Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Last to last week was quite eventful as me and Jani took a 9 day trip to Delhi + other places and celebrated Diwali. The trip started with us flying to Delhi on the 18th and for some reason the drive that usually takes an hour on an average took us a bit longer than 2 hours. Thankfully we had kept enough of a buffer when leaving that we had a whole 15 mins before the check-in counter closed. The flight was a bit delayed but otherwise uneventful. I have to say Vistara is fast becoming one of my favorite airlines for domestic travel due to the sheer professionalism of the staff and the standard of service they maintain. Once we got to Delhi it was quite late so we crashed and then on Saturday we spent the first half of the day running errands and finishing dental appointments. In the evening Jani and me drove over to the Sector 18 market to try out the local chaat’s and other foods. The whole area has changed quite a bit and I could barely recognize the place.

On Sunday we left early in the morning from home for my dad’s brother’s place in the Village. The drive was quite uneventful for the first half and as we neared the place there is a particular temple called ‘Gufa’ (cave) which has some religious significance. Since it was the Sunday before Diwali a million folks (at least it felt like a million folks) had descended on the place for pilgrimage/prayers and the traffic cop told us to take an alternate route if we didn’t want to be stuck in a jam for the next 3-4 hours. So we took a detour and the road took us through the real interiors of Villages and as it was the first time Jani was seeing the north-Indian villages it was a great experience. After a while just as we were supposed to merge back on the highway we found another traffic jam which was about 2-3 kms long. Once again one of the local folks directed us to use an alternate route and this one was scary. The path was barely wider than the car and both sides was overgrown with plants reducing the visibility even more. Mom was scared stiff and I actually have a video of us driving through the path. It is difficult to believe that this was a regularly used road but as per the guy who directed us it was used regularly.

The ‘wide’ path we had to drive on

This time we were able to merge back on the main road without issues and shortly after we reached our place in Baoli. It was great to be there and meet Chachaji (Dad’s younger Brother) and Chachiji (his wife) but the place felt empty. This was the first time I had visited after my grandmother passed away and usually when I visited my cousins or other relatives would also be there at the same time. This time it was just us so it felt weird and empty. It was great spending time with them and having homecooked pure healthy food. After spending a few hours relaxing and catching up we took our leave to drive over to mom’s place.

Family photo at Baoli

The drive was great and interestingly the roads are in amazing condition. The road connecting the villages (not the highway) was in better condition than the main roads in Bangalore. The road follows the Ganga Naher (Canal) and is a beautiful drive. There was no water in the canal as they had stopped the flow to do cleanup and maintenance of the canal bed but still the drive was impressive and fun.

Thanks to the great roads we made good time and reached Basera quite quickly. I was visiting the place after almost a decade and there were a lot of changes in the village and the house. But at the same time things were same enough that I got a weird sense that something was off but it was tricky to identify what was causing it. For example the road in front of the house was raised up by almost 6-8 inches. This meant instead of going up two steps to get to the front entrance of the house it was just 1 step and it caused cognitive dissonance for a while. Initially I thought that I was remembering the enterance being a lot higher since I was younger/shorter when I last visited but after a while, I figured out that it was actually because of the raised road that everything looked lower.

We had tea and homemade sweets post which I took Jani around the house and Gher (traditionally the men stayed separate from the ladies and stayed in the Gher. Plus the farm animals etc were kept there as well. Since I spent a lot of my childhood here there were a lot of stories to tell about my childhood and places I remembered. Ashok bhaiya joined us after a bit and took us to the orchard behind the Gher. He spent a lot of effort telling me about the various plants and trees that are there but most of it went over my head. Thankfully Jani was there and since she is really interested in plants/gardening they both had a good long conversation about trees and basically ignored me which was fine with me as I was happy listening without having to contribute.

While we were exploring it turned dark and we headed back home for some amazing food dripping in homemade butter and some homemade pickle. After dinner we hung out for a while catching up with family and then crashed as we had started quite early in the morning.

Jani Helping with cooking by making Poori’s

Next morning we got up quite early (based on our normal wakeup times) and after another filling meal Ashok bhaiya took us around the village and fields. We took the tractor and me & Jani relaxed in the back in the trailer while bhaiya drove. The first place we visited was a Bura refinery (Bura sugar is the least refined or processed form of sugar or sugarcane juice.) they were making the Bura for sale and apparently that has added chemicals in it and is different from the one made for home consumption. It was cool to see how it is made though it was a bit stinky as the burning wood combined with heated sugarcane juice gives off a very strong smell.
We didn’t hang around for long and soon we were on our way to our fields where we were growing Sugarcane and the attached orchard had a lot of different fruit trees. I remember Mango, Guava, peach but there were a lot more. As before Jani and Bhaiya discussed the various trees and how they were grown etc. For me I was enjoying the nature and fresh fruits. After a while we drove over to the other orchard where we primarily grow Mango’s and this one was infested with monkeys. Apparently the infestation is bad enough that farmers regularly loose a lot of their crops to them and since they are so many of them you can’t even chase them off without risking them attacking you. Thankfully we weren’t attacked while we were there and soon drove back home for lunch.

Jani & me at the Sugarcane fields

Lunch was quite relaxed and we chilled at home for a bit before heading out again in the evening to check out the Naher and buy some plants from the nursery near the place. This time I drove and we first visited a water powered Mill (or Atta Chakki in Hindi) which was shut down for a bit due to the ongoing repair in the canal. After that we drove over to the nursery where Jani was in heaven. We bought a lot of plants for a fraction of the cost compared to Delhi/Bangalore and thankfully they were all for the house in Delhi instead of Bangalore as my balcony is running out of space for more plants. 😊

After shopping we returned home and had dinner. Since folks in the villages sleep early everyone soon went to sleep while Jani and me went to the roof to try seeing the Orionid meteor shower. But we were not lucky enough to see much and if we had stayed up longer I am sure we would have seen something but we were also tired so we crashed soon.

Family Pic at Basera

Next day we woke up early and headed back to Delhi. On the way we passed a village named Jani and the police station for the same. I made sure we took a pic of Jani in front of the police station for Jani village and the folks watching us gave us funny looks while we were taking the pics. The drive back was uneventful and we made good time and reached home without much delay. Once we reached home, Jani had a dental appointment which took most of the evening and then we crashed.

Jani Village

Jani Police Station

Next day we explored Delhi and visited the usual suspects. Starting we Lotus temple, Humayun’s tomb, India Gate and last and not the least Kutub Minar. I was visiting Humayun’s tomb for the first time even though I have been staying in Delhi for years. It is quite nice and well maintained. After exploring Delhi we returned home and starting the next day I was working from home so we basically relaxed at home for the most part. Jani and mom did go shopping a few times and bought a bunch of stuff. I am happy I had the excuse of working so I could avoid joining them for their shopping expeditions.

Lotus temple

Us at Humayun’s tomb

Unfortunately I managed to catch a viral during one of the visits and just as my work ended on Friday I started feeling the effects and by the time I went to bed I was miserable and the next 2 days were painful and tiring. Basically I survived on Soup and meds. Thankfully by Sunday afternoon I was a bit better as we had Jeeto mausi, Mausaji, Axu and Montu visiting for lunch. Lunch was fun even though I couldn’t eat much but it was great to catchup with them after a long time. Post lunch we did the puja in the evening and lit the Diya’s which was nice. Surprisingly hardly any folks were bursting crackers this time, so it was quite peaceful and not too bad pollution wise.

Monday again I was working so I spent the day in my room while Jani and parents hung out and shopped. Our flight was in the evening so we all piled into the car around 6 and drove over to the airport. Since we got there early enough we went to the Airport Lounge and it was tiny. Hardly big enough for more than 30-40 people at a time and not much food/drinks options were there either. The flight back was mostly uneventful and we reached home around 2am. Thankfully most of the luggage survived the trip except one bowl that was sacrificed to the travel gods during the trip.

Overall the trip was a lot of fun and going forward I am going to visit Basera & Baoli much more frequently.

– Suramya

This weekend we had planned to go for a Trek but as Jani had hurt her back we had a last min change of plans and instead went to Yelagiri hills. When I say last min, I do mean last min. We booked the stay about 10 hours before we left home. Since there were seven of us making the trip I wanted to rent a 7-8 seater car so that all of us can travel together, but since it was last min we were unable to find a car. Thankfully Shashank wanted to do a long bike ride so he and Shahrukh decided to make the trip on his bike and the rest of us took my car.

As usual we planned on leaving early from home to avoid the lovely Bangalore traffic. We had an early breakfast at home (Shahrukh & Jani made French toast) and we started at ~6:30am from home. The drive was quite nice and the company was better. The place we were staying at (Yelagiri Farm House) was ~150Kms from home and it took us about 3 ½ hours to make the drive with a single break for Tea/Coffee. The last stretch of the drive was though the hills and the views were amazing but since everyone except me was sleeping in the car they missed most of it. In a way that is good as most of them suffer from motion sickness and anything that avoids people throwing up in my car is good in my books. I had a blast singing while everyone was sleeping (Though I am not sure how they managed to sleep through my singing).

The Farm house was on a large property with nice big rooms. To give you an idea of the size all 7 of us could have comfortably stayed in 1 room. But we had multiple rooms so it was good. Once we reached the venue we just chilled and had our 2nd breakfast for the day. The weather was nice and cool so it was great sitting outside in the open relaxing.

Having the second breakfast of the day

After talking to the owners we found out that there were a few adventure camps near the farmhouse so after relaxing for a while we decided to check out the options. Shashank and Shahrukh explored and we found a nice place that had multiple options of games we could play. Since it was lunch time we had our lunch which was ok. The non-veg food was a lot better than the veg options as per the comments I heard during lunch but it still wasn’t bad. Post lunch we went to the Adventure camp and decided to do the Obstacle course, Artificial wall climbing and Zorbing.

Outside the Adventure Camp after lunch

The obstacle course was interesting and a few of the obstacles were a bit challenging but overall it was a lot of fun. The six of us attempted the course while Jani relaxed on the side and took pics. None of us fell so that was good and there was a lot of good natured ribbing going on when someone got stuck. One of the participant went into ‘pure survival mode’ when they got stuck but everyone made it through in one piece (and no I am not naming them).

Obstacle course at the Adventure Camp

The second activity we attempted was the climbing wall which was fairly challenging and only Bagri and Shashank made it to the top while a few of us remaining were close but didn’t make it to the top.

Artificial Climbing wall

The last activity we did was Zorbing. Usually this is done on a hill where you are rolled down a hill but over here the Zorb was floating in the water and all 6 of us got in at the same time. It’s a great place to be when you are with friends and we rolled around in abandon in the Zorb. Akanksha was elbowed in the face (by me. Sorry) and I had Shahrukh and Ayush both land on my back at the same time. If I start listing out all the other times folks fell on each other I will need a couple of pages. In all the 15 mins we spent in there was amazing and we were exhausted after we were done. Finally we had to head back as none of the other sports looked interesting (I did want to try the paintball but not everyone was interested so we left it.). Right outside the arena there were a lot of fresh fruit sellers and we ended up buying almost every single option available (except Jackfruit because it stinks).

Playing Frisbee

After we got back to the farmhouse, we spent a good amount of time playing in the field starting with Frisbee followed by cricket. Akanksha was given the woman of the match award for making the most runs in the first match. Once it got dark and we could hardly see the ball we retired to the room and switched to indoor games.
The first game we played was twister and it was a blast. Watching some of the positions people ended up in was hilarious (when it happened to others, not when you were in the position). We played a couple of rounds with Jani and a rotating set of people acting as a referee. It is a great party game but needs to be played with people who know each other quite well else it can get a bit awkward. After we were tired from Twister we switched to Jenga and it was fun as always. Some of the moves were brilliant and some were so bad that they should be admitted to the bad move hall of fame. Finally it was time to call it a day since all had been awake since early morning and I just crashed. I think Jani was talking to me when I dozed off.

Next day we woke up around 8, had breakfast where we made sandwiches and tried all the fruits we bought the previous day. This was followed by a few rounds of cricket and general fooling around.

Group Photo in front of the Farmhouse

Finally we had to leave because we didn’t want to be too late getting into Bangalore so with a heavy heart we started back. This time everyone in the car was awake for the hairpin turns that took us back to the plains and thankfully the anti-motionsickness tablets worked so that was great. The drive back was fairly uneventful, with one long stop for a tea break. We started off with just tea (juice for some) and then ended up making and having sandwiches from our stockpile. Thankfully we bought enough from the vendor that we didn’t get kicked out for having our own food.

The drive back took a bit longer thanks to the increased traffic but was manageable, at least till we entered Bangalore post which it was the standard disaster we call traffic management in Bangalore.

After we reached home, we chilled for a while and then everyone headed home ending an eventful trip. We had so much fun that we have already started talking about the next trip.

Well, this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

Happy New Year! We (Jani & Me) don’t like doing the usual Party/get-drunk/passout for New Years so each year we try to come up with something more interesting and unique. This year we decided to go to WinterBurn which is a Music Festival/Camping event in Sakleshpur organized by Motorcycle Diaries. Initially only the two of us were going but then Ayush, Akanksha & Dipika decided to join us as well which made the trip more fun.

We started the trip early in the morning (5am) on the 29th with a light breakfast and lots of caffeine. The drive down was quite nice as we missed the lovely Bangalore traffic by leaving so early in the morning and we took about 4 hours to reach the venue even though we stopped a few times for tea/coffee and watermelons. When we reached the address we had to do a bit of off-road driving on a muddy track to get to the field where the event was being held. I would not recommend that you take any car with low clearance for this kind of trip as even with the new Honda Citi’s increased ground clearance we scraped the bottom of the car a few times during this last stretch and each time that happened it hurt me more than the car. 🙂

When we reached the place we had a pleasant surprise that we were allocated 2 cottages and a tent instead of 1 cottage, 1 shack and 1 tent. Plus the front of the cottages faced away from the rest of the dormitories so we had a bit of privacy with a nice sitting area in from of the cottages that faced the plantation. So we had pepper & coffee plants about 10 mts from our door and it was quite nice. Since we reached before the food trucks had finished setting up we joined the various artists for a late breakfast of local food which was surprisingly quite tasty (yes I have had bad experiences with local food a few times).

Early morning Breakfast

As nothing was planned for the day till late evening we spent the day doing a bit of relaxing Yoga to stretch our backs thanks to Dipika followed by a lovely walk around the estate. Saw a whole bunch of plants and even though Jani tried her best to tell us about each of the plants I kind of zoned out and just enjoyed the walk in nature. We did find some wild chilies that we picked for eating but still haven’t tried them. After the walk we just hung out and chilled for the most part. We spent a while talking and catching up with each other as some of us hadn’t met in a while or were meeting for the first time.

Stretching Akanksha’s back after the bumpy ride

Ayush, Me and Jani stretching our backs outside the cottage.

Dipika walking Akanksha, me and Jani through some stretching exercises for the back.

Just Chilling at the camp

Since we had an early start and nothing was happening at the event we decided to call it a night and crashed earlier than normal. The next day there was supposed to be a Yoga session organized at 6am but none of us woke up in time for it. The food-truck’s food wasn’t that great and since we had packed enough supplies for breakfast (the plan was to have it while driving to the venue but after eating watermelon we didn’t have space) Jani made sandwiches for all of us along with salad and Tea.

Breakfast courtesy Jani

After seeing the sad state of the festival the day before we decided to not spend the day at the venue and went on a drive to check out some of the local attractions near us. Using Google Maps we found a few locations that looked interested and started the day with a visit to Shettihalli Rosary Church which was about an hours drive away on some very picturesque and narrow roads. The drive took us a bit longer since we stopped a few times to enjoy the scenery and to pluck Imli (tamarind) directly from a roadside tree and eat it raw.

Jani trying to feed me raw Imli

The Shettihalli Rosary Church was built in the 1860s by the French missionaries and was abandoned in 1960 after the construction of the Hemavati Dam. The gothic architecture of the church gives it a haunted feel and even though its only been abandoned for ~60 years it looks a lot older and spookier. We spent about an hour at the church taking pics and admiring the view after which we decided to get some lunch as we were hungry. Lunch was at this little hole in the wall restaurant that kind of looked shady from the outside and you really had to know it was there to find it but it was one of the best lunches I have had in a while. The food was filling, tasty and only cost us Rs 230 total (for all 5 of us) including coffee.

Group Pic at the church

After lunch we drove over to Manjarabad Fort which was built in 1792 by Tipu Sultan. It is in ruins now but at its peak it would have been extremely difficult to attack due to its commanding position on top of a hill. Spent a bit of time exploring before we were kicked out when the place shut down for the night. Interestingly the way they make sure that everyone leaves the fort for the night is by herding everyone to the main gate of the castle that is locked, once the guy inside makes sure there are not stragglers he comes and opens the gate to let everyone out and prevents people coming back inside. It would have been a lot more efficient if there were two people doing this but it works so… can’t really complain. We had a round of coconut water and drove back to base where we hung out in our cabin for a while. The stage was finally setup so a few bands did play but nothing that really stuck out and made us want to sit outside. Went to sleep early again with a plan to *try* going for the 6am yoga classes but once again no one woke up on time for it.

Group pic at the Fort

We freshened up and decided to check out some of the workshops that were running. Ayush, Akanksha and Dipika tried their hands at pottery making while me and Jani watched and made fun of their skills. After lunch we joined the Dreamcatcher workshop run by Meghana. This was a great workshop and I realized that even though it looks easy to make it requires a lot of concentration and skill. Unfortunately Meghna refused to let me and Ayush use a rectangle as the base design so we spent the next 5 hours trying to keep threads tight enough and the design normal enough that it didn’t look like it was made by a drunk spider. After much sweat and tears we finally managed to create our dreamcatchers. By this time the bands were prepping so we freshened up and walked over to the stage.

Jani focusing on ensuring all the threads were tight

Ayush and Akanksha trying their hands on Dreamcatcher making

The first few bands were quite good but unfortunately the crowds we had expected/been promised didn’t materialize. In fact there were about 60-65 people total at the event out of which about 50 were the artists and workshop people. We sat next to the bonfire for a while but then the music wasn’t much to our taste so we went back to the room and all of us snuggled under the blanket waiting for midnight. As soon at it was midnight we wished each other and within 10 mins after that we were all fast asleep.

Happy New Year! Welcoming 2019 snuggled in bed.

We all woke up late the next day and properly wished each other since we were all barely awake at midnight. After another round of sandwitches/salad made by Jani we all packed up and headed back to Bangalore. It took us a lot longer to drive back due to the increased traffic and stops.

Reached back home around 8pm after dropping Dipika on the way. Had a late dinner with Jani, Ayush and Akanksha thanks to Swiggy and that’s how we ended 2019’s first trip. Overall the trip was fun though I was disappointed with the music festival. That being said Gagan (the organizer) did refund part of the money to us so I can’t really complain much. If it was just me and Jani doing the trip alone then it would have been a lot more boring but the excellent company made it fun.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

Last week while I was getting bored while commuting back from office I stumbled upon an article on LLB about Belum Caves which is the largest and longest cave system open to the public on the Indian subcontinent and it sounded fascinating so I reached out to friends and after a little back and forth 5 of us decided to drive down to the cave for a day trip on Saturday. Since we were planning to start from Bangalore at 5am Anirudh, Jani and Shahrukh came over to my place Friday night while Shakshi came over at 4:30am… Hats off to her for waking up so early and making it to my place on time. After a quick breakfast (and a Red bull for me) we left home at 5:15am. The drive was quite nice and since we left so early in the morning the traffic was minimal (which is a minor miracle in BLR).

To pass the time we talked about all sorts of random topics from astronomy to the percentage of water in various items like cucumbers, milk and human blood etc. By 7am we all started feeling a bit hungry so we stopped for breakfast and had a road-side picnic and I really mean roadside. We stopped next to some newly planted fields about 2 feet away from the road and had a lovely breakfast of sandwiches, paratha’s and boiled eggs. All we were missing to make this a proper picnic was a picnic basket.

Early morning Road-side picnic

After food we were back on the road and made good time to the caves and were there at about 10:40am. We were one of the first groups into the cave and so were able to explore the caves without having to deal with a lot of crowds. The caves were amazing and I am surprised that not a lot of people know about it.

Entrance to Belum Cave

Stalactites in the cave

We spent about two hours in the cave and visited all the important/noteworthy parts even though it was very hot and humid in there. Jani was the only one who was comfortable and enjoyed the temperature as her body’s thermostat is broken (She likes hot and humid weather). There were some pretty cool natural carvings/structures in the cave that looked man-made and some man made structures to host camera’s and ventilation ducts that were mostly hidden so we spend a good amount of time trying to identify which of the structures were man made and which were natural.

The Saint Bed where its rumored that Buddhist monks used to meditate/rest

At one point we were ~150 feet underground at Pathala Ganga which is the deepest part of the cave. Here there is an underground water source that looked quite deep and even though we considered pushing one of the group in the water to see how deep it was common-sense prevailed and we decided not to try. The caves are supposed to have a section that makes musical sounds when struck but we couldn’t find that section. In part it was because we didn’t want to walk around hitting random formations and because we were fascinated by the structures and forgot to search for it.

Group photo in the cave

Trying to ensure we don’t get crushed by the low ceiling

Looking at the structures I was reminded about the Thai cave rescue and it made me think how hard and scary it would have been for them to be stuck in a cave for so long without light. I do want to try cave exploring (spelunking) and have started looking for options in India.

After we came out we fooled around on the playground which was quite fun and then had a picnic lunch. This gave us the opportunity to relax, stretch and enjoy the fresh air. There is a restaurant at the site but has limited options in food. Basically they make about a kg of rice in the morning and if you are early enough you get your food quickly else you have to wait for them to cook the rice. If you are visiting as a big group and are planning to eat there it is advisable to place your order before you head down so that the food is ready by the time you come back from the cave.

After lunch we started back but didn’t head directly for Bangalore, instead we went to Lepakshi Temple which was about midway between the caves and Bangalore. The drive was again quite nice even though everyone in the car (except me obviously) had a post lunch nap during which I entertained myself by playing loud music and singing along. I have a feeling that Jani and Shahrukh woke up after a while just to stop me from singing 😉

The temple is beautiful and we spent a good amount of time walking around the premises and enjoying the carvings. Describing the wonders of the temple would require a whole another post so I am going to be a bit lazy and just link to this post over at the RevolvingCompass.com that describes the 7 wonders of the temple. About 1/2 Km from the temple there is a huge statue of Jatayu but we were unable to visit it because of time (it was getting dark and I wanted to minimize night driving on the highway).

Group photo in front of the Kalyan Mandapa

Us practicing the tree pose for prayer

It was a humbled group that headed back but that didn’t stop our stomachs from rumbling so we stopped for another road-side picnic. This time we found a ready made stone bench for us to use as a table and we made full use of it for a snack break. It was fun to make sandwiches and eat cucumber & tomato with salt and chili. Honestly speaking I could have sat there for another hour but we had to cut the break short because of the time constraints and start back for Bangalore. We made good time to Bangalore and then hit the Bangalore traffic spending a bit over 2 hours to reach home after we entered the city. We finally made it home at ~10:15pm at which point I was ready to crash since I had driven for over 12 hours in the day. But still it was worth the effort and drive.

Road-side Picnic for evening snacks

We ended the day with Ice-cream after which everyone went home and I crashed for the night. We will be doing similar day long road trips in the future as it was quite cheap and a lot of fun. The only limitation is the no of people we can take on the trip since I don’t want to have more than 2 cars. More than 10-12 people makes the group unwieldy and encourages the creation of sub-groups.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

This last weekend I went for my first trek of 2018 to Pyramid Hills which is situated in the Kolegal village near Shivanasamudra. The Trek was organized by Plan the Unplanned and was my first experience with the group.

The trek started at 10:30am from Bangalore instead of Friday nights like most of the Treks I have been to in the past which was a bit surprising. Since there were 7 of us friends going for it together and the pickup point was walking distance from my place we decided to have everyone over to my place for breakfast at 9am so that we start the trip on a full stomach. Everyone made to my place on time (yeah I was surprised too…) and we had a filling breakfast of Apple Pie, Eggs, Mattar Paneer and bread before boarding the bus and started the journey into the unknown (or rather to Sivansamudra).

Interestingly this group was a lot less diverse than some of the other Treks I have been to… in the sense that most of us were in the software industry and the average age was in the mid to late 20’s. (If you exclude me and Jani). Usually the groups are a lot more diverse but that could be because our group accounted for 7 out of the 14 people. That being said it was a fun trip which I enjoyed quite a bit and I made some new friends 🙂

Since a lot of us already knew each other, I was expecting the introductions to be a bit boring and repetitive. However I am happy to say that was not the case. The group leaders (Tarun and Aditi) asked us to act out our names or the name of our parent (if we had already introduced ourselves) using dumb charades. It was hilarious to watch folks trying to act out their names and it served as a good ice breaker for the team. The intro followed by an actual game of dumb charades helping us pass the time during the 4 hour drive to reach the base camp. We reached the camp just in time for Lunch and Ratna, the owner of Calver camps had lunch ready for us under an open air setup. As all of us were quite hungry at this time we attacked the food and finished in record time. On a side note, the food on this trip was among the best I have had on treks, usually it is just lemon rice and some snacks but this time it was really good and filling.

The Open Air Dinning hall and welcome area (PC: Durga)

Post lunch we rested for a little while to allow everyone to recover from the post lunch coma and then started on the first trek of the trip. Jani immediately inaugurated the trek by walking into thorny bushes and getting scratched all over. The first part of the trek was through fields that had recently been plowed but there was a clear path through so it was easy walking. The second part of the trek involved some steep climbing, with parts of it at almost 60 degrees. It was steep enough that none of us had breath to sing like we normally do during the walk. Most of us took it easy except for JD who had a bet with Ratna to reach the top within 23 mins. To all our surprise he actually made it to the top in 23 minutes flat to win the bet. The rest of us took quite a lot longer with frequent breaks but were there in time to watch the sunset.

Group Pic a the beginning of the Trek

The Trail to the top of Pyramid Hill (This is how steep it was) [PC: Tarun]

Taking a breather on the way [PC: Tarun]

We Made it! Group Pic at the top of Pyramid Hill [PC: Ayush]

After reaching the top we all relaxed on the rocks for a while, took a whole lot of pics before starting back down. Personally I felt that coming down was easier but not everyone agreed with me as the way down was slippery. At least this time we didn’t have folks having a contest about who would fall most often while coming down. 🙂 By the time we reached the bottom it was dark and we really didn’t have an idea of which way the campsite was supposed to be. So we followed the dog who had accompanied us for the climb, and it took us through a roundabout way but we finally made it back in one piece without falling into a ditch.

Resting after conquering Pyramid Hill

Once back we all freshened up and then relaxed for a bit playing with the kids. The original plan was to do a bit of star gazing before dinner and a movie but as it was cloudy we couldn’t really see anything except for the moon and that was also mostly covered, so we just fooled around for a bit while Tarun and Aditi tried to get the projector and sound system working for an outdoor movie night. Tarun had brought a good collection of movies to choose from and the majority (or at least the loudest) wanted to watch a horror movie, because that would have been a lot of fun. Unfortunately Tarun’s hard-disk’s connector cable died so we only had a choice between two movies and we choose ‘Three Idiots’. This was the first time I have attempted to watch a movie during a trek and to be honest I wasn’t in big favor of it initially but it was quite enjoyable.

Our Movie Hall [PC: Tarun]

We watched half the movie and then stopped to do a bit of star Gazing as Nikhitha & Mahesh noticed the sky was finally clear enough. Unfortunately we were only able to see the moon clearly as Jupiter was not cooperating in getting focused. We spent quite a lot of time just chatting and watching the stars which they both worked on getting the telescope aligned.

Trying to find the moon at 1am [PC: Nimisha]

After the star gazing session we all decided to sleep outside in the open itself as the cabins felt a little hot as compared to outside and since there were no mosquitoes choosing between overheating or getting eaten alive wasn’t a concern either. Most of the night was quite comfortable but it got chilly in the morning to the point where 3 of us (Me, Shahrukh and Shashank) ended up sharing a blanket (all of us were too lazy to walk up to the cottage to get another blanket).

Sharing a blanket as it was cold!

After a heavy breakfast me and Jani spent the morning lazing around the campsite while the rest of the folks attempted the second trek (I had a twisted back). They all survived the trek and came back in one piece in time for lunch which was again quite scrumptious. Post lunch we went ‘fishing’ in a nearby river. Our expectations were that the water was deep enough to swim in so folks who wanted to fish would do so and the rest of us were planning to swim. Unfortunately due to the heat and the fact that the dam upstream hadn’t let out much water that day, the water was only knee deep at the deepest end. 🙁 We still spent some time soaking our feet in the water and tried to get a fish pedicure. In the end we decided to call it a bust and walked back to the bus.

While walking back we saw a mango orchard next to the path and decided to pick a few mangoes to snack on. Me, Aditi and Nimisha were picking the mangoes when all three got an electric shock from the fence as it was an electrified fence which we didn’t know when we started picking the mangoes. Thankfully it was a mild shock but still stung. We collected our bounty of 3-4 mangoes and gave up on collecting more and boarded the bus to go for a coracle ride. Since that was on the same river as the fishing spot the water was not inviting enough to tempt us so we had a whole lot of coconut water and then started back to camp to collect our stuff before leaving for Bangalore. Just as we started back to camp it started raining heavily and we enjoyed the cool rain during the drive. Thankfully it stopped raining by the time we got back to camp and we avoided getting drenched while loading our luggage into the bus.

The drive back was fairly uneventful and while a lot of the folks slept some of us talked the entire time and I am surprised that none of the folks sleeping threw things at us to shut us up. We reached Bangalore by 9:30pm and as we hadn’t had dinner yet and didn’t want the trip to end some of us decided to have dinner together at my place. We picked up food from a restaurant near my place and spent the next few hours chatting away. We would have stayed up longer but everyone had office the next day so we had to call it a night with a heavy heart.

I would recommend the trek to anyone who doesn’t mind staying in a place that doesn’t allow smoking and drinking but serves the most amazing and simple food.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

A few weekend’s ago I got the opportunity to go for ‘The Classic Coffee Trail’ organized by the wonderful folks over at ‘Food Lovers’. Now some of you might be wondering who someone who doesn’t really like drinking coffee would go for an event about coffee. I went for two main reasons:

* I love to learn and this looked like a great opportunity to learn about coffee and expand my horizons
* It was highly recommended by Sachin and Diana who were also going to the event.

We started the trip by waking up at 4:30am on Saturday so that we could leave by 5:30am. This was especially painful as I had an early morning on Friday as well (woke up at 3am) as I had a day long work trip to Chennai. But sleep is no match for Red bull followed by a shower. So by the time Sachin and Diana were at my place I was wide awake and ready to roll. The drive down to Sakleshpur was pretty scenic and uneventful for the most part. Sachin and Diana alternated driving while me and Jani relaxed in the back. At first I managed to stay awake but after a point the red bull effect wore off and apparently I had a full conversation with Sachin while being about 90% asleep. I am not sure what is more scary, the fact that I could have a full intelligent conversation while sleeping or that Sachin was sleepy enough that he didn’t realize that I was pretty much talking in my sleep.

We made good time and got to the Harley Estate by 11 or so where we were met by Kripal from Food Lovers who had organized the event. I must say that Kripal and his team made every effort to make our trip smooth and as enjoyable as possible starting with the phone calls before the trip to ensure we knew the route and continuing during the event with the attention to detail. While waiting for the rest of the attendees to arrive we got to meet Chandini D. Maneesh and Tapaswini Purnesh who were our hosts for the weekend. Both sisters are very friendly & knowledgeable about coffee. Even though I am not a coffee drinker I was tempted to start after listening to the both of them talking about Coffee with such energy and enthusiasm.

We were staying in ‘Whispering Tree’ that was a good 10 mins jeep ride from the entrance of the estate. The cottage is nestled in the forest and at night some of the folks heard animals in the forest and the local farmers had to constantly make noise to prevent wild boar from destroying their crops. Right outside the cottage there was a hammock which looked very inviting so I immediately laid claim to it before anyone else could beat me to it. After a few minutes of relaxation I suddenly found out why the hammock was so conveniently empty. Turns out that there was a nest of fire ants on one of the trees to which the hammock was tied and they loved the opportunity to take a bite out of me. Infact they took several bites before I managed to get them all off me. But I did get revenge on the ants finally as there is a local dish that is made out of ground ants and it was served to us the next day for breakfast. Even though I didn’t eat it it gave me great pleasure to watch others eating the ants. 🙂

Jeep Ride to the cottage

Relaxing on the non-ant infested hammock

After we relaxed for a bit it was time for Lunch which was served in a lush meadow with a stream running alongside it. A small waterfall a few hundred feet away was tempting me to go for a swim but since we had all neglected to bring swimsuits we had to make do with just putting our feet in the water which was nice and cold. In all I thought that this place would be amazing to camp in and I was pleased to find out that they do allow folks to pitch tents in the area and have a camp out. The food was very tasty and went very well with the lovely wine we had. All too soon the lunch was over and we started the coffee tour, which started with a coffee tasting where we tasted the same coffee prepared using 3 different methods and it was unbelievable how much difference the brewing method makes in the final taste of the drink. I learned more about coffee brewing in one hour than I had in the past 36 years of my life.

Enjoying cooling down in a cold stream of water

Lunch at the Gazebo

Group Photo at the beginning of the tour (after lunch) [PC: Food Lovers]

Once the tasting was done we walked over to the main bean processing unit where the day’s collection of beans was ready to be processed. Each bean picker weighed their day’s pickings and then dumped them in this pit that led to a gigantic pulping machine to separate the skin and pulp from the bean. After the skin and pulp were separated they are separated by weight by passing them through water channels where the lighter beans float and the heaver ones sink. They are then passed through a series of rotating drums to separate the beans by size after than they are dried by spreading them on drying tables for a few days and then finally sun dried on the floor. To prevent spoilage the beans are turned regularly by big rakes and at evening just as the sun goes down they are collected into a massive pile and covered with tarp to avoid dew. This is required because it gets pretty cold at night and there is dew everywhere which is quite bad for coffee beans.

After the tour, we sat around and chatted for a little while enjoying some great snacks and coffee (obviously). Once everyone was done we went back to our cottages to rest and prepare for dinner. Dinner started with a bonfire, barbecue and some great wine. (It wasn’t just me who said that, Sachin liked it as well and he’s the expert 🙂 ). The food was simple but quite tasty. We spent a couple of hours just talking about random stuff and enjoyed being outsite without worrying about work/pollution etc. Though some of the folks were worried about the night life coming to say hi to us. Fortunately nothing decided to come say hello and all too soon it was time for us to call it a night so we crashed.

Group Pic at Dinner [PC: Food Lovers]

The next day started really early as we were scheduled for a plantation walk. I seriously considered sleeping in and letting others go on without me but I am glad I didn’t since the walk was a lot of fun. We got to watch the plantation workers pluck the berries and tasted the raw berry which was surprisingly sweet. Since the Harley Estate follows the selective harvesting method they only pick the ripe cherries from the trees which as you can imagine is a pretty labor intensive process. The walk was not very taxing and since it wasn’t rainy season we even managed to avoid leeches which was a big plus (I am not a fan but Jani finds them to be ‘sexy’ for some reason).

Learning about Coffee picking

Post the walk we were all pretty hungry and fell upon the breakfast like starving people. Me and Jani strategically seated ourselves so that the servers had to pass us everytime they came up with food so we had the first pick of the food. 🙂 This ensured that we were done with breakfast while others were still waiting for food and we spent the time after we were done stuffing our faces just sitting in the sun relaxing.

Look at the pretty flowers (and us)

Enjoying early morning coffee in the sun

Finally everyone was done with breakfast and it was time for us to bid farewell to each other and with a heavy heart we packed up our bags and started the long drive back. The drive back was mostly uneventful and we reached Bangalore without any issues and promptly got stuck in traffic.

If you ever want to combine a relaxed trip with learning about coffee I highly recommend this place. Check it out if you have the time.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

Just about a month ago I went to Singapore for a 4 day trip and I loved the city. The people were very friendly for the most part and I quite enjoyed my time there. I have been there once before on a disastrous trip back in 2011 where I ended up spending 2 days at the Airport because of issues with a transit visa. Thankfully this trip didn’t have any such problems.

We got there early in the morning on Sat and we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express where the rooms were quite tiny. Infact the entire room along with the bathroom would fit into my living room here in India but the stay was quite comfortable and I liked the hotel. The one issue I did have was due to the hotel being an express hotel so they didn’t have an all night restaurant or room service. They did have an all night bar where the only veg option was a Pasta where they literally boiled noodles, soaked the result in olive oil and then added huge chunks of garlic (boiled to tastelessness) and served. I ate that one night and that was more than enough.

The first day (Sat) we mainly roamed around near the hotel as we were still a bit jetlagged and feeling lazy. 🙂 While walking around we saw this restaurant called Central Perk that looked very familiar and decided to have a late lunch there. It took me a few mins to realize why it looked so familiar and then I realized that the place was a replica of the restaurant from ‘Friends’. It had great food with some of the best fries I have had in all my travels. The portions were huge and it was a struggle to avoid wasting food. In addition to the great ambience the staff was super friendly as well and we spent quite a lot of time eating/relaxing at the place. After lunch we walked over to the China town and shopped for a bit over there.

Friends themed restaurant

That night we met up with Sid, Rithika, Varsha, Manav and a few other friends for dinner. It was great fun to meet up with people I hadn’t met for years and wasn’t expecting to meet. (We had gone out expecting to meet only Sid & Rithika)

The next day we went to Santosa Island starting with the ‘Butterfly Park & Insect Kingdom‘. It was an eye opening experience to see all the different species of butterflies in one place because we don’t normally think about there being so many types of butterflies in the world. It also had a section dedicated to the insect kingdom but I didn’t really find that part as interesting except for the 370 million year old fossil they had on display.

Butterflies are supposed to taste great

A 370 Million year of fossil

Next we tried out the Megazip and Megazip Adventure line where you zip over forests and beaches at a height of 75 meters traveling at speeds upto 60kph for almost half a kilometer. They have 3 lines running in parallel so you get to race your friends down to the beach. We also did the Mega jump which is a 15 mtr jump from the top of the tower but I didn’t find that as exciting as the zip line.

We walked around quite a bit as we had to wait till 7:40pm for the ‘Wings of time’ show. At first I was annoyed that we had to wait for so long but it did give us enough time to walk around the entire island and check out all the attractions. We ended up sitting at a beach side restaurant for a drink because we were tired of walking around and had time to kill and saw a really picturesque sunset. Finally it was time for the show and it was worth the wait. The way they projected the show on spray’s of water was very different and innovative. After the show we took the cable car back to the main island and then the subway back to the hotel.

We spent the whole of Monday at Universal Studio’s and as expected it was awesome. I loved the rides and could have spent another day over there. The Transformers and Cylon rides were the most fun for me but Jani wasn’t a big fan of the roller coasters so she didn’t enjoy them that much. By the time the park closed we had tried out pretty much all the rides and loved it.

Universal Studios

After the place closed we had dinner and went on for the night safari at the zoo. It was a different experience but I didn’t like it that much. Possibly because I am not a big fan of animals locked up in a zoo (even in one without evident bars). This took a while and by the time we were done it was quite late so we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

On my final day we moved out from the hotel and checked Jani in to the Marina Bay Sands as she was going to stay back for another 3 days for her conference. The hotel is quite lovely and I wish I had more time to explore all the stuff/places they had in the hotel but I had limited time. So we decided to check out the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest instead. I am not that interested in flowers and horticulture but even I was impressed by the sheer variety of the flowers they have managed to cultivate in this area. The Cloud Forest was a whole another experience all together as well, when you walk it the first thing you see is mist followed by a 3 story waterfall. It was nice and chilly inside the domes and I loved it. The dome has some lovely plant life and I got to see a Venus Fly-trap for the first time in their Lost world exhibit.

The Flower Dome

All too soon the trip was at an end and I had to take the cab to the Airport where I had some time to kill and ended up buying a nice klipsch speaker as I needed one quite badly and got a good deal on the speaker as well.

Going forward will try to document any trips immediately after the trip ends so that I can do justice to the narrative and experience. This is all for now, will write more later.

– Suramya