My Travel Kahani: Trip to Rameshwaram Part-4

Some noise and few of the first rays of Sun light made me a little conscious and I opened my eyes rubbing with both handed. I checked time in my mobile and it was 6:25 in the morning. We had entered Madurai border and passengers were getting down at the places nearest to their destination. With laziness and sleep hovering all around, I, in my semi consciousness noticed bus getting almost empty. I looked towards the window and what an amazing view that was. I could not remove my eyes off this scenic beauty of nature. I kept on watching the beautiful scenery both side of bus. I realized what I miss every morning, the pristine beauty and sobriety of nature. It was not the first time I realized this but this is something happens to me every time. The nature attracts me all the possible ways and inspires me to get early in the morning. But poor me, who prefer to be in dreams, wrapped up in my warm blanket in the morning.

After around 15 mins when I got into more senses, the itching to wake VIP and P started. I removed blanket and called them in a very irritating voice, No effect !! I repeated their names again but this time, both of them pulled the blanket and covered the face. Again some trick to trouble them but same result but with some cuss #$%@@$ words. Later part only from P, but it atleast brought him into life again. After 5 mins we all were getting down at the Madurai Bus Stop, obviously we were the last to get down. Conductor was shouting something in Tamil but it was not enough to make Mr. P realize that he too should get down now. The moron was sleeping like he haven't slept in ages. It seemed like he was more comfortable sleeping either beside a man with age 45-50 or prefer bus seats over mattress.

So finally we were in Madurai. Our first stop of the trip. Madurai "The city of Temples", a prominent tourist attraction in South India. We were very happy that things are going great and we reached our first place of the trip. We were smiling at our success and giggling by remembering Loud laugh of P and the reaction of that man, when he was getting down from the bus. Now standing at the bus stop, the one and only big question, all we had was "What's next??". Among the several alternatives we always have, we picked the smartest and best one within 45 mins. Yes, just 45 minutes it took to take this big decision and who cares if a little verbel fight also becomes part of these decision making process. It happens when you take some tough decisions. Anyway we decided to go to some hotel for 2 hours for all the inevitable morning tasks, taking shover and get ready by bringing all the charm in our faces. After all one should look smart and dashing in pics, if you are taking those snaps in front of a huge temple like Meenakshi Temple.

We had a pretty bad time with autowalas making them understand that we want to go to some good hotel for 2 hours. This was our first interaction with these strongly tamil rooted people and we got a hint about difficulty we were going to face there. Before that I only heard that most of the tamilians don't like north Indians and treat them very roughly. I never believe these kind of generalized statements about a larger group of people but I never thought this time it is going to be a little tough for me.

Finally we succeded in finding an auto asking some reasonable amount. The way he was repeating "yaaa yaaa" as a universal answer to all of our questions, it was clear that not much we are controlling here and probably he too. He dropped us to some lodge near railway station. We entered one lodge. One tall, over healthy guy with white tilak with a red Teeka at the center of this forehead stood up from the other side of the counter, looked at us with suspicious eyes and asked "Yes" ?? " We want a room for 1-2 hours. Just want to stretch our bodies, use the wash room and room is all yours again." I answered.
"what?".
"1 room, 2 hours only " this time actions all over mixed with the verbal communication.
"No room."
"ek room mangta, do ghante ke liye" P this time.
"No room, housefull".
Disappointingly we came out of the hotel. Some 3-4 local folks were waiting for us outside the hotel. They started shouting to attract us " Sir, kaha jana, hum leke chalega", "Hotel, hotel mangta??", "Are Sir, idhar aao, hum le ke chalta, hotel.. Cheap and best". These folks were some local people who know a little of hindi and get activated from the very early morning to found such Murgas". Anyway we were happy to get someone who can get a room for us. We talked to one of them, about 2 hr thing and in next 20 minutes he took us to around 12 hotels and lodges. Some of them were full, some of them were not worth spending a minute by any chance, and rest were asking to take it for one full day. We knew that our ask was a little weird, a room for 2 hours but yes, our thing we were sure of on this pretty unplanned trip that we have to leave Madurai before tonight otherwise we will miss few places in our trip.

Now we were getting a little irritated and that savior man who were showing us these different places now looked in a little ferocious mood. We requested him to go and said we will find one ourselves but he is not even willing to let us go away. Finally with all this hip-hop we found an ultra deluxe room in a lodge, "ambassador Lodge". We rolled into big laughter as we glanced at the room. Room ended before we could find out its entrance, space sufficient for 2 small cots at both side, a small table between these two cots, 1 mirror and the smallest possible tv hanging in one corner of the wall. The best part was TV buttons were not working and some "MAHA" Tamil movie was running to freak us out. We decided to go to toilet and take shower as soon as possible and leave the holy place. The place anyway reminded me of some very old houses in my village. Good to remember good times. I finished first and with winning smile came at the counter, took out my guide , wikipedia pages, tried to collect some info about places to visit in Madurai, routes to them and best mean to reach there. We thanked them and before leaving the lodge around at 10.

To be continue.......

My Travel Kahani: Trip to Rameshwaram Part-3

Anyway here we are drifting a little away from our quest for information about the bus. We were worried and could not even find anyone having any info about our bus and irony was that many confused families were finding their savior in us. I am not sure, what people see in my face that it happens always. Where ever I go, I find hapless, confused, lost people coming to me, asking about where they should go. Anyway we helped two families finding their right buses. I must say it was a mistake at that moment as within few minutes we were surrounded by various travelers asking about platforms for their bus. Some by destination name, some by Bus Agency's name. We were on a new role to find the right coach for poor public. Damn, why they all are so confused and what would have happened with them, if we would not have been present there. Thanks God for sending us at that right moment there to help the poor, confused public. We were choked by public and hardly getting any fresh air. Its like a bunch of beggars asking another bunch of beggars for money and food. The fuzz caved in shortly and those beggars realized that they are actually pretty rich and we were "The Real" poor ones, who urgently needed some info for their bus and running short on time too. After this enlightenment when people left us with their frustrating and abusive words, we all had a smile on our face. It was still 10 mins for 10:15 and elephants were playing football inside us, we decided to have some quick meal.

While having our meal, we saw a white elephant inside a circle printed in a bus. As the name of our bus was Aerawat as it was printed on the ticket, just a wild thought made me shout " This is our bus for sure. A white elephant is printed on the bus and mythology says that Aerawat is the personal vehicle for Indra Devta. This must be our bus." Turning my collars in heroics and with a winning face, I started running towards the Aerawat.

We had first 3 seats in the bus. just behind the drivers cabin. It was 2 by 2 semi sleeper coach. First VIP, then I and finally Mr. P got on the bus. We were still gasping as it became a little tricky to leave the meal and race up to the bus. As I started my efforts to settle down in my seat, a big loud laugh made everybody curious about the laughter, its reason and the brave man having such a brave laugh. I too turned back with curiosity and found Mr.P has gone mad. He was still laughing insanely without caring for others looking at his seat and its surroundings. It did not take much time in breaking the puzzle, with the clue his gesture and eyes were hinting out. It was the result of having a 45 year old, semi white haired man as his closest neighbor. With all the broken fantasies and the patented luck of a software engineer, we joined the company of similar species of this world, where there is no softer gender. The atmosphere became a little more funny when the man realized he broke P's heart with irritating laugh of P at every 2nd minute and his absurd activities which were surely bothering the gentleman. I begged P, not to embarrass us anymore. Discussing about this strange fate of us, we gradually immersed in sleep.

To Be Continued....

My Travel Kahani: Trip to Rameshwaram Part-2

Despite of making our best efforts, we got late. I am not sure, why it happens always but it happens. We were late enough to speed our heart beats up even before stepping out of the home. More importantly none of us were ready to accept. I with VIP started around 8:30 from home with a silence. The silence of tension. No body wanted to look at each other. We just wanted not to miss the bus. We raced with our luggage to Marathahalli crossing, keeping our fingers crossed. If you are a good human being, and you have not done anything wrong with anyone and never cheated on someone, nothing bad will happen to you. This could be the only reason why we didn't see any bus for next 5 minutes, which felt like no less than an hour. Heart beats shooting up, tension increasing with every passing second, we decided to take some deep breaths. After 5 minutes we were sitting in a Volvo, having a sigh of relief. It was 8:50 and I called P to know his position. He replied that he will be there in next 10-20 minutes, so we were happy about his reaching the pickup point before time.

We got down at Richmond circle at 9.35 and knowing the fact that the pick up point is around a kilometer from there, we got a little relaxed and had some deep, long breaths. An Autowala looting us 40 bucks for a single km, we reached our pickup point in next 10 minutes. It was 9:45 and we were at our first destination with a victorious smile. As some corner of my heart knew that P reaching there before us is kinda impossible. I was right as after reaching there, we could not find P. We called him and found him searching us at the other end of this Big bus stop. Thankfully, after 5 minutes, we all were together, like a team, like an Army troop, with a big thumbs up smile at our faces.

This was the pickup point for buses leaving all around Bangalore. Every minute some 2-3 buses were coming and crowd was running to confirm they are not missing their loving ones. We had some 20 minutes remaining and we thought of confirming the bus running information and our co-passengers details. You know, it becomes very important for any journey "how your co-passengers are"? The presence of beautiful faces boost the probability of having a good and memorable journey and if everything goes good, it also leads to another possibility of some good times in future.

To Be Continued.....

My Travel Kahani: Trip to Rameshwaram Part-1

Its a long long time I am thinking of posting about my Rameshwaram trip as it was some seriously eventful trip. This trip printed some 'not so nice' thoughts about people we met in the trip, in our head. Also after returning from the trip, might be, under impulse of the events, I promised my team mates to write about the trip. God, I have woke up so so early to do it. Never mind, Let me share about a journey that was full of events, full of fun, full of anger and above all an hugely unorganized trip. OK, so lets kick start this tour to South, deep down in southern region of India.

It all started with a "Out of the blue" idea of treating my friend Vipul on his farewell. Vipul was leaving Cisco and Bangalore next week. Guys always feel cool and smarter when they take such hasty, impulsive decisions and others ask them about the ticket booking, places to visit etc. and they answer with a quirky smile "God knows" Or "Not yet decided, you know" casually. We also felt proud answering few of these sort queries. We never knew, it would be such an Ass-Puffing pain.

I shared the idea of the trip and we were very happy about that. And this was the end. We were happy with our plan. It was like, we would leave on thursday night for Madurai, Next day cover Madurai and leave for Rameswaram in the evening, night stay there, next day visit of all the places in Rameswaram and saturday night or sunday morning leave for Bangalore. A perfect 3 day trip. All in plan, no preparations, no ticket/hotel booking. But most importantly we were very happy.

Out of all the laziness of this world, somehow we got our tickets booked for Banglore to Madurai. All hail to VIP. Let me tell you one thing, Vipul aka VIP is a sincere guy and he proved it here. As to add a twist to the trip, a little modification in the tour plan . We decided to go to Kanyakumari also. This modification in the plan changed the course of our trip. Just hang a while to unearth the mystery :)

How we will manage everything in just 3 days, without tickets and other necessary stuff, for the place, which is all new to us, nobody bothered. Yeah, guys are self proclaimed cool idiots.

Before moving ahead, let me introduce the third and most interesting character of this trip, a guy who can make dead talking, can plow and blossom flowers in the bald heads, can make you feel unsafe publicly by his acts. Sometimes.. ummmm , not sometimes actually, most of the times sounds non-sense, my school time friend Mr. Prashant Tripathi, which will be referred as P "with love" now on. The guy had no idea what we were planning about the trip, places, tickets. He was just ready to accompany us for the tour. I love this filmy attitude "Hey, just count me in for all your plans.".

Lets come back to our planning for the tour. Yes, we were doing great in our plans and now we had the tickets to start our tour, and we somehow managed to get a camera also which also leads us to another interesting story " The story of borrowing a camera". Anyway lets skip that for some other bad blog and stick to our tour Kahani. This was last day for VIP in Cisco office and some party was thrown by our manager to celebrate his farewell. Was team happy about Vipul's leaving the company?? :). We had our bus at 10:15 in the night. The party was getting hotter, but somehow by controlling emotions and managing to grab every eatable, we left the office at 6:10 PM, rushed to our places, packed our tour bag with all the required items we can think of. I, as the results of all my sins, have to pack P's bag also as he has to collect the camera, and reach the Bus pickup point in the limited time he had after leaving his office at 7:00 PM and which was just 30 kms away from our house.


To Be Continue........