Coorg - Of all the trips why do we remember this the most

We decided to try out the B52 hangout at Jayanagar that Friday night with our dear friend Siddharth. We tried out some funky stuff out there and the chicks (although gender wise males) out there complained to the waiter about us. We sobered down with a fresh pint of our beloved Kingfisher and were deciding on what can salvage our otherwise mundane weekend. Somhow we arrived to the conclusion that we needed to head out and at around 11pm we decided that we would head out to Coorg. The minor technicality of not having any planned conveyance or a hotel booking at a very popular weekend destination was not something that we lords of the B52 world were bothered about. And thus it was decided that we will head out to the Bangalore bus depot at 6.am sharp and catch the very first bus heading in the direction of Coorg.

Come Saturday morning.
Frantic calls between the three musketeers at around 7am managed to get us to our favourite Udupi in Kormangala at around 7.30am since breakfast and more importantly food dominated our schedules. We just couldn't head out without bribing our digestive tracts. We reach the bus depot at a leisurely 9.ooam and lo and behold the first bus that would have taken us to coorg was suprisingly missing from its parking slot. Only after boarding the next bus at around 10.00am did we realise that the first one had probably left on time. Oh well this on was going to reach us to Coorg within the next 6-7hrs, the conductor promised. I don't call the reasons but we were nowhere near the destination around 4pm. ... 5pm... 6pm... Ah finally at around 7 we reached a bus stand that was supposed to be Coorg. Damn.. was this it?

We picked up the local tourist brochure that, scrambled from somewhere, and frantically started calling the hotels.. the lowest priced ones getting preference of course. No luck. Next were the guest houses.. No luck there too. Were we actually going to spend the night on the streets?

One last call. A home stay ... and bingo we got a room there or that's what we thought. The rickshaw left us at the gates of the PG.. far far away from civilization and we entered the house to meet the lady who ran the PG. So when she lead us to what looked like an unused garage shed we were a bit confused. There sat 4 beds and 2 "rooms" nothing else. There was a geyser she said. Great!!!

We decided we weren't gonna come back there the next day unless hell froze over... and did Satan have plans for us. The subsequent evening was the reception of a local politician's son... And of course all the good hotels were booked out. Of the handful of places there was just one left that had a room available... so we took it.

Enter into the room and something was amiss. Was it just us or was there an unbearable stench of ammonia in the air that evening? Four beds lay out there in the room and bath attached. God it stinked. But we were too tired to go out on the hunt again. And the lovely PG lady had supposedly had a tab larger than 2 rooms out here. So we decided to brave it out. I bet the #breaths/second had drastically dropped that night.

Oh finally it was the morning next. The morning gods demanded their darshan at the bathrooms. Open the bathroom door and we finally realized where the ammonia emanated from. Now what? Laughter and a fucked look filled the rooms. God did the few years we spent in the US turn us into the high-nosed, culturally confused, fake-accent speaking, pseduo americans? exactly like those that we just so hated? NO. Two of us braved our civilized upbringings and managed to clear our tracts out and have a bath. The remaining one though had tracts with ethics and they simply refused to cooperate in inhospitable conditions.

We managed to get the info that a bus left out to Bangalore in the late afternoon. We got our tickets and were hanging around the bus stand. Unfortunately we weren't done. The third guy now had to give his darshan to the morning gods that he so insultingly skipped this morning. Helter skelter we ran and managed to find a guest house that lent us their rooms for a few hours with a little discount.
Ah civilization at last... Clean bathrooms... we were blessed. Even the ones that didn't need to use the facilities did. Come evening we headed out to the bus stand and got on our way back to Bangalore.

The three musketeers have had many trips since then. Some had 5-star hotels and some had exotic locations. But of all of these this first one really stands out in our memories. We don't know why but we know that we will always have it in our hearts. Whereever we head we know we can brave the elements and overcome the odds. We proved we were 100% shudh DESI after all!

Karan Thapar is still interviewing... news gods please help us

Firstly it was purely by chance that I landed onto the "Devil's Advocate" programme on the telly. And lo and behold it was Karan Thapar interviewing Ambika Soni. I wont get into the content but the content of the content of the last 5 mins that I actually stomached to watch.

Karan asks one question... interrupts before Soni completes her answer. He rephrases the same question... again interrupts before she completes her answer. And this nuisance continues for the entire 5 mins, all this while he attempts to get an answer that he wanted to hear and not taking anything else in. In fact the very obvious eye rolling of the I&B minister was warranted for his childlike interview technique and she even went on to end the show stating that "you should change the format" of the show.

I have been bumping into Karan Thapar's interviews on the telly since quite sometime and I have to say the poor chap has only deteriorated with age.

Karan dude learn your basics.... an interviewer when asking a question needs to respect his interviewee and at the very least should listen and hear out his or her answer. If you can find faults with the answer or counter it with fact, do so. If there is backpeddling or display of uncertainty in the answers of your interviewee then sure, go in for the kill. But dude learn to listen. If you remember even the respected Mr. Jetmalani, who supposedly is your friend, nearly kicked you out of his house due to your distasteful interviewing technique. Some excerpts below - am suprised that complete sentences are attributed to Mr Jetmalani.. which Karan never allowed to happen

"Ram Jethmalani: Don’t expect me to calm down when you are crossing all limits of an interviewer."

"Ram Jethmalani: I am sorry, Karan. You are taking advantage of my hospitality. You are in my house that’s why I don’t want to tell you that. You are falling to low of every kind of standard of morals of an anchor and a television interviewer. You are taking advantage of the fact that you are in my house and that you are my guest. Otherwise, I would throw out somebody here."

And the ethical grandiosity of Karan

"Karan Thapar: Are you a man of character? Is this the behaviour of a man of character?

Ram Jethmalani: Please do not get into this kind of bullshit, this is not done. This is not the way of holding an interview."

What I can't understand is how totally incompetent people as yourself are around for so long man? Are we that starved for good media professionals? Or does just placing two fingers on your chin and holding a pen while questioning make you a superstar on the news circuit?

OK, now I don't want you to crib and say that I'm only being critical. I will also offer you suggestions on how to improve:-
Start with the Larry King Live show. Amanpour, The Doha debates (watch the arbitrators manage the debaters) and any of the anchors on the BBC News channel. Being an aggressive interviewer is good but being too aggressive and inattentive to your guest is disrespectful and makes for a pathetic interview- hasn't anyone ever told you this? god! please!

If you are as wise are your age you will take this constructive criticism and do something about it. If not I hope I stop being so unlucky while channel surfing.



PS. Knowing Karan's technique if he ever reads this I am sure he would have read half of the first sentence and then have posted a question on my comments section waiting for a reply, which again he wouldn't read beyond the first half of the first sentence and question me again... you get the picture...

IT's pun intended

The Income Tax department has consciously turned IT savvy. I received my annual statement from the good folks well before the deadline to file taxes this year. And that too via email. And now I receive confirmation that my returns, which were sent in via the Indian Postal Service, have reached their offices safely :)
Nice work guys.. finally some good use of technology. The last link left is removing the need to mail the return and then its 100% certified efiling only. Eagerly awaiting that... and yeah while you are at it... can you get the next tax code passed through the bureaucratic hurdles so that I can attempt to save some rokda ?

Compaq tv commercial

Seen the latest Compaq laptop commercials on the telly?

GuyA bumps into another guyB
Laptop falls
...[useless crap in between]
GuyA gives money to guyB
Laptop specs shown on tv with blabber with a low voice saying works after a fall
...........and ta..da... commercial over

Now what exactly was the point here? Was it supposed to cosmicly imply that the laptop was sturdy enough to handle the fall? Why not simply have a laptop playing a movie... falling down and continuing to play a movie ?
Which dumb ass made this commercial ? and were they actually paid for it ?

ps. wouldve put a link to the commerical on youtube but its so crappy i doubt the shameless ad team had the gaul to put it up there for the world to see.

Thing abt da man

You need to know how to work the system... for the system to work for you!

Time for the Congress party to delivery BIG TIME!!!

With a smashing victory in the general elections the people of India have given the Congress party a unique opportunity in this sordid era of coalition politics. With this majority the Congress has the opportunity to lead a stable and solid government in India for the next five years without having to succumb to the threats of its coalition partners.

By placing our trust in a single party the people have decided to give the Congress a chance to prove themselves worthy of this trust. Trust, which as we have seen over the past several elections has been very hard to garner and even more difficult to maintain.

I look forward to seeing Dr. Singh and his entourage earnestly taking up this responsibility, not merely as caretakers of the constitution but also attempting to herald a new era for Indian politics and India. Shaping laws that can bring to the people of India the rights that they deserve as citizens and to the country the prestige that it has rightfully earned by being a great global citizen.

Cheers Dr. Singh

Iraqi reporter shoes Bush

While the shoe throwing incident today was indication enough of how bad the show has really gone for the Americans out in Iraq and Afghanistan there was one thing that one cannot deny ~ The fact reamins that had Saddam been in power the poor reporter wouldve been hung at sundown for doing the same thing.

Moment of Silence

Take it all in.
Let it sink in our brown skin, into our veins.

Get angry. Get very angry.

Stay angry!

Our soliders cannot be called in to risk their lives for an inept and impotent political system.

Simply Sikkim

It was a long time coming. After many failed attempts to move up north with our travels we finally made it. The place... a mesmerizing little state ... Sikkim.

Lets get it started
The three of us met up in Calcutta on the 2nd of October and proceeded to Bagdogra. From there we had a 4 hr cab drive to Pelling, a destination chosen for its close proximity to the Himalayan range. Well close proximity for viewing that is. On a clear morning you can see the Kanchenjunga from most of the hotels out there. We did manage to get a peek sightings from our room. But surely the best part of pelling was the waterfalls. Damn clean water that we just drank out of the stream and truth be told it was probably the best water we ever had.
Khecheopalri lake aka the wishing lake is another serene location to visit.
Interesting Fact: Though surrounded by dense cover there is no sign of foliage on the lake. The story goes that if a leaf falls a bird comes and picks it up from the lake.

Next stop Gangtok
Probably the only true city in Sikkim we landed in Gangtok via a shared cab, which are aplenty. We hung out at Club31 in the evening. Had a few drinks, chatted with some local guys, who were very helpful with how we should spend our time there, and just chilled. We had taken a room at 1200 per night. A bit overpriced but well.

Nathula Pass
The open trade border between India and China has not turned into a tourist spot. Frankly it is very disappointing to ride all the way out there and definitely not worth the pain. The journey is flooded with cabs all through the route and the scenic beauty is better enjoyed with them. Of course for the cheap shopper there are some Chinese goods shops en route. Beware this route is flooded with tourists.

Target 17000
Next we headed to Guru Dongmar lake. The northern most tip our our journey. We took a private cab at a hefty price to avoid the additional shared cab tourists and skipped Yumthang to head out to Lachen. We stayed the night at this quite non descript town that is suddenly becoming a one-night halt for tourists like ourselves. The rooms here are cheap around 500 per night if you book it directly. Most of the bookings however are done as a package deal right from Gangtok. The food too is about 50-60 per plate (non-veg). It gets chilly from here on.
We had a couple of pints at a local shop, felt more like someone's home/garage. Here we met two amazing guys. Chaddi buddies and all of 47 these two youngsters travel together on their bikes aka motorcycles every year during the Durga Puja holidays. This year they were biking out to Guru Dongmar lake. And yeah they live in Darjeeling... What a life right.

The next day we got up at 4 and headed out to the sacred lake. Be prepared half-an-hour mandatory stop at 15000ft that the army rightly enforces to ensure that you can take the altitude. Once you are given the clean chit you can move on. We were one of the two jeeps to arrive there by ourselves and had the lake to ourselves for 30mins, under the watchful eye of the army ofcourse :)
Interesting fact: The lake doesnt freeze in the chilliest of winters. Temperatures reach around -30C out here.

When we reached here the Jat regiment was manning the posts and luckily we ran into a couple of Army folks, Col Anoop, Capt Sharad and gang who were also visiting. We managed to rob some time off the colonel and its always memorable talking to an Army man.

Once we saw the number of jeeps rise up we left. Headed out to Lachen for lunch and then a long ride back to Gangtok.

RnR
After that long and hectic ride we decided to take a day off just relaxing. Yeah we need off days during our vacation as well:) So we chilled in Gangtok and just roamed around. Ofcourse with this day off we knew we would not be headed out to Bhutan

Stranded
Little did we know that our RnR would cost us dearly. The next day was Durga Puja and there were no cabs to be found. So we like true vagabonds decided to stay put and hang out in Gangtok. We took the local sightseeing cabs and enjoyed a good lunch at Tashi Delek, recommended by Col. Anoop. The food was great and we enjoyed ourselves just doing nothing :)

Rabongla
Next we decided to hit Rabongla, since Pelling was not currently ready for returning back so soon. The place seems enticing especially because it was completely covered within the clouds when we drove through from Pelling to Gangtok. We took up a decent hotel there 800 per night for a 3 bed room. It was a dainty little town with nothing much to do other than enjoy the fresh air. Best part no tourist spots and hence .. aha.. not too many tourists.

Namchi
Since Rabongla was all done in 1hr we decided we should see another place. We decided on Namchi. We wanted to head out to Kewzing from there which is a village tourism spot. Supposedly you get to live in a village and experience Sikkimese life first hand. But the Kewzing guys decided not to answer the phones. So we diligently called up the next best place. Later on peeking through our lonelyplanet handbook we stumbled upon the Dungmali home stay. Called them up and found a room available for the night... case closed we decided to head out there.

Dungmali Home Stay
Nestled a good distance away from the hub of Namchi the homestay is a cozy house of an ex phys-ed teacher and his family. Now this was a true find. Firstly the place is in expansion mode and will be building cottages all along their property soon. So we got there just in time. Second luckily for us quite a bit of the family was in for the Durga Puja holidays and the place was alive and bustling. Third the mountain on which the home is located is going to be a bustle of activity once the CharDham is completed (March'09). Fourth and the best is that you get an amazingly clear view of the Kanchenjunga right off their veranda and yeah we got to see it all next morning. Pretty neat eh! All in all serendipity and perfect timing.
The great company and conversation cut through the evening which was appropriately topped with authentic local cuisine for dinner.

The next morning we headed off to Calcutta via Bagdogra.

Calcutta
To be nice.. lets just say its better left forgotten.

Total Cost for a 12day trip per person: More than expected :)

When in Sikkim
* Be prepared for land-slide or a traffic jam
* Be ready to inhale gargantuan amounts of car smoke while travelling
* Be amazed at how clean the state is
* Be surprised by the presence of "clean" public urinals at all tourist spots
* Be ready to pay Rs2/- to pee at these public urinals (maintenance)
* Be ready to squeeze into a shared cab - or if you can pay a for an additional seat and have some space
* Be ready to see a lot of monasteries
* Feel like an ant in front of the mountains
* Be ready to be see more curves per km of road than anywhere else
* Be ready to weather two way traffic on roads that barely fit one car
* Be amazed at how polite the people are
* Enjoy the smiles by the cute little kids playing all over the place
* See more cops than anywhere else in India - and yeah... and yeah without the beer belly
* See the clouds below your feet or be within them
* Try to head out on a trek.. starting from 8 days onwards they seem enticing
* Breathe in 2-5% oxygen
* Be ready to be stunned by the beautiful girls who get 5/10 simply for their dressing sense
* The only thing more beautiful are the mountains
* Forget flat land
* And of course be in awe of the Kanchendzonga

Itenary
Day 1 (2nd Oct) Hyderabad-Calcutta-Bagdogra-Pelling [Flight and Cab]
Day 2 Pelling [sightseeing - reserved cab]
Day 3 Pelling - Gangtok [shared cab]
Day 4 Gangtok... Nathula Pass [sightseeing - shared cab]
Day 5 Gangtok - Lachen [reserved cab]
Day 6 Lachen - Gurdongmar - Lachen - Gangtok [reserved cab]
Day 7 Gangtok [just resting]
Day 8 Gangtok [sightseeing - reserved cab]
Day 9 Gangtok - Rabongla [shared cab]
Day 10 Rabongla - Namchi [shared cab]
Day 11 Namchi - Siliguri - Bagdogra [shared cab] - Bagdogra - Calcutta [flight]
Day 12 (13 Oct) Calcutta - Hyderabad [flight] - Back to work!!

Travel Logs

Finally managed to get all my travel pics under Picasa. This covers all our leisure travel in India for the past few years. Time sure flies.
And here is how the travel log reads

August 2008 Chickmangalur (Karnataka)


April 2008 Pondicherry


March 2008 Goa


April 2007 Udaipur; Jodhpur (Rajasthan)


September 2006 Kufri; Shimla; Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh)


July 2006 Agra (Uttar Pradesh)


May 2006 Wayanad (Kerala)


May 2006 Kovallam; Kumarkom; Munnar (Kerala)


July 2006 Halibedu; Belur; Mysore (Karnataka)


October 2004 Madikere (Karnataka)



You can have a look here

Google Chrome is out ...

http://www.google.com/chrome

And heck I like it. What exactly?
1. Minimalist UI ala Safari
2. No "menu" bar
3. Good use of title bar for tabs - saved space
4. Seems pretty fast or maybe that's just the late night broadband peaking up :)
5. Great address auto-complete - only pages that you actually typed show up
6. Maintains the firefox short-cuts
7. Simple blue and white theme is nice and soothing
8. Default page rocks - ulti cool use of history

Great to see engineers taking KISS seriously in this day and age of "features"

Road Trip - Chickmangalur

Decided to take a long impending break from work this week. So I headed out to Bangalore to catch up with my good friends and travel companions. Considering that it was a long weekend we were really pushing our luck and calling up all the nearby locations for a room. Luckily we didn't find any and decided to take the advice of Bhavin's friend and try out a homestay kindof place out near Chicmangalur. Boy was it wonderful. A beautiful coffee estate nestled up in a small valley sufficiently far away from the hotspots. It is around 60kms from Chickmangalur but the roads are horrendous so be prepared to cover than in 90mins to 2hrs. Since a picture says a thousand words here are a few.

Chickmangalur - Karnataka - India

Btw none of us carried our cameras so these were from my phone cam. The trip turned out to be around 5k/person for the 2 days. A bit higher since we drove there. But the drive was beautiful especially since its around now that the paddy crops are planted and the variety of lush green all around could have given disney animators goosebumps.

But the highlight of the trip was the amazing food at the resort. Mangy food always rocks! esp the shevai with coconut milk was the best.

Salut

What a wonderful sight for Indian sport. Finally a presence at the Bejing Olympics that we can be proud of

1. Virdhawal Khade - swimming
2. Saina Nehwal - slowly progressing along - defeated the 4th seed today
3. Bajranglal Takhar - 5th place in the Men's rowing
4. Abhinav Bindra - the gold medalist in 10m rifle - god the replay of our anthem playing in Beijing just killed me.
5. All our boxers and wrestlers - good show Biwani boys.

regardless of the results. these are the true heroes. amazing men and women with determination that supersedes any other. please dont even try to put our crappy cricketers in the same sentence/paragraph/page/book/volume. These Olympians are the heroes that we so desperately need.

Salut!