ Kaziranga

2005-02-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

On nine clouds!!

2005-02-01T22:12:00.002-08:00

Kids on the block!

2005-02-01T22:12:00.001-08:00

Heading to Tawang Military Camp

2005-02-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Seven in Heaven!

2005-02-01T22:11:00.002-08:00

The road to heaven...

2005-02-01T22:11:00.001-08:00

Flanking Mr.Prakash

2005-02-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

We made it!!

2005-02-01T22:10:00.000-08:00

Picture Perfect Valley!

2005-02-01T22:09:00.001-08:00

Yellow flowerbed

2005-02-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

River Brahmaputra

2005-02-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

Whiling away time in the train

India- NE Beckons(Dec,04-Jan,05)

2005-01-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

IT TOOK 8 MONTHS & 13700 ft TO REALIZE OUR DREAMS

Starting 2003 Christmas, a new wave of determination engulfed all of us. The then year-end bash at Lakshadweep had called for a resolution of an annual holidaying. In strict adherence with that, in mid 2004 we started playing the select-the-spot game. Andaman, Rajasthan, India’s Northeast were the places of major attraction. Supreeth, with ample aid from his colleagues, garnered lots of info on India-NE. One weekend, somewhere during mid 2004, we decided that we would head towards the northeast. The places we were to cover were fast decided. Kaziranga (State of Assam), Sela-Pass and Tawang (State of Arunachal Pradesh), Shillong and Cherrapunji (State of Meghalaya), Gangtok (State of Sikkim) and finally Darjeeling with Kolkata (State of West-Bengal).

The initial flag-bearers:Amruth, Kata, Kichi, Supreeth, Sharath, Vyas, Madhu, Nikki, Subbu and myself (Arvind).

Subbu and Nikki rolled off due to their work commitments. Owing to unavoidable circumstances, Madhu moved out of the bandwagon on the day of departure. So it was for the seven of us to explore the heavens of the northeast.

Guwahati Express, it was, which we had to befriend for around 60 hours. Starting on Friday, the 17^th Dec chugging along Tamilnadu, AndhraPradesh, Orissa, Bihar and West-Bengal, this train reached Guwahati on Monday morning. The train journey was not very boring though. Lots of card games, hogging, reading and clicking fotos kept us well occupied. While all of us had the still cams, Kichi’s camcorder stole the show with amazing powers of capturing quality videos.

Whiling away time in the train

Thanks to Mr.Ananthram, Sups’ uncle, who had taken lots of pain in booking a hotel for us and also hiring a Sumo for our local travel. Interestingly, tourists, be it Indians or foreigners, need to acquire permission from the Government before venturing into Arunachal Pradesh. Mr.Ananthram had got this done as well and ensured that things were perfectly setup for us. He came over to the railway station and took us to the hotel and also provided us directions for reaching a south Indian restaurant. A million thanks to him and we are ever grateful for all his help.

A quick freshen-up and out we set to stroll around Guwahati. This is a pretty sensitive city. As a matter-of-fact the whole of Assam is so and we could spot police and army people hovering around most of the public places. In fact, Beddy’s (Amruth’s nickname) cam-bag was rummaged thru by an army guy, out of the blue.

Walking around the busy streets, we reached the banks of river Brahmaputra. This river is so wide that we had to strain our eyes to spot the other bank. A good boat ride was refreshing enough and we headed back to our hotel after a brief visit to Mr.Ananthram’s place. Yet again, he did us a favor by offering Upma (a south-Indian delicacy). Mr.Ananthram and his wife, Uma aunty were then richer by 7-million thanks.

River Brahmaputra

Tuesday marked the beginning of all our real adventures. Early morning, we set off to Tawang in our Sumo. Karuna Dekha, our introvert but nevertheless skilled driver, was destined to get along with us. Cruising along NH47 till Tezpur and then NH52, we saw many army camps alongside. An half-hour foto session also took place in one of the gardens on the way. It was an awesome sight of yellow flowerbed of mustard plants. Reaching Bhalukpong, we had our lunch which included Momo, a local delicacy. This town borders Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Yellow flowerbed

Sun sets real early in these parts of India and more so during winters, when days are real short. Getting dark by around 4.30 or 5 in the evening is a routine over here. Our drive from Bhalukpong to another town called Bomdilla was not a cake-walk. In fact, on these topsy-turvy hilly roads, with thick fog cover, our driver stopped quite a few times to actually spot the road. The gap between life and death in these stretches is just few feet.

Reaching Bomdilla at mid-night (read as 8’o clock), we found it real hard to find a restaurant to feed seven hungry guys. The icing on the cake was the chill winds. Just when we thought we had run out of luck, we tripped upon a small hotel run by a lady and her young daughter. They were kind enough to cook food then and there and satiate our ravenous hunger. Money could do little then, it was more of a humanitarian show.

Heading towards Dhirang, a town close to Tawang, our accommodation was booked at Hotel Pemaling for the night. Little did we know that we would wake up to a wonderland the next day. Blessed were we, sitting in front of a picture-perfect valley, sipping the hot morning coffee. There are some things money definitely can’t buy!

Picture Perfect Valley!

A quick but delicious breakfast, and off we went towards our first major spot, the Sela Pass. Spotting snow for the first time on the way, the child in us instantly responded and there we were, spilling ice on one another. Sela Pass is the second highest motor-able road in the world (Incidentally, the highest, Leh, is also in India). Our dream came true after 8 months at 13700 ft above sea level.

We made it!!

Sela-Pass has only two seasons, winter when it snows and the rainy season. Glimpses of the sun are not a rarity. We ran into a military camp at Sela-pass and it was an army man Mr.Prakash who led us into the camp. It’s not often that they get to see people in these parts and hence we had a royal treatment. They served us chips and egg and we had a long chat with them. Mr.Prakash also told us about the history of Sela Pass. It is named after a girl called Sheila, who along with one Mr.Jashwant, an ex-Indian army personnel stood between the China army and Indian border. They valiantly defended the border and Sheila misled the Chinese soldiers to the top of a hillock at this pass and jumped over with them, offering her life to save the country. This pass is named after that brave girl. After a long foto session, we moved towards Tawang where we rested at Hotel Alpine.

Flanking Mr.Prakash

The road to heaven...

Seven in Heaven!

Tawang is an exquisite scenic location. Madhuri Lake, a monastery and a war memorial are the places of tourist attractions here. Also Beijing is just 4000 kms off this place. Madhuri lake is named after the bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit after a scene for the movie Koyla being shot here. But we were destined to enjoy the less-tourist-visited MILITARY CAMP. On the way to the lake, we accosted a few military persons and they insisted that we spend time with them. In fact it was yet another memorable experience chatting to those people who spent most of their occupational period in such harsh terrains. Another royal treatment, another foto session and another sweet tree planted in the memory lane. Just when we thought we would move along to Madhuri lake, our dear driver reminded that we were running short of fuel. Better late than when it’s empty. We had to move back. We could just visit the monastery and that marked the end of our sightseeing for the day.

Heading to Tawang Military Camp

Kids on the block!

Early next day, we set off towards Kaziranga, deciding that we would break our journey at Tezpur. On the way back, we halted to witness the holy shrine of Mr.Jashwant, called “Jashwant Garh”. An army personnel was offering flowers to this great man’s idol while uttering slokas (the divine verses) relating to Lord Vishnu. Mr.Jashwant is no demi-god for the army people. He is the GOD!

On nine clouds!!

We reached Bhalukpong in the evening, when we thought we could try our luck at a forest resort called ‘Eco-Camp’ situated between Bhalukpong and Tezpur, 3 kms off NH52. Mr.Ronesh manages this place and we were delighted to know we could get Alpine tents to rest for the day. The people out there were very hospitable and we enjoyed the campfire, the tasty dinner and curled up in our tents.

Early next day, we went on a forest hike into the adjunct Nameri forest reserve that also had a short ferry-ride. Unfortunately none of us spotted any animals but for a couple of monkeys and a few pug marks of the royal tiger. Heading back, we were exhausted to carry on to Kaziranga and decided to extend our stay by one day at the same place, a break from extensive holidaying! This also meant that we had to cut down on one of our scheduled destinations. Gangtok, it was, which faced the axe. Stretching our muscles and helping ourselves to some real good food, we played Dumb-charades around the evening bon-fire and called it a day.

Driving to Kaziranga was in itself a wonderful experience. The roads are simply superb and rhino population is so strong that we could spot few rhinos 30 km before the actual national park. Kaziranga, as a matter of fact, is a big success story in the realm of wildlife conservation and is the only place on earth that hosts the single horned rhinos. We were put up at one of the few available dormitory-cum-house, owned by one Mr.Kamal Gogoi. He has great reach when it comes to arranging the forest safaris. We were very lucky to bump into him and he got us arranged a jeep-drive that evening and an elephant-safari for the next day early morning. We were not expecting to spot many animals on our jeep-drive but fortunately we did see couple of rhinos, wild buffalos in close range and good lot of birds. Excited about the impending elephant safari, we got up real early at 4 am and we were driven to the point of starting the elephant safari. Close to twenty elephants do the rides every day three times apiece. This was an exhilarating ride and we spotted deer herd and rhinos at an arm’s distance. Guess the animals are used to the camera-flashes, coz they showed no real anxiety when people atop elephants were clicking away to glory.

Elephant Safari @ Kaziranga

The Rhino Delight

Late morning we headed towards Tezpur to go on to Shillong via NH40. God has probably kept aside a major chunk of splendor and grandeur for these parts of the world. Driving along these roads is in itself a pleasure. Reaching Shillong in the evening, we did nothing much other than routine munching in a hideout kind of Madras café. Next morn, we roamed around the markets of Shillong and did some shopping and set off to the wettest place on earth, Cherrapunji. We rested at the Cherrapunji Hotel Resort managed by Mr. Dennis. This borders Bangladesh and we could see the plains of our neighboring country, standing outdoors He gave us some details of this wonderful place and we were told annual rainfall in this place is close to 12,000 mm (12 meters). 90% of this occurs during Mar-Oct, 50% of this occurs in June and July alone! Few fotos at this place caught our eyes. Those were of the Live-root bridges. Small bridges are built using the roots of trees (living ones) and over the time they grow stronger and bigger. The most fascinating of them is the double-decker bridge, two live root bridges one over the other. Unfortunately, visiting this meant a full day trek, which we could not spare. We decided to trek along to a nearer bridge the next day.

Nature's swing

Early next day, we went along to the nearer live root bridge. Packed with breakfast and water, we also had a local guide. Trekking was pretty enjoyable but what was exhilarating was the sight of the live root bridge, nature’s bounty at its best. A quick walk back and we turned our backs to this marvelous place, heading towards Darjeeling.

Traveling by train from Guwahati to NJP (New Jalpai Guri) and then hiring a Sumo to take us to Darjeeling, we came over to the last of the scheduled states of visit, West-Bengal. Darjeeling is at a height of 6800 ft above sea level and is one of the sought after tourist spots. The uphill road from NJP to Darjeeling revealed hundreds of curves and railway crossings. Our first glance of the Kanchanjunga mountain range was also on the way. Kanchanjunga is like the screen saver background for Darjeeling. Don’t get fooled by any hotelier who boasts that his hotel rooms face this range coz anywhere in Darjeeling; you are never far from catching a glimpse of this great mountain.

After a short break at our hotel, we visited the ‘Gangamaya Park’, a recreational center, but not a very exotic place though. But we enjoyed some real good Darjeeling tea there. Way back, we halted at some tea gardens for an elaborate foto session and spent some quality time just gazing at the tea gardens and the Himalayan range. We were then close to another country, Nepal.

Tea gardens of Darjeeling

Next morning was a day to remember. We went to the Tiger hill to witness nature’ most routine affair of sunrise but in a spectacular setting. Waiting for over 45 minutes, the saga began to unfold and we saw the sky changing colors from yellow to orange to reddish tinges. As the first rays of the sun fell on Kanchanjunga range (Kanchan-gold), so aptly named, it revealed the mountains bathed in yellow color. A round of applause from all those who had gathered marked the end of this grand show. On the way back, we visited a martyr park called Basitua loop and also a monastery.

Lead Kindly Light..

Revealing its true colors!

The best part we enjoyed in Darjeeling was the toy-train ride. This is a train that shuttles between Darjeeling and Ghum, the second highest railway station on earth (7410 ft. above sea level). Latching on to its 120-year-old engine are three small bogies. The guard on this train has put it in a whopping 40 years of service! Max speed: 8-10 kmph. This train is also recognized as a part of world heritage. At Ghum, we visited a museum and as we came down to Darjeeling, enjoying the scenes around, we were inching towards the end of our 2-weeks’ outing. A fast Sumo drive along the tea gardens with melodious Kishore-da songs; we reached Siliguri to catch the over-night bus to Kolkata. It was 2004 AD’s last night.

World Heritage Toy Train

Reaching Kolkata late morning, we rested for a while and then visited the famous Dakshineshwar, the abode of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, traveling by the metro rail. A beeline of people ready to offer puja to goddess Kali forced us to just look around the place without actually venturing inside. We decided to roam around the hep Park Street instead, which also hosts Saurav Ganguly’s restaurant. Strolling around Park Street, Sups, Vyas and myself helped ourselves with Pani-Puri (a north Indian delicacy) and later we all dined at Domino’s Pizza outlet. Early next day, we visited the Victoria memorial and had a great morning walk. This memorial has a huge pond at the entrance and we saw lots of people and kids doing their morning rounds of walking and sporting. As we walked alongside of the pond, we were getting ready to move out of the holidaying mood. Only a 3-hour flight journey separated us from Bangalore then.

Victoria Memorial

Parting ways at the Bangalore airport, loaded with lots of sweet memories to cherish, we ambled back into our routine based world with the only solace that we will move out again.

Foto Collections:

http://community.webshots.com/user/bsarvind_china_trip3

http://www.pbase.com/northeast

http://www.pbase.com/supreeth

In China Mainland (May-Jun 04)

2004-12-06T04:01:00.000-08:00

When I had been to Beijing for a mere 4 days last month, entering and exiting during mid week, I consoled myself saying that I hadn’t missed anything then. I had also heard people talk that China is not a very exotic place to visit, which further buttressed my stand. But least did I know that I was going to be proven absolutely wrong this time around where my stay was close to 3 weeks. Beijing, meaning Capital (Jing) in the North (Bei) in Mandarin, is way above the expectations of we, westerners. I am sure all 7 of our project gang would easily agree with me. In fact we were all in for a pleasant surprise as we savored our stay in this capitol city.

Beijing is a very clean city with not-so-very dense population and has a highly cosmopolitan outlook. We never encountered anyone in traditional Chinese outfit (of course no lean long beards either!!). Dressing is more of Euro-American style, be it small children or adults. Roads are very well maintained, with rose plants along the sideway. In order to control pollution, Beijing has banned the use of two wheelers. Only cycles are allowed. Volkswagen Passat and Audi, two awesome and sleek but big cars, rule the car spectrum. Mercs are also seldom spotted. With no dearth of low skyscrapers, this city is not far behind some of the other cities in apparently more sophisticated countries. One interesting fact about Chinese languages, be it Mandarin in Beijing or Cantonese in Hong Kong, they translate proper nouns as well to the local dialects. This is so because these languages lack alphabets. In fact Larry Ellison himself has authorized the translation of Oracle as Ja-Khu-Va in Mandarin. Now imagine yourself being called out as ******* as per the local translation and phonetics!!!!!

The crux of our stay was undoubtedly during weekends. Weekdays were simply routine-based. Up and going at 8-30, work till 6 and then rush for our favorite Taj Pavilion, a North Indian restaurant next to our hotel. It is run a by paaji whom we befriended and could give us food without taking any order. But for this place, we seldom ventured to other cuisines for dinner coz for every other meal, we would sorely miss Indian food. Afternoons were reserved for Pizza’s/burgers or sometimes rice with vegetable curry (slurp!).

We got to spend two interesting weekends here. What was common between these two weekends was SHOPPING!! We visited the pearl market, where self-cultivated fresh-water pearls are sold. The other malls were that of toys and clothing accessories. The other major shopping spree happened at the electronics mall. We could easily spend hours bargaining with those Chinese sales persons. They neither understand English and nor did we comprehend Mandarin. So the mode of our exchange was the calculator. They would show up their price and we would claim ours. Few common phrases we shared were ‘Finish-Finish’, ‘U tell’, ‘I look look’ It was fun anyways.

The great China Wall and Tiananmen Square were two historical places we visited. A local English-speaking guide called Harry accompanied us to the Great Wall so we could also refresh our knowledge of history. The Great Wall has been renovated thrice by three dynasties, the most important being the Ming. Earlier this was the border between China-Mongolia but currently China extends well beyond the Great Wall. Harry also took to the tomb of the Ming ruler Judi. On our way back from the Great wall, we also visited Jade factory and saw some wonderful jade idols. One of them flaunted a price tag of 5000 USD!

Tiananmen Square is a huge open space with a couple of China Administrative offices. It has a martyr tomb and we also saw some soldier-attired persons marching past, which we presume is a daily guard of honor for all those massacred here in the past. Multi-shaped kites all around make up for a pleasant sight. We were taken around the Square on tri-cycles and we could manage to get some cool snaps.

Ice-skating is a popular sport in China. Fortunately for us, we had a skating rink right in our hotel complex. We also wanted to have a taste of this sport. The skating shoes with a scale-edge sole on the ice call for good balance to ‘stand on your feet’. Sid and Vipul, two of our project mates achieved graceful movements in the rink, but I had to be content with only skating along the railing.

Traveling back via Singapore, Sid and myself were lucky enough to grab an opportunity to go for a city-tour. Although we were not allowed to stroll anywhere, we stretched our muscles at the Sentosa beach. Taking us all around the city, the airport guide Michael shared with us a few facts about this wonderful country. A very well nurtured and maintained country, gifted with a natural deep harbor makes it a strategic port. A fascinating fact is that in this small and densely populated country, 20% area is land kept aside for nature’s bounty.

For those few frozen moments: http://community.webshots.com/user/bsarvind

All in all, it was a memorable visit to the China capital along side of a quick glance at Singapore, exposing us to an altogether new lifestyle.

Fun4Ten@KUDREMUKH

2004-12-06T03:57:00.000-08:00

It all started with a hundred plus mails and few guys droppin’ out at the usual 11th hour. But nothing could stop the juggernaut of the desire to reach the Kudremukh (Kannada word meaning Face of the Horse) peak. It was finally incumbent on 8 guys to go ahead. Madhu, Deepak, Sarvajith, Hari, Naveen, Amit, RaviKiran and myself (Arvind) who were bound to set out when two of Ravi’s colleagues decided to join us. Nikhil and Ashish, it was to join the bandwagon. Going by the night bus from Bangalore, an uneventful journey to Kalasa, we landed there in the early hours of Saturday, the 24th Jan 2004. After a quick breakfast and a short bus ride, we were right at the foot of Kudremukh, a place called Balegal. One noticeable fact was that we had to shell out 80/- per head to trek the hill. A pretty costly affair but at the end of it, that was worth all.

Naveen’s handycam came real handy; to capture the much needed movements of the apparently graceful male models, crossing the streams, hitting the roads. As we moved along, we treated ourselves with Kabbu (Sugarcane), peppermints, lots of water and some awesome scenic sights. It was a journey of around 6 km on jeep-track and at the end of this we spotted a cool and shady place for lunch, right next to a stream. It was a piece of dreamland as we rested and hogged really well.

Now started the 5+ km on a real trek path. But that was just apparent for the 10 of us. We were wrong at the first turn itself on the trek and it so happened that we ended up walking for another couple of hours before Madhu and myself thought we would toss a coin to decide to move along the same path or move back to a lone house that we spotted from the good height. Luck was not with us though. It was tails and we had to move along, no backtracking. But what held us back were the harsh sun and the open grasslands with no glimpse of any nearby house. Also, Hari had some short-notes of milestones, which we had not seen until then that revealed the location of the most-spoken-about Lobo Mane in the Southwest direction. So ignoring the toss, we walked a little downhill shouting aloud to see if we can garner any help from any cow-herds on the hills. Lo and behold, our SOS calls were heard by a local guy, who took us out of the rut and put us on the right path. Finally, we ended up on the correct track, just 2km away from the destination, the Lobo Mane. But we were literally confronted with another local who also owned a house a few steps away from where we were resting. It was decided that we would camp at his place rather than walk another 2km to Lobo Mane with the entire luggage. What was left to explore was just another 6km of sheer excitement, right atop the hill after a hard but enjoyable walk of around 16 km, quite enough to call it a day.

The place where we camped was real neat with a small stream right next to the house. An evening water-play in the chilled flow across the forests was a real refresher. Dinner was served at the same place and we decided to give our bodies the much-needed rest.

A good night’s sleep was all the well rejuvenating and we were all set to scale new heights. Starting off at 7-30 in the morning, we treaded on the open grasslands and the slant, crooked paths. Interestingly, we had another companion with us, the dog that stayed at the house where we camped. We had named it Kudri (meaning Horse in Kannada), after the peak Kudremukh. It also served the purpose of a guide for us in those topsy-turvy paths. Any water source would make us rest awhile without least hesitation. It was no cakewalk for us moving along the rough terrain. But nothing to beat the satisfaction of reaching the top. An eagle’s eye view of the forests and villages around, amidst the deep fog was worth all the effort. Spending close to an hour there, and finishing the lunch was an experience in itself. Coming down was a little easier and we were back at the base-camp at around 3-30. A quick pack and we set our backs to the awesome Kudremukh. A very interesting and surprising fact was that people in that village were witnessing the electricity for the first time in their lives. We saw them worshipping the newly installed transformer and the locals very excited at this new prospect. Hats off to life’s disparities! Walking back another 3km, we took a jeep to reach Balegal.

Only a few hours left before all of us parted ways. Some mouthwatering snacks at a juice bar and a neat dinner at Kalasa was a perfect end to our sojourn. The Kalaseshwara temple added some devotional flavor to our trek. Monday early morning marked the end of our outing, leaving behind pleasant reminiscences of a fruitful trek and new acquaintances. Back in Bangalore, we were all there to mark India’s 54th Republic celebrations and rest the pained bodies. A resolution was taken as we parted; we all wish to move out at the earliest again.