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!
