Backpacking to... [Day 5]

Tatkal screws me over: 3AC middle berth need I say more? To make things worse I am next to the door and have no way to save my feet being knocked on by each and every person all through the night. After exactly 2 hours of sleep I spent the rest of the journey at the exit enjoying the gorgeous landscape. Fields lush green with crop thanks to a good monsoon. These Morning views just blow your mind.

Varanasi 12:00pm: delayed by 1.5hrs. Last minute change of plans and decide to go to a different guest house coz it seemed closer to the center of town. Am left at a junction from where I am told i have to walk. And now i know why. Welcome to Varanasi the city of lanes, bylanes and alleyways. Some deviously disguised as something similar to a house entrance. Barely enough space for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder but in true desi style bikes zoom around and cows stroll by while you hang on. 1Hr gone by and am still searching. While I did ask for directions all along I only now realize that I should've asked for them at every corner. Locals consider a couple of left or right turns a part of a "straight" road. 1.5Hrs later I reach the guesthouse. Exhausted but starving. Remember I was in a train and not having dinner is the best way to avoid the scary airy loo. 30Mins break and I plunge myself back into the labyrinth will all the determination to get some food. Maybe I'll have better luck following the cows out of here.

45 Mibs and am onto a road. Halved my time, yaay;! Tried out the bhojan at keshariya. Was nice but a local vendor's lassi rocked. Kullar lassi with thick dollop of malaai and topped with kesar, pista and badam shavings. Just what the doc ordered.

Bad news: the river had risen pretty high. The evening poojas which are said to be a sight will happen on the temple balcony instead of the steps, those are completely under water. So no morning boat ride on the Ganga either. Sucks.

Day4|Day3|Day2

Backpacking to... [Day 4]

Exploring Khajuraho: Heard atleast 5 different languages at the breakfast table already. Note to self: update resume with this super specialty skill set.

So the temples out here are spread out in the southern, eastern and western zones. Other than the western zone the rest are in ruins. Pillaged not by thousands of years of existence but by a few recent decades of greed. Not as much by the mugals and british but by many who worship the deities these magnificent structures house. Luckily the western temples are saved by the ASI and now recognized as a world heritage site. The beauty of these temples is just jaw dropping. Will post the pictures up pretty soon and then you will get it. Note to self#2: somehow mask the fact that I've concentrated too many bytes on the apsaras.

Explored Mediterrano, the recommended Italian joint and was thoroughly dialsappointed. What did not let me down though was the sound and light show at the western temples late last evening. I would've loved it even better if they weren't blasting off the audio on the speakers. ASI should go modern with wireless headphones.

This morning I spent a good 5 hours exploring these western temples. Knowing a bit of the storyline and using the audio guide was a good call. Totally vote for it. Rs100 for English and 60 for Hindi. Or pay for Hindi and play with the device a bit to find out how to have it play the English track :) Hey saving for beer ain't a crime!

Tatkal rocks. Got the second last seat on the train to Varanasi for tonight. Ganga we meet at last.

Next stop Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Day3
Day2

Backpacking to... [Day 3]

The train ride was awesome. I was back in a long distance train after a really long time. And not much has changed. The toilets were still as "airy" as before and the berths couldn't accommodate the taller me. The food  though has seriously deteriorated. And boy does the thing shake. I never realized it shook sideways as much as it did.

Reached Jhansi at 2.50, spot on time and luckily found a friendly rickshaw driver who guided me to the bus stop across town. The first bus to Khajuraho is supposedly at 5am but a bus was heading to Chatrapur, some 60kms from Khajuraho, right as I got there so I jumped in. Packed to the brim there was just one butt cheek's worth of space left and I parked mine. Did I mention smoking was allowed on this bus? And boy did all the uncles light them up. So early morning beedies and second hand smoke on the ride. Survived somehow and reached Chatrapur at 6am. Had some tea and got on the 7am bus to Khajuraho.

8:15am Khajuraho. The place is a small village town dotted with a lot of hotels. Headed to Jain temples road to pick a room. The place was blistering hot even this early in the morning so I just walked into the Lonely Planet's pick and took the first room offered.
First order of business... Cold shower.

On my way here I found out that there are trains to Varanasi but on alternate nights, of course not tonite. So I am at Khajuraho for the next couple of days. The sursundaris have my undivided attention.

Backpacking to... [Day 2]

Arrived at Nagpur pretty early in the morning and after recharging the batteries I headed out to explore the city. But it looks like Sunday is taken pretty seriously out here. The place was pretty dull other than a few Anna Hazare supporters.

So back to the planning board. After a little bit of digging I decide to pursue a route into MP. One of the options that stands out is Khajurao. An ancient site of temple ruins, more famously known for the erotic sculptures than the deitys themselves.

Buses seem to be out of the question. Train station. All trains full. Get a waiting list ticket and hope for the best. Till then hop around and gorge on some lunch.  One hour before the departure time I find out that the ticket is confirmed to Jhansi.

Next stop Khajurao, M.P.

Backpacking to...

With a couple of weeks of vacations overdue and my brains certifiably fried after reviews I found myself wondering how best to spend my precious days of freedom. So I decided to go back to what I have been missing.... Backpacking...wagabond style!!

Here are the rules of the game.
1. No advance bookings for travel or lodging
Exceptions the tickets to the first destination.
2. Travel as much as possible by road/train.
Flights are the last option or on the final leg.
3. Leave as much travel as possible for the night. Yeah wayside sceneries are lost but well.
4. Be true to myself and keep things basic/frugal/cheap without getting stingy :)
5. There is no planned destination.
6. SURVIVE

Lets see how and where this goes. If nothing else i can always delete this post and run back home ;)

First stop Nagpur.

Travel me wild

It's not the journey, but the destination.

Who says you can't enjoy both. Just returned from a short trip as a part of the Skoda Yeti Right of Way Expedition. I along with another duo were selected to join the leg at Dessert National Park, right off of Jaisalmer. The organizing teams had done an awesome job in every aspect to ensure that everything was in place... Other than an early morning ride along the Samjhauta express route there were no hiccups sighted. Anything to improve neighborly relations I say. That out of the way we were brought back to our senses and the national park with some awesome eagle sightings around us. Having renowned wildlife photographer Nayan Khanolkar along with us definitely helped us learn more about all the wings we saw. Our various visits were coupled with some off-roading with the Yeti and the little package showed off its beast of an engine each time. Sly little package.

However, the presence of the two superstars I was teamed up with was what everything was about. What a difference some good company with receptive minds can make! Two cheerful "adults" who seemed to have just got the "get out of jail free - for 3 days only" card. And boy did the convicts play havoc. The conversations started mildly with a flurry of jokes, vegetarian only of course :), and covered topics like spirituality, sexuality, frozen exit points in the body from the early morning chills and a variety of camel talk. A well rounded conversation if I've ever had one? (I just hope none of it got documented in any format)

Not many pics of the trip with me. Will upload the few I have soon anyways. The NatGeo team took some snippets of me with yellow aviator shades on and a few with a camel. My best guess is that the videographer wanted to fill up some slots in "Laughter Video Challenge" or "India's Funniest Home Videos" sometime soon. You could extort money out of me to get those back man! lol!

So now after Jet airways took my boarding pass and handed me my "go straight to jail" card am back in civilization. When I sit here trying to put this down to words I remember another quote that brilliantly sums up this trip

A journey is best measured in friends rather than in miles

This one cranked up the odometer to all 9's!

CommonWealth Games Delhi 2010... are over

Ok so its over.... and hell yeah we snuck into the second place on the medal tally.. yipee..

So what sucked... Listed very much in order of suckiness
1) Suresh Kalmadi and his entourage were by far a the suckiest part of the games mess.
FOB* collapsing without this SOB under it proves that evil still rules this world.
Whats worse he didn't send me a VIP pass either.. dude.. come on we bro's ain't we?

And a very very very distant set of second, third, fourth and fifth
2) A.R. Rahman. KARO MARO PEEO JEYO. Did I hear him say this was gonna be bigger than waka waka? Dude.. just because you got a sympathy FOB** vote at the Grammy doesn't mean you have proven yourself... And dude this was your chance and did you screw it up.. I cant even remember the tune of the thing you charged 5cr for man... let alone the words. And yeah.. plzzz plzzz don't pick up the mic ever again. Spoilt brat.
3) Central Bank of India. These dipshits don't realize that today if a ticket is issued online you get to board a freakin aircraft. Why the fuck then did we need to come to the fucking branch? Was there a swayamvar planned that needed my presence there?
4) The dedicated CWG lanes... Come on I thought that the idea of hosting the games was to have the visitors enjoy our culture as well. And being stuck in never ending traffic snarls is very much a part of that. You cant just enjoy our chicken tikka, butter chicken and not sweat your ass off sitting in an auto rickshaw having to pay 10$ to get exactly 100mts from where you are [ without being informed about it by the friendly auto rickshaw walla of course]. Come on... catch the metro if you don't like the traffic.. no special treatment.
5) Sheila Dikshit... why were you sleeping all these years woman. You should've kicked ass way earlier.
6) Hate to say it but the indian men's hockey team. Come on how can you loose 8-0 in the finals. Didn't the coach insult my surds brothers enough prior to the game to rev them up?

So what rocked?
1) The entire "better than Beijing" stadium booing Suresh Kalmadi at the opening ceremony
2) Sheila Dikshit for an entirety of 3 days prior to the opening
3) Jat boyz... and no plz don't email me.. am not like that.. not yet anyways
4) Saina Nehwal... rock on girl!
5) Indian track athletes... kick ass attitude
6) India-Pak hockey match.. esp considering we won!!
7) And what rocked the most... ??? The Indian national anthem playing for all of 38 times... it ain't the Olympics but hell it sounded just as great.

* first FOB is for the foot over bridge
** second FOB is for the Fresh Off Board tag

Night Skies at Pangong Tso

Of all the things being planned the trip to Ladakh has been on the list for a very very long time. Ironically though, the decision to go was taken just 3 days prior to departure and nearly everything done last minute. But then isn't being spontaneous (read. lazy) half the fun?

People have written and talked about Leh and the amazing landscapes that it has to offer and they were all spot on. The gorgeous views on the Leh-Manali route, the shocking sand dunes in the Numbra valley, the abrupt and non seasonal snowfall at Kardungla, the precariously perched gompas at every visible horizon... everything was spot on.

But then they missed one very special thing. The heavenly views of the night skies from Pangong Lake. That I guess was the one hidden secret that was discovered during the trip there and what a well kept secret it is. For most people head out to Pangong Tso as a day trip with very few willing to bear the sub-zero (debatable :)) temperatures of the high altitude lake post sunset, which amazingly is around 7-8pm. Or maybe its simply because most people can't stomach a night in minimal accomodations available here. Sissies.

Luckily the low temperatures are never a deterrent for this thick skinned Mangy. Standing out near the lake, when you raise your head to the sky, you are greeted with the most amazing array of stars that you could ever imagine. Think of the Nehru planetarium on steroids. A 180*360 degree hemispherical view of the skies with nothing blocking your sight in any direction. The stars so bright that we could neither call out the north star nor Orion's belt, which is ever so prominent from the subcontinent. The number of stars and their intensity was something that could not be believed. While the fact that most of them twinkled like gorgeous diamonds was a spectacle in itself, you could also find trails of white clouds beyond those stars which could be star clouds or nebulae. Who knows what they were, who cares.. it was stunning!
And if that didnt satisfy your appetite for wonder - the patient few caught more than one strikingly clear shooting stars. Oh yeah, wishes were definitely made#!

Call it godly, heavenly, spiritual or just plain romantic... this is one sight that will be etched in the sanctum sanatorum of my soul and retinae for a long long time.

In fact I was told that I must apologize to everyone for not having a suitable camera on me to capture the sight. I am deeply sorry for that. And extremely ecstatic that I saw it and you didn't :P For regardless of how well one may be able to express themselves through words there are some things that just need to be experienced!

What a night!


For rest of the experience in pictures.. see these

Just got Leh'ed

Sports are finally back on Indian Televisions

Da beautiful game is back with the fifa World Cup 2010... Finally some sports on the desi telly.

Gear up guys. Rainfall 2010 is gonna be anything but normal

Assurance from our brothers at the IMD

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 ?