A day trip to Hogenakkal Falls

Dec 27th, 2009, Sunday.

Rajesh and I finally managed to keep up with our proposed one day outing to Hogenakkal falls. The plan was to visit Hogenakkal falls which is about 180 KMS from Bangalore. The Innova car got confirmed from our travel agent and so we were up and running for the trip. Pooja, Soujanya and myself were the first pickup at 7:30 AM and got in from our apartments and picked up Sanjana, Vishal, Pushpa and Rajesh on the way. As usual, the driver started late by an hour and so Rajesh had gotten the breakfast packed instead. In an hour's time we had already crossed into Tamil Nadu via Hossur and found a huge petrol station where we stopped for fueling our car. The place was really huge, had a small little lawn at the back where all of us decided to fuel ourselves with Idli and Vada. The roads were very nice and journey was effortlessly smooth.

By 10:45 AM we reached the Parking lot of Hogennakal falls and walked towards the falls. The small road leading towards the falls was littered everywhere, small road-side shops selling unclean food, pathetic sights of lambs being slaughtered in the open road and other non-veggie delights were not what we were expecting, but had to be contended with the fact that things might get better as we get closer to the falls.

The road suddenly steered us into an opening to the river side where a 'Theppa' (Coracle) agent latched on to us and assured a good package and we bought his plan. By 11:30 all of us jumped into the Theppa - a bamboo stick/straw skeleton covered with sheaths of plastic cement bags smeared with Tar on the outside. The next 3~4 hours of our trip really transformed our day into one of the best trips I have had this year.

The water for once was clean and clear inspite of the maddening crowd dirtying it everywhere. Our Theppa 'captain' crossed the shore and landed us into an Island'ish area from where we were able to view the beautiful Hogenakkal falls from over the top. The sight was awesome with the full view of all the falls together from one location. The exploding sound from the falls crashing onto the rocks underneath generating tons of fine mist around the falls really makes up the for the apt name 'Hogenakkal' falls. A few snaps here and there, we moved back onto the longer version of our ride and this time, our captain took us around huge rocky gorges as high as 60 feet and got us pretty close to the bottom of the falls. The ride was really enchanting and worth every second. Nothing could be missed. We must have seen atleast 50 other 'Theppas' moving in and around and the river was looking like a highway for the Theppas.

A few funny things that we came across was the mobile Theppa market. Couldn't believe my eyes when a couple of Theppas came around selling Chips, cool drinks and water. What a smart idea! Right on top of the 60 foot cliffs, we could see young local kids bidding and bargaining with the folks on the Theppa. Once the deal was struck, we could see these kids jumping 60 feet from the cliff tops into the river below! Man, that was some stunt to behold.

We reached the foot of the falls and could see the beauty in all its splendor. The view was quite breathtaking. Our captain then drove downstream passing jagged rocky cliffs of granite and drove till we found a little less crowded sandy island. He anchored his 'no-brakes and 2-hands-powered' gizmo while all of us got down and let the kids enjoy the shallow river. Vishal, Sanjana and Pooja had a whale of a time in the crystal clear water. The not-so-sunny weather was not so chill either and was just perfect for a good dip. We spent the next couple of hours watching the kids enjoy themselves playing merrily, collecting stones and shells. After a quick grub of high-engery Nutri-bars, we jumped back into our ship and started our journey back to the main land. Most of the journey was upstream and our hero captain had to really sweat it out for the next 20 odd minutes to steer the ship till we docked back to the main land. By 3:30 PM we were all set to leave the place and bade good-bye to one of the most beautiful falls that I have ever seen. Our captain earned the much deserved 1400 bucks for filling our day with beautiful sights of splendor and the lovely playtime in the river.

Interesting co-incidence was that the last time we both (Rajesh and I) were on a picnic together was to the same Hogenakkal falls which we visited in the summer of 1986, (23 years back!) along with a whole lot of other families. We got back to our car and left Hogenakkal falls at roughly 4 in the evening. By 4:30 PM we were in Dharmapuri and took an hour's break for lunch at 'Saravanna Bhavan'. The rubberized Idlies didn't quite soak in the tasty sambar, but the Chutney and Dosa's managed to slip down the throat quite easily. The coffee was really good though. With our tummy-meters indicating full, we started the longer segment of our journey back to Bangalore. The journey was filled exchanging a lot of puzzles and solving a few of those. It was amazing to see Vishal solve many of those puzzles. I must say, 'Like-father-like-son' in this case.

We touched Rajesh's house by 7:45 PM, and then by 8 PM I signed off our car rental services from my place.

Apart from the good time we spent at Hogenakkal, the only thing that left me sad was the fact that the government had provided absolutely no facilities for the visitors. The word 'Cleanliness' and 'Hygiene' does not seem to exist. No toilet facilities, Not a single good-clean restaurant. Vegetarians like us will have to depend on packed food or survive till we reach Dharmapuri, the nearby town about 46 KMS from Hogenakkal to get anything close to being vegetarian. There is no police protection, no hospitals / medical care and most importantly no emergency response teams in case of any accidents on water, no nothing. May be these facilities are there, but there were no information, directions or sign-boards anywhere and I am sure that this place that attracts so many people is a disaster waiting to happen and I hope I am absolutely wrong about this. If the same kind of natural treasure were to exist in developed countries, it would have been advertised and marketed as a wonder of the world with a place on the global map with Resorts, Airports, Package Tours, and all facilities to ensure that everyone atleast can enjoy this place without any worries. I do hope that one day, this place will have atleast the basic amenties that ensures the traveler a worry-free outing.

Overall, the day was spent quite well and these cherished memories will definitely go into our books for a long time to come. Rajesh and Pushpa's company was just perfect and thanks to Sanjana and Vishal for keeping Pooja entertained right through the day.

Here are a few pictures and videos taken during the picnic.

A Trip To Hogenakkal Falls

Visting Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam

The preparation to visit Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam began as early as a month before in order to beat the Deepavali holiday crowd. Reservations were made well in advance to ensure that all of us had a good travel to Chennai and back.

Amma and Jyothi Aunty left early on the 15th of Oct. Gopinath Uncle pulled along Soujanya, Pooja and Anna on the Shatabdi Express on the 19th of Oct. Kiran, Anu, Naveen, Sowmya, Dwarakanath Uncle, Geetha Aunty and myself took the Night train on the 20th of Oct.

Chennai this time, greeted with moderate heat and sultriness giving us all a lot of comfort. Delicate 'Bangaloreans' that we are, it was still hard for us to bear the humidity of the place.

We went straight to Paddu Aunty's house at Tambaram and got ready to hit the choultry after a quick bath. As expected, Abhi's Upanayanam had gotten over by 5:30 in the AM, so there was nothing much to be done at the Choultry, but to find a suitable location where air was in abundant supply. So we all found that beautiful spot somewhere on the 2nd floor and let ourselves loose to dissipate some heat.

While the most of the male tribe was horizontal, a few of the unlucky ones thought of a brilliant plan to have have lunch early and visit a few places before a few of us left back for Bangalore. Using all the networking skills of Naveena, we quickly arranged for a AC Tempo Traveller and in the mean time finalized the quick trip plan to cover Ashtalakshmi Temple @ Besant Nagar and the Marina Beach.

In the middle of things, we caught Abhi, Balaji Uncle and Paddu Aunty straying from their home range of the first floor and managed to take a few group snaps for posterity.

During the lunch hour, we witnessed the 'Post-Upanayananam' rituals of Abhi. The food was served and must say that it was Umm-mazing! By 3 PM, we had taken a small nap and all set to leave for the trip. So we packed our bags (well, we never unpacked in the first case!) and up we got loaded into the AC environs of the Tempo Traveller. We bade good-byes to Paddu Aunty, Balaji Uncle and Abhi and hit the road for the Ashtalakshmi temple.

We spent an hour or so at the Besant Nagar beach. The sun was shining hard, but the beach was pleasantly less populated, so out came the cameras for a whole lot of pictures. The setting was just perfect and all the pairs in the team wanted to be in front of the camera for once. Pooja had a whale of a time playing with the waves. The difficult part came when we had to pull her out of the beach to move on to the Ashtalakshmi Temple which is right on the shoreline.

The temple was neat, well maintained and visiting the 8 different Lakshmis was a breeze. There was no huge rush and we got ample time to go around the temple and spend some time there.

Once we came out of the temple, the male bastion latched onto a street-side bhelpuri-wallah and later the ladies joined the club. In my frank-est assessment, we made the Bhelpuri-wallah richer than the 'Ashtalakshmi' standing for eternity, inside the temple. Well, the Lakshmi is any ways the goddess of money, so she wont need it as much as the Bhelpuri-wallah!

We got back into our cab and next we left for the Marina Beach. The sun was almost going down and so we quickly took a few more snaps. A few "Shundals" later (Chennai's most renowned Beach-grub), we sat down on the off-white sands of the Marina, on a moon-less evening, surrounded by thousands of other visitors sitting bumper to bumper and watched the waves lash the beach.

Kiran, (Soujanya's maternal cousin), who has started working in Chennai a few weeks back, met us while we were leaving the beach. We pulled him along for a dinner with us. Later in the night, we had a sumptuous dinner at one of hotels near the Railway station.

We bade good-byes to Amma, Jyothi Aunty, Gopinath Uncle and Kiran (Souji's cousin) who would stay back at Chennai for a some more days and the rest of us (Anna, Soujanya, Pooja, Kiran, Naveen, Dwarakanath Uncle and Geetha Aunty) jumped into the train in our designated coaches on returned back to "Namma Bangalore" after a beautiful day @ Chennai.

Here are some photographs and videos that we took during our visit to Chennai.

Abhi's Upanayanam and Trip to Chennai

Deepavali of 2009

Ah! The festival of those wonderful lights, bursting crackers, meeting people and the wonderful food during the 3 day extravaganza! None of the festivals in the Hindu calendar can beat this one, at least for me.

17th Oct, 2009, was the "Naraka-chaturdashi" day.

This year, Amma had to leave to Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam ('Cross-Thread ceremony' for those who don't understand our rituals ;-) ). So her absence was definitely felt during the festivity all through.

So Soujanya, Pooja and myself along with Anna, got up early on the 17th for the "Enne Shastra". ("Enne" as in "Oil" not "Alchohol", you perverts ;-) ). For the first time though, Pooja did the Aarthi to all of us. Brand new clothes bought the previous day was waiting for us and we wore them all, looking bright and cheerful for the rest of the day.

Our in-laws had invited us over for lunch along with a whole bunch of fun loving family members including Souji's Chikamma, Chikappa, Kiran, Lavanya, Harish, Sanjana and Soujanya's eldest uncle from Hyderabad.

Delicious food after noon was followed by huge discussions on every single topic under the sun and kept us awake for the rest of the afternoon. All of us then migrated to our house in Hanumanthanagar for the simulated war-zone experience "Deepavali@Vinayadeep" session, which lived up to it's name for the rest of the evening. Every kid on the block was making sure that there was more cracker papers for the next day morning sweeper to clean.

Souji and Pooja decorated the house compound with neat looking "Deepa" (Diyas). Our home looked so beautiful with all of these lights. It was definitely a pretty sight.

Nisha, Deepu and Asha too joined us for bursting a whole lot of night crackers ranging from just ordinary to the ultimate fancy ones. From the hissing snake to the Swastik ground chakras to the whistling crackers to the North Indian imported "Anaar", one after another, the marathon session continued non-stop for 2 hours. Pooja loved the night crackers and wanted more! So did the young at heart.

The most hilarious one was a cracker which looked like a "Post card". It was marked - "To NaraGasura", "Address: Hell". Costing 50 bucks, this was such a hopeless let-off after realizing that it was a rip-off.

Overall, the day went pretty well and all of us had a great time together.

Here are a few photos and videos that we clicked during the event.

Deepavali 2009

Photos from Deepavali of 2008

BMTC Vayu Vajra Volvo Service to Airport (BIAL) Timings and Schedule

One of the truly amazing things that BMTC has done in the recent past is introducing the Vayu Vajra buses to Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) from all corners of Bangalore.

Recently, I had to fly out to a couple of places and was unsure whether the service was operating as they had announced on their website. I even got up in the middle of the night on the previous day of my journey and checked out if the midnight route was functional or not. And to my pleasant surprise, the bus arrived and departed exactly on time. Since then, I have always used this service and every time it has been a really good and reliable experience.

The Volvo buses and the journey to and from the airport was truly top class.

Thanks to BMTC for this wonderful service. They also have these Vayu Vajra Schedules hand-outs which can be picked up from the nodal points or can be referred from the BMTC website for latest schedules. Just in case, I have uploaded the scanned schedules with the current Timings and Schedules of Vayu Vajra routes to Bangalore International Airport (BIAL). Overtime, the timings may change, but is current, as of today (Sep 15, 2009).

Hope it is useful to all.

Regards,
Vinay.

BMS - ELEC catch up @ Kuntz's place

Sunday, the 6th of September, all(most) of us - BMS ELEC - folks caught up at Srikanth's place @ J P Nagar.

Attendees included Sudheendra, Meera and Shruthi, Sanjeev, Sarju and Srivali, Naveen, Madhuri and Namitha, Sudhir and Jaya, Janardhan and Sowmya, Pooja, Soujanya and myself along with hosts Maaya, Chitra and Sreekanth.

The day warmed up with some major discussions around Sudheendra's recent invasion of China and how much he loved that place and his (mis)adventures with pure vegetarian food he consumed over there. Post that, we had some discussions going over with Education and Schooling in Melbourne, Bangalore and elsewhere followed by Alternate forms of Schooling, latest trends of schooling being adopted in Bangalore, followed by a few ideas on starting our own schools with the only motto of making money. With gray matter utilization reaching 100% and no space left to think more, Srikanth and Sudheendra went in search for Food for thought.

A super duper lunch with Spicy and Steaming Pulav, Raitha, Thair-Vada, Jamoons, Curd rice and Pedhas were just what the hungry souls wanted. Bur-rrrp!

The kids hijacked most of the lunch session and the next two hours afterwards, by a very good practical demonstration of how to bring the roof down with their tantrums. We (poor parents) were made mere spectators to the sunday matinee show of their amazing display of how easy it is to take control of the parents. Time was the only weapon the parents could bank on and we regained some strength when the sedatives worked to our benefit!

While entering the house, I remember the neatly ordered magazines, the creaseless bedspreads, all the cushions decked in place, chairs ordered neatly across the dining table. Well, need to admit that this was not how we left the house after the meeting! Thanks to our kids!

The tea-time soon followed where a new thread of discussion on Sudheendra's IIM college exeperiences which triggered off the nostalgic college days @ BMS, which continued till the late in the evening. Starting off with our exploits with various lecturers, our exam scores (and re-scores!), Copying stunts during tests (and its fallouts!), expectation of results after exams and consequences after results, Basketball days, amazing experience with our favourite lecturers starting from MNV, MM, Meena M'am, Alasingar, GG, RSD, SR, DRK, 'Crowbar' and many more!

By the way, no BMS-Elec discussion is ever complete without talking about the beautiful girls who have made BMS college of what it is today. The full list of girls right through our college days was discussed in the minutest detail. A few of them I guess are still being tracked even till today!. With all these discussions coming without any filters, I am sure newly married Sudhir and Janardhan would have a long drive back home. Sudhir, Janardhan, take care buddies and all the best. We will discuss about your 'traveling back home' experiences in our next meeting!

The event can be treated as one of the most 'rarest of the rare' in the recent past. Not because, it was difficult to get everybody under one roof with a short notice, but because, Sudheendra made it !!! 'Everybody' which included himself, wanted a photograph with him. A great group photo did the trick. Click on the snap below for a few other snaps.

BMS - Elec meeting @ Kuntz place

Well, at the end, It was just another fantastic day to spend time with friends and hope many more do come by. It simply brightened up my day inspite of the outcast weather, the recession hit IT industry, and the rising price of Dals and Sugar.

Thanks so much everybody for taking your time off for keeping in touch with each other. We definitely missed Tarun, Rekha, Navya, and families of Archana, Shubha and Vermeen. Thanks Kuntz and Chitra for hosting us all. (to be read: for being patient till we all left)

Folks - It would be great if you can send across snaps from your camera as well. I will add them onto the blog.

Pooja sings National Anthem on Independence Day - 2009

Aug 15, 2009 - Independence Day

As India celebrates it's 63rd Independence day and Pooja sang our National Anthem with great pride. The best part was that she did it in 56 seconds !

Click below for the video!

Pooja Sings "Jana Gana Mana" on_Independence Day 2009

Happy Independence Day to all.
Proud to be an Indian.

A quick visit to Suryanarayana Hills

The Sunday of 12th July, 2009, Deepu took us to the location of his new plot @ Bidadi. Earlier in the day, Asha had called Souji and asked if we would like to join them for which we agreed. I guess thats where the idea of calling a few other folks got seeded. A beautiful cloudy and outcast Sunday afternoon, no big things hapenning in Bangalore and nothing on TV either to sit back home. In a flash, the whole of GRA's (G R Annaswamy Rao, my grandfather!) family was all set to make the most of the day and in 1 hour, 18 folks were on their toes to join the party and visit the plot.

We left our houses at 3:30 PM by our own cars:

Deepu, Asha, Nisha, Anna, Amma in their Santro
Anu Maama, Sandhya Aunty and Deepthi in their Maruti Omni
Jaggu Maama, Shubha Aunty and Amamma in their Santro
Kiran, Anu, Jyothi Aunty, Gopinath Uncle in their Santro
Soujanya, Pooja and Myself in our Maruti!

In less than 45 minutes we glided on the super smooth Mysore Road and were standing in front of his plot. His plot was looking lush green with vegetation. After a brief half an hour of looking around landmarks, connectivty and connecting roads, the program was almost looking to be over. -- OR -- was just the begining! Anu Maama and Jaggu Maama suggested that we check out the Suryanarayana Hills close by, which was suppossed to be good. Nobody had any other plans anyways and considering that the weather was beautiful, there was thumbs-up all around.

So we all got back into our cars, and went off in search of the Suryanarayana Hillock. We had just gone about 5 mins into the drive, the ladies yelled that they wanted a coffee break. We stopped by a local coffee shop. First it was just the coffee and Tea, but I guess it was just a teaser to devouring whatever the hapless roadside mini hotel had to offer. We did not leave till each of us had atleast 2 portions of Gobi manchuri and Masale Puri. As usual, the owner of the hotel had absolutely no count of what we consumed and had to use complex mathematical approximation models to come to anything close to the actual bill.

Deepu and Anu maama made the hotel owner a rich man and in return asked him to help us find the Suryanarayana hillock. The hotel guy guided us through some rough sandy and marshy roads where a couple of our cars got stuck but somehow managed to get past it. Finally in 25 minutes, we reached a gate which was locked by Security staff and only to be told that this was the back entrance to the place. The main entrance was all the way 180 deg opposite and has a beautifully asphalted road right till the top of the hillock!. Again, Anu maama used his magick wand to make belive the security folks that we were not bad guys and the security folks allowed us in. Another 1/2 a kilometer on the rugged terrain, we started seeing a road which looked more car friendly. Finally, we reached the place, a beautifully landscaped garden, A 25 foot high Suryanarayana, majestically standing in his charriot of 7 horses. Really a spectacular sight, Simpy huge and very well structured. Just a few paces around this statue, was a cool green artificial meadow where people could sit down and relax while looking at the beautiful surroundings on all sides.

We spent a lot of time clicking photos of everybody and the setting was just right. All of us had a great time together. We watched the peaceful sunset atop this hill and slowly huddled back into our cars to get back home. This time, we made sure we got out out through the right section of the road. At the exit point, we found that name of propreitor of this property and it was the Eagleton Golf Resorts ! Well well well!

By 7 PM, we all headed home again on the Mysore road. The next agenda was the unfinished business of dining out considering how hungry we all were after all. So we all got back to our house (Vinayadeep @ Hanumanthanagar) for nursing our hungry souls. Masala dosas, Mangalore Bajji's, Plain Dosas from Durga bhavan was packed. A brilliant idea stuck and Anu maama and I struck a deal with the 'GolGappa' guy to get his belonging and serve it in your front yard. In 15 minutes, we made the GolGappa waalah to shut his office for the day and pulled him off to our house.

Everybody were delighted to see so many items getting dished out in a matter of minutes and the entry of a gol gappa store just made it even more entertaining. One after another, everybody took filled their tummies full as if there was no tomorrow. By 9:30 PM we were all done and left for our respective homes after a wonderful day.

What started out as a casual outing turned out to be one of the most interesting Sundays we have ever had in the recent past. It got all all the folks under the GRA family to spend a great day and relax. One more of those events which was never planned but the output was just fantastic. As I have mentioned on my other previous blogs, Unplanned outings has this element of surprise, the element of unknown that brings in a whole lot of exitement.

Need to have more of those. Thanks all for making a Sunday worth remembering.

Check out a few photos that we took during the visit to the plot, Suryanarayana hillock and the dinner at Vinayadeep.

Pooja Sings "Jana Gana Mana" on_Independence Day 2009

Summer trip to Adoni for Latha's wedding

This summer, 9th and 10th of May 2009, we had been to Adoni, a mid sized town which belongs to the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.

Well, you may ask why that place and on top of it why at that time? Latha (Soujanaya's maternal cousin) got wedded to Sri. Phanibushan and Adoni being their native place, the wedding was arranged there. The wedding was on the 9th and 10th of May, but Soujanya had left to the party a couple of days early with Pooja, Lavanya and Sanjana, while Harish and myself joined the function on the 9th. Harish and myself stayed @ the Hotel Bhima Residency in an A/C room which was pretty close to the wedding hall and acted as a cooling waterhole to beat the heat.

The wedding went pretty well and gave us a chance to witness the Andhra style of wedding tradition. It had pretty much the same rituals but with it's own flavours. The Andhra style food preparation was a delight but the take away was the 'Mandige', a pretty rare North-Karnataka dish which only few folks from Bellary know how to prepare.

Other highlights apart from the wedding was the simmering heat of the summer and I was told that we were running 42 deg C the last few days over there. A few of us took some time off the marriage hall and visited the market area of Adoni. Memorable were the gullies of the market where we saw the makings of 'Kadlepuri' which are a kind of rice puffings used which in great quantities for a lot of dishes. One of the primary ingredients of Bhel Puri as well! Check out the video, along with pictures. We stopped by at a Soda-parlour in the middle of the town and must have tasted about all the different varieties available over there. That shop was supposed to be the Soda-capital of Adoni, serving various flavours.

The last important or not-so-important information was that on our return trip on the 10th of May, Soujanya surprised me with a Birthday cake cutting ceremony on the Train, along with Harish, Kiran, Lavanya, Sanjana and Pooja. A very special moment that will be there for a long time to come!.

A few photos of the event captured through the eyes of my camera.

Latha's Wedding @ Adoni

Weekend getaway to Sangama and Om Shanti Dhama

On a heavy Wednesday Scrum @ office, Kiran calls me in the middle of the daily standup and I pick up his phone and conversation starts. All I could catch with one ear on the phone and the other glued to the official meeting was 3 little words 'Outing - day long - in our cars - long weekend'. Well that was 4 words. I don't even remember what I spoke over the call, but faintly remember to having given a thumbs up and not sure if Kiran could see me doing that!

And today, while I write this blog, I feel overly impressed considering that I managed to say yes to one of the most beautiful weekend getaways I have had in a long while.

So the moment the plan got fixated, the first thing as usual was to get my car to the service station and get everything set for the next days trip.

Over a few calls with Kiran, it got decided that we were going to 'Sangama' and a visit to the 'Om Shanti Dhama' just 4 kms somewhere close by. 'Sangama' is a location about 83+ kms from Bangalore, which is the confluence of rivers Arkavathi and Cauvery. It is also the point where folks can trek to Mekedatu. There are several blogs which talks about what to do there and how to get there and so I am not going to elaborate on that.

11th of April, 2009, Anna, Amma, Souji, Pooja and myself shrunk ourselves into the cozy Maruthi 800 DX and met Jyothi Aunty, Gopinath Uncle, Kiran, Anu, Kruthi, Kiran (Kruthi's hubby) and little Anusha on their Santro. We left Konanakunte cross by about 8 AM and drove an hour where we got into a stone throw distance away from Kanakapura. We stopped by a road side restaurant whose name board had a larger than life 'Veg Hotel' hoarding than compared to the size of the hotel itself. Bakasuraras that we were, we gluttoned whatever was on the menu making sure that the server had completely lost count of what each of us had. We left the hotel guy by making him richer for sure. The next time you folks go that side, if you happen to pass by a 5-Star hotel, 4 kms from Kanakapura on your right side, believe me, we laid the foundation to it.

Burp!, Now that breakfast was over, the thoughts of what we would be having for lunch just began. We reached Kanakapura in the next 5 mins and Anna could not resist the temptation of the watermelon sitting on top of each other in a huge lorry load of mound. The green demon fixed into the boot of our spacious luxury car without any issues.

We drove for another hour crossing Kanakapura through the winding and picturesque mini-ghat section and reached Sangama. We then decided that we will first checkout Om Shanti Dhama and then get into the waters at Sangama. So we drove another 3~4 kms through a mud road till we found an arch 'Om Shanti Dhama'. It was such a relief to see some trees that provided a good shelter from the simmering April heat. At the entrance, we met Arvind, an official from Om Shanti Dhama, who mentioned that he would guide us into the institution.

We asked Arvind if he could help us find a good location for us to drench in the river and he took us down a shortcut for about 5 mins from the school. And then, and then, we came across the most beautiful, out of the world location where small rocks bifurcated the huge river into an area which looked like a natural jacuzzi! Simply out-of-the world. It couldn't have been better than this. River Cauvery, all to ourselves and not-a-soul around. C'mon that does not sound real is what you might say, but check out the photos and am sure you will call me up for some directions to get there.

Well, I will let you folks salivate while the photos and videos do the talking.

Pooja Sings "Jana Gana Mana" on_Independence Day 2009

Photos from Kiran

What a blast!. When we just thought, it could not get better than this, a good cloud cover came from nowhere, masking the sun and sinking the mercury down making a very pleasant weather. All there were just happening for us. The sparking clean and crystal clean water allowed us to enjoy the colors of the fishes zooming in left right and center. The rocks around was just enough for the 10 of us 'Securely' enjoy the beauty of the private river bank.

Pooja and Anusha had a whale of a time and for once, we left them to make the most of the opportunity. Jumping and splashing the water, throwing the sand on each other and what not! Not to be out done, the elders imitated the kids by becoming one themselves and the fun did not end till about 2 PM.

While we were having fun, Arvind kept a watch on the other side of the river to ensure that we were covered from any mis-adventures from our crocodile friends, whom we heard, live in large numbers around this area. Also got to know from him that elephant herds do come on the other side of the bank in the evenings by 6 PM for partying it out, every day.

After a relaxing for 3 hours in water and in no mood to leave the place, we walked back to the school where we were invited for lunch. A good lunch onwards, we were given a guest cottage where all of us switched off for a while and took a cat nap. Oooooof. What else do you want on a hot summer weekend? We got it all.

Later, a few of us met the swamiji of the institution, who took us around the school premises and gave us a complete tour of the Gurukulam. He gave us the mission on which the school was built and the necessity to have such Schools to bring back the lost treasures of our Hindu value system and identity and propagate it to the whole world. All along the tour, Anna and myself inquired a lot of things on their methodology and the swamiji was more than happy to answer our queries. His answers were more practical and tactical than open-ended philosophical types, which made us feel the worth of their effort.

'Om Shanti Dhama' is an institution which imparts Vedic and modern system of education in the true Gurukula methodologies. Nestled in the middle of nature all around and river Cauvery winding around this school, zero noise levels, zero pollution, the location was just like what we would have heard in movies and fairy tales. Imagine a 'Vicco Vajradanthi' Ad where the white bearded swamiji churns out a few herbs and gives out the toothpaste to a beautifully garlanded female beauty!. Well, apart from the 'garlanded female beauty' part of the imagination, the rest was all still in place!

Back to reality, this school, offers education from 5th Standard to 10th Standard and even further if somebody wishes to pursue further studies. The mission of this school is to rediscover the lost vedic methodology of education and create students who would become the ambassadors of this methodology and enable them to propagate the rich value system inherent in our vedic system of education to the entire world. About 70 students are currently studying here. They have hostels named by the Vedas where they are housed. They have daily schedules from 4:30 AM in the morning to 10 PM in the night covering from Yoga, Yagna, Veda-Abhyasa and General modern studies. The 10th standard students apply in private for the final exam. No Saturdays, No Sundays. All days are the same!

Interestingly, this school is a private initiative, with no government support and run mostly by public donations and philanthropists. 'Ramdev Baba' the Yoga icon of international fame is one of the proponents and a huge donor to this Ashram. More details can be found though their website: http://www.omshantidhama.org.

We went back to our cottage, where we sacrificed the green demon that we had bought back at Kanakapura. The fruit was gone in 10 seconds.

Later, we refreshed ourselves and said bye to our wonderful hosts and on the way went to the adjacent 'Ananda dhama' which is a resort offering summer camps for children young at age and at heart.

By the time we went there, the sun was already setting and we sat in the beautiful environs and ordered coffee and tea. While paying the bill at the counter, we were told that Tea and Coffee were complimentary!. Man, we couldn't trust our ears. The whole day looked like it was made for us and everything seemed to be working for us!. It was magically mystical.

With Om Shanti Dhama and Ananda Dhama providing and serving all the relaxation that we wanted from the trip, we left Sangama for the rest of the Junta to explore and enjoy. (He he he ;-) ).

By 7 PM, we started backwards and reached Kanakapura in 45 minutes. We had great Masaladosas at a local restaurant and to top it all with Gudbud ice-creams. We dragged our bloated tummies, back into our Maruthi and Santro and found that the cars struggled to pickup. But, at times, you need such kind of a pampered treatment at-least once a year! We were home by 10 PM and I personally did not want to sleep, to stop the current run of things to be taken over by a stupid dream. For once, the real day was better than the best of the best dreams!

My Musical Cravings went online!

I have always felt the urge to put all my musical likings online and here is an attempt to do so. Am starting a new blog that will capture all the songs that seem to be running in my mind as of now. Will keep them updated as soon as I find anything that interests my mind.

http://musicinmygenes.blogspot.com/

Regards,
Vinay.

Pooja turns two! Happy Birthday Pooja!

The Sunday of Jan 11th, 2009, turned into a festival for us as we celebrated Pooja's 2nd birthday. This time we decided to do the function over our Apartments and leverage the flat's basement area for dinner/lunch while we can do the rest of the party in-house.

Here are the snaps from the event. Thanks to Harish for his set of snaps.

Pooja turns two!

So it all began with our buying the Birthday dress for Pooja while we were on our Trip to Udupi and other places. On a brief stop over at Mangalore we bumped into this Kid Store where a beautiful dress was hung on one of the window panes. That's it. One thing led into an other and before we knew, we had bought this silk-ish white and glossy red-brown Midi-frock for her.

Back in Bangalore, Soujanya had this desire to distribute printed birthday invitation cards and so we fired the Internet to find some cool applications that we could use. Thanks to 'Smilebox', we were able to create our online invitation in a jiffy.

After successive discussions (a.k.a. arguments with fist fights), we finalized on the caterer (Kaveri Caterers) and most importantly, the menu. The same day, we also booked the cakes from 'Kaggis', the new posh outlet that has started close to our house. Pretty good range of designs I must say.

Soujanya always wanted the birthdays to be filled with loads of balloons and colours and cartoon characters. So we called up these event management folks to come over and give us their designs. Even before I disconnected the phone, the folks from 'Showtime' was at our door, ready with their portfolio of all kinds of designs and decorations. After an hour long discussion on the specifics, we finally decided on a design that liked and customized to our requirement.

On the early morning of 11th, we decked up Pooja and visited home and along with Anna and Amma, visited the 'Panchmukhi Ganesha Temple' at Hanumanthanagar. In one hour, we were back in the apartments for getting ready for the function.

The 'Showtime' folks were on time with their stuff and started working immediately. With a Vacuum cleaner fitted with a modified/customized air outlet, they started filling the balloons one after the other for about a thousand or more. One of the other person, got down to do decorating the stage. This went on for about an hour and before we knew what was happening, the full house was decked up with wall hangings of colourful balloons everywhere. The stage was decorated with a Blue background canvas fitted with a whole lot of cartoon characters from the little mermaid to snow-white to other angels. Tall pillars of Balloons mounted on a frame were placed on each side of the Diaz. Just at the door entrance of the door, another angel cutout stood there calling out loud that Pooja's Party was here. The blue-orange-green-white-pink-red-yellow balloon drops continued from our door and stretched on till the main gates of our apartments. Overall, it was such a beautiful sight and I have to admit, it was looking very pretty. Soujanya was delighted to see the way the way our house had transformed. It was a riot of colours everywere with an atmosphere of festivity all around.

Pooja had slept for a couple of hours by then and woke up completely fresh. Very vital for kids to have a decent nap before this event. By 3:30 PM, All the kids in our flat came down and the party began. To the cheers of all the kids and to some good music, Pooja cut her cake all in smiles, while lighting a candle. The kids had a great time with Samosas, Chocolates, Chips, Ice Creams and cakes. A few games of Passing the ball kept them occupied between another round of snacks. Soujanya had pre-packed and readied the return gifts for the kids. Pooja had a great time playing with all these kids even though most of them are elder to her by an year at least.

Once the kids left, we got ready for the next set of invitees. All our families, relatives and friends. And by 6:30 PM, our house had turned into the most festive place ever. Everybody turned up for the birthday and it was a very happy occasion for us. Pooja was looking grand wearing the new dress that we bought from Mangalore. The good thing was that she was not perturbed by the presence of so many people around and was as normally naughty as ever. For her it was just another day! But one thing for sure, she was enjoying all the attention she was getting and maxed it to the limit.

All the lights in our house was switched on and the Diaz was looking bright. The L-Section in the hall provided just the exact offset that was required for setting up the Diaz so that we had the Diaz on one side and the folks on the other.

The birthday cake was prepared in the shape of a Book with one of the cartoons on one page and the greetings on the other. By about 7:30 in the evening, Pooja cut her big Birthday cake to loud cheers and wonderful birthday song and to the claps, blessings and wishes from all the family, relatives and friends who had gathered around. Such a pretty sight. Flash lights did not stop for the next 5 minutes till every movement from every angle was captured from the folks. (Including mine!). As always, my camera was working overtime to capture the best moments. From Kids, to kids at heart, aunts to uncles to grannies to grandpas, all were there for the photographs.

Checkout the Video here:


By 8 PM, we all moved downstairs for the dinner. Avarekai-Alu-Methi-bath, Cucumber Raitha, Dry Jamoon, Rava Vada, Rice, Rasam, Curd-Rice and IceCream along with Cakes were served on buffet. Coffee was made available right from the early evenings so that people don't have to escape the building in search of one or a 'by-two', having traveled a whole lot of distance to our house. Not to mention the cold outside would have warranted to go in for the other 'by-two' as well!

Pooja collected a whole lot of gifts from everybody. Not sure if she understood why she was getting all the gifts, but anything was okay, as long as she was on the receiving side! We were delighted to see the way she carried herself without any hassles.

Overall, a wonderful day to remember. All of us liked it. And it would not have made the event such a success without all the people who came over to bless the litttle one. Thanks everybody for making Pooja and us feel so very special.

The next day, with most of the balloons on the floor, we moved about a 1000 plus balloons into Pooja's room. Pooja enjoyed a great deal playing with the balloons and it was an awesome sight. She had not seen (including us!) that many balloons and infact she gets lost under them while playing.

Its almost a week now, as I type this blog. There are a few balloons still hanging over the walls and we have let it hang there, just so that we can keep remembering and relish the good time we had. Every time I look at the balloons, my heart goes Happy Birthday Pooja (and Soujanya ;-) )

Trip to the Beaches and Temples of Coastal Karnataka

This time around, I wanted to enjoy the annual vacation (of 2008) to the fullest. Initially, the plan was to spend a decent time at Kanyakumari, but with the 'Aiyappa' season @ Shabarimala, all the tickets to everywhere on all modes of transport was booked and very few options were open for us to choose. Finally, we decided on visiting a few beaches and temples on the coastal side of Karnataka.

Following, is the travel-log-commentary of our Trip to half-piligrimage, half-sun-sands-beaches tour. We (Soujanya, Pooja and Myself), were accompanied by Souji's parents and my parents.

Click here for some of the best snaps and a few videos of our trip.

Trip to Udupi and other Places

22nd Dec, Monday
~ Departed Bangalore by 7 AM.
~ On the way, visited temples of Yediyur (Siddalingaleshwara), Kaala Bhaireshwara (Adi Chunchungiri).
~ Roads till Sakaleshpura are fine. Beyond Sakaleshpura till you reach Dharmasthala, God save you and the vehicle. 100s of hairpin bends with 1000s of ditches all set to give you a bumpy ride. Welcome aboard the Shiradi Ghat section of the Western Ghats.
~ Spent about an hour at the Nethravathi River, next to Dharmasthala temple. Really good and clean water. If anybody wants to enjoy lazing around a river, this is the best place to do so.
~ Visited the Dharmasthala Manjunatha temple by about 6:30 PM. Temple reopens for public at 7:15 PM.
~ The queue was pretty long and took about 1.5 hours to complete and come out.
~ *__ Important __*: If you are visiting this temple (or any other temple on this side of Karnataka), you will need to be dressed in a dhoti and a shalya. Trousers, Shirts and Banians are not allowed.
~ Yes, you will need to pull of your banians too! Any questions, you can get the divine interventions from Lord Manjunatha himself.
~ Left Dharmasthala at 8 and reached Subramanya Temple at 10 PM.
~ Got accommodation at 'Sri Niketana' Lodge, just 50 meters from the temple.
~ Took two 2-bed rooms. Each costing Rs. 250. Decent place, *Clean* toilets, Spacious, and good enough for spending a night. Hot water facility for Rs. 8 per bucket.
~ *__ Important __*: Only 1 medical shop for the whole of the town. Closes at 8 PM itself. Just couldn't believe it. Pooja got travel sickness and my assumption that there will be some medical help available (at this time and age) proved us wrong and costly.

23rd Dec, Tuesday
~ Visited Subramanya Temple in the morning
~ River Kumardhara was good, but not as crystal clear and beautiful as we had seen when we visited this place 20 years back. That time, there was nothing except the temple and the river, but now, a town itself has come up, totally contrary to my expectations.
~ After a good breakfast, we left for Subramanya by 10 AM and headed for Mangalore.
~ By noon, we were in Mangalore. Didn’t expect this much of heat and sultry weather in Mangalore. Unbearable heat in peak winter too. (That is probably because of being Bangaloreans)
~ Shopped a great dress for Pooja. Costed a bomb, but looks good on her.
~ Never thought Mangalore has such posh outlook. Good buildings, hotels. Every single hoarding atop every building is about Jewellery! So definitely a cash-rich population.
~ Lunch at Hotel Utsav was great. Highly recommended for budget minded travelers.
~ Cancelled plans of visiting 'Ullal beach' supposed to be good and ice-creams at ‘Pabbas’ (Highly recommended by others).
~ Left Mangalore at about 3:30 PM and headed towards Udupi.
~ Brief stopover at 'Panambur beach'. Nice and calm beach. Whole lot of fishing activities. Stayed there for half an hour and moved on.
~ Reached Udupi by 5 PM and headed straight to 'Sri. Krishna Dhama' just behind the temple, next to Geetha mandir. (Co-incidentally, the same place where we stayed 20 years back!).
~ Got this tip from our Driver that Malpe beach closes by 6:30 PM and Police would drive people from the beach by that time. So hurriedly left for Malpe beach.
~ So much has changed since the last time I came here (With Shashi and Ande (1995~96)). Not a single soul was around that time, and now, this beach is not short of any other beaches in Chennai (Marina), except that Malpe beach is 100X cleaner.
~ White sand, beautiful sunset, good mix of all types of people, no bad odour of dried fish [except passing through the fishermen colony, on the way to the beach].
~ One of the best beaches I have seen so far. Highly comparable to beaches in Goa. Not too crowdy, not steep. Highly recommended.
~*__ Important __*: There is a 'Pay and use', really neat and clean toilet facility just 20 mts from the Beach. Happy to see that there.
~ Beach also offers street-side coffee shops, snack bars and light foods. Mineral water bottles available everywhere.
~ By 7:30 PM, we headed back to our lodge and found it in good shape. Clean and tidy room and toilet. Costs Rs. 150 per day. Took 2 rooms.
~ Refreshed ourselves and had a quick tour of the temple town by walk. Nothing changed much around the temple. Brought back nostalgic memories of our previous visits to Udupi.
~ Dinner at 'Mitra Samaja' was good. Hit the sack by 9:30 PM

24th Dec, Wednesday~ Visited Sri. Krishna temple by walk.
~ Easy no rush, no mess temple. Ample time for darshan. No fuss or non-sense. Generally felt good visiting this place.
~ Parents and In-laws too liked the temple very much.
~ Due to 'Dwadashi', lunch was served at 9 AM itself. We were made to run around the temple from pillar to post, as nobody was guiding us to the location where the food was being served. Finally, we made it.
~ Free food, so no complaints. Very filling. Need to take off Shirt and Banian while having food. This was a bit strange considering the fact that people are allowed to visit the temple with Shirt and Pants, but for having lunch, we are supposed to remove Shirt and Banian.
~ Next we left again to Malpe, for visiting the St. Mary's island.
~ By 11 AM, we were at Malpe beach again. Got to know from locals that the ticket to St. Mary's Island needs to be bought at the port harbour itself.
~ It’s a 5 minute drive from Malpe beach to the Port. One straight road that you cant miss.
~ Inside the port, ask for the ticket counter to St. Mary's Island and the security officer will direct you.
~ Ticket costs Rs. 70 per head. No queue at all, inspite of the holiday period.
~ Got transferred into a ferry along with 30 other people.
~ Took 25 minutes to reach the Island. Very nice and comfortable ride. Clear blue water. ~ No foul smell over the ferry, no dirty seating, comfortable and enjoyable. Good crowd.
~ St. Mary's Island is a small piece of land. Beautiful place. Must see and highly recommended. Good white sand. Very clean and hardly any people.
~ *__ Important __*: The far side of the island is very scenic and beautiful. Good mix of rocks and beach. Pristine water.
~ *__ Important __*: Beach has a deceptively sharp gradient. Huge pull from the waves.
~ Pooja enjoyed a great deal here.
~ Unfortunately, misadventure by 3 schoolboys got them pulled into the sea.
~ *__ Important __*: No security guards, life guards, and very few people.
~ After huge efforts from the ferry operators, 2 were rescued early. 3rd kid was rescued quite a while later as he was farthest from us. Believe me, that kid was not looking good. Traumatic experience. Finally, the insane teachers/organizers of the school trip left the place back to Malpe in emergency mode as the 3rd kid had to be hospitalized due to breathing problems.
~ We spent about a couple of hours and posed for snaps. Inspite of the happening, this place is highly recommended for anybody visiting Udupi. It’s worth the salt.
~ *__ Important __*: Do not get into the water unless you are an expert in swimming. Otherwise, just relax and enjoy the view.
~ Our return ferry came back to pick us up and another 30 minutes, we were back at Malpe beach.
~ Visited 'Dianas' Restaurant at Udupi. Again, food was very affordable, delicious, no garlic, and ice creams were awesome! Highly Recommended. Good varieties on the menu.
~ With tummies full, went back to the lodge and packed just as much stuff required for our trip to Horanaadu and Sringeri.
~ Left Udupi at 3 PM and were at Agumbe by 5 PM. Waited for Sunset, but the sun was in no mood to get down and hence moved on wasting 30 minutes.
~ Touched Sringeri bypass by 7:30 PM and moved further towards Horanaadu.
~ Pooja was showing signs of travel sickness and dysentery.
~ Absolutely nobody on the roads, no other vehicles moving in the same direction as of Horanaadu made us believe, accommodation would be easy.
~ When we were just a kilometer away from Horanaadu, saw 3 buses standing one behind the other and that’s when the panic set in.
~ All this while, we had confirmed accommodation, except Horanaadu, and when reaching the town realized, it was turning out to be the mistake of the decade.
~ There were atleast 150 buses, same number of cabs and a huge Christmas holiday seeking crowd all moving helter-skelter looking for reservations.
~ All the hotels were booked and on waiting list.
~ Our cab driver asked us to enquire at hotel he knew and luckily, we got a single 3-double cot room for Rs. 600. In the circumstances we were in, we were more than happy to log in.
~ Accommodation was decent with attached bathroom. Hot water facility from 6 AM to 8 AM. Need to fetch water from a tap next in the corridor space just outside our room.
~ Pooja health seemed to deteriorate over the night.
~ *__ Important __*: Got to know that there is no pharmacy at Horanaadu. Really irritated me. So much people and not a single pharmacy / medical store. General medicines are available in shops close to the temple, but not the antibiotics or other types of medicines. Nearest pharmacy is at 'Kalasa' a bigger town, 11 KMS away. (It’s on the way to Horanaadu).
~ In-laws opted out to stay back with Pooja in the hotel, while Souji, parents and me, had a darshan, and prasad (night dinner) at the temple. Temple was as resplendent as ever.
~ Huge loads of people arriving every hour of the night.

25th Dec, Thursday
~ Pooja's health was really worrying.
~ In-laws did the early morning darshan of Annapurneshwari and once they were back, we did our 2nd round in the morning.
~ Idea was to get closer to civilization as early as possible, keeping into mind Pooja's health condition.
~ FIL administered doses of Homeopathy medicines to take control of the emergency.
~ Later called up family doctor and got some allopathic medicines administered at Kalasa on our way back to Sringeri.
~ By 12 noon, we reached Sringeri and made a quick darshan of the temple. The weather was getting hot and humid.
~ We stopped for lunch at 'Akshaya Mess', a home which serves pure vegetarian lunch just 500 meters from the temple. Same place we had visited 20 years back is now bigger and better. Food was homely, tasty and filling.
~ We left Sringeri by 3 PM and the tired souls opened eyes only when we reached Udupi by 7 PM.
~ Staying at the same rooms of 'Sri. Krishna Dhama' lodge, we quickly freshened up and got a quick darshan of Udupi Krishna.
~ Relaxed the remaining part of the day at the lodge.
~ Pooja's health started to improve. Very rare to see the chatterbox going silent for a whole day.

26th Dec, Friday
~ Pooja was looking better. But we all made a decision of cut down the trip to Karwar and Goa.
~ Instead, we planned to short-circuit the rest of the tour through Kundapur, Anegudde, Maravanthe, Murudeshwar and reach Saagar. (Heggodu, Asha (SIL) place).
~ We packed our luggage and said bye to Udupi by 9 AM and visited Anegudde Ganesha temple, a beautiful Temple on the highway.
~ Next was the wonder spot, "Maravanthe", where the national highway road seperates a river (Netravathi) from the sea for about a kilometer. On one side you have the Arabian Sea and the other side you have the fresh water river. Amazing sight. There will be very few places in the world like this. Must visit spot, right on the highway.
~ We reached Murudeshwara by about noon. The weather was hot and sultry. So wanted to take some rest. Inspite of loaded tummies, we went into the Naveen Beach hotel and had lunch by the Sea. Amazing view of the sea and a must visit hotel. Food is crappy, but the experience of having lunch over the sea was awesome.
~ Compared to my last 2 visits to Murudeshwar, one 10 years back and the other 5 years back, this place has improved for the better. The beach sand was clean with no human or animal landmines. Huge loads of people and children. Water scooters, Speedboats, and colourful fishing boats made a merry sight.
~ Overall, great improvement in cleanliness and tourism development. Highly recommended.
~ The queue at the temple was too long and hence opted to stay back with Souji and Pooja, while parents and in-laws disappeared into the long and winding queues.
~ While Souji and Pooja took shelter from the scorching sun, I pulled out my camera and click-click-click went the snaps.
~ By 4 PM, we were all done visiting the small hillock with the huge Shiva statue just behind the temple.
~ Pooja was getting stable but still had a whole lot of weakness in her.
~ We all got back into our Qualis and headed towards Saagar.
~ By 8 PM, we reached Heggodu's Honnesara, the residence of Asha's Parents. Thanks to Anna for his acute sense of direction and night vision in guiding us through untrodden roads under zero visibility.
~ We anchored at this place for the day and Asha's parents had made all arrangements for a comfortable stay. A good dinner followed. For the first time in 6 days, we came in close contact with a TV. Discussions on Politics, Mumbai Terror Attacks and Cricket Mania took over for the next couple of hours before we all hit bed.

27th Dec, Saturday~ Woke up lazily in the morning and spent a whole lot of time with Anil (Asha's brother) and parents.
~ Our idea of leaving back to Bangalore post lunch session was anulled the instant it was conveyed to Asha's parents and they wanted us to stay atleast till Monday.
~ Completely overwhelmed, we bogged down and Anil made all the plans about how to spend time in Saagar.
~ First Anil, took us all around the Arecanut/Beetlenut farm.
~ Next he took us to the headquarters of 'Charaka', the place where the cotton is weaved into a fabric and then later garments are made and export to Charaka outlets all over the country. This institution makes use of local people, talent and technology to create contemporary Cotton garments, wallets, pillows, dress materials, bedspreads and other accessories. The cost is very reasonable and stylish too.
~ The proprietor, who was Anil's friend, gave us a complete walkthrough right from the dyeing of yarn to the center where garments are exported.
~ Later he showed us the way to the location where we could buy a few of their products from their outlet nearby.
~ And that's exactly when the apocalypse happened. Souji shopped for a whole 2 hours, picking up whatever came into her sight and she had to be literally dragged out, just in time for me to escape bankruptcy.
~ With pockets bearing only vacuum, we visited 'Vardha moola' temple (birth place of river ‘Vardha’) about 10 Kms away. A small village fair was around the temple and made a brief stopover to check anything interesting.
~ We came back to our home away from home and had a sumptuous lunch and a much wanted nap.
~ In the evening, we made a quick trip to Saagar town and then took a stroll to 'Hongirana' a residential school close by where an annual day celebration was going on. Found that event not very interesting and also that it was getting colder and breezy, and opted to return back to home for another session of great dinner.
~ Hit the sack pretty early.

28th Dec, Sunday~ Last day of our tour.
~ Much needed break for Pooja, to get back to normalcy. Pooja was enjoying her stay.
~ We all got up early and had a fantastic breakfast.
~ With goodbyes and handshakes to Asha's parents and Anil, We left Heggodu by 10 AM on our way back to Bangalore.
~ The journey was comfortable and did a stopover at Tiptur for lunch followed by a brief stopover for tender coconuts on the way.
~ Reached Bangalore by 5:30 PM, all in good condition.

Overall, a full week of journey, temples, beaches, fun and wonderful memories, worthy of a vacation. Great company and a trip to remember.

Sincere thanks to Sri. Narasimha Murthy, brother of Gopi (Colleague at my office), who helped us out with accommodations at Subramanya and Udupi. Thanks to Priya (another Colleague at my office) for the accommodation at Goa, which we couldn't make it though. And our wholesale thanks to Kantaraju, our cab driver, who exhibited great and comfortable driving skills, support and adaptability both on and off the road.

Supplimentary Information:

Travel Period:22nd Dec ~ 28th Dec, (7 days - 6 nights)

Total Distance Travelled:
Approximately 1350 KMS.

Travel Route Plan:Bangalore -> Dharmasthala -> Subramanya -> Mangalore -> Udupi -> Horanaadu -> Sringeri -> Udupi -> Kundapur -> Maravanthe -> Murudeshwara -> Saagar -> Bangalore

Travel Route Map:



Mode of travel:Hired Toyota Qualis for the entire trip (Bangalore to Bangalore). -> Rs. 7 per km -> Driver Bata of Rs. 175 per day.