My hands were itching for blogging something good!!! Was not getting for long time!! Got it now 🙂 The following incidents are REAL with an Agmark stamp on it 🙂
The gang: Sankar, Sanjeev, Sriram, Murugan (new member to our gang) and Obviously Me. We daily go for tea. Sometimes talk.. Sometimes, play foosball.. Don’t ask whether we really spend 1 hour for tea!!! (Did I reveal something that is not supposed to be???)
Attempt 1: Towards the end of last year, In our tea time, we were discussing about going somewhere. And we said we’ll go to Goa. We talked abt it for sometime and some more time and then, we decided not to talk about it anymore. (As it was just in talks!!!)
Attemp 2: A couple of months back, we decided to go to Dharmasthala. We decided and fixed on a date. But on that day, Me and Sriram had some bugs to fix and Sanjeev had to go somewhere. And, we proved the world that we cannot implement a plan.
Attempt 3: This time Murugan joined our gang. This time, again, we discussed about a trip and decided on Dharmasthala. But, based on previous experiences, we decided to collect money from all in advance. Term & Condition (Usually Terms & Conditions. As we are intelligent [Told you that this is real in first line itself.], we identified the factor that will not allow any drop outs. ) Money will be collected in advance. It is NON-REFUNDABLE. And Murugan booked a Tempo Traveller immediately. And we decided on a date and we started on that day.
The trip:
Friday night:
I went to Sankar’s house that evening so that we’ll have one less place to stop 🙂 and as I am the only bachelor in the gang. The cab left bangalore by 11 and then started fun.. 🙂 We were watching movies in the bus and some of our guys did a night out.. Watched back to back movies and didn’t sleep through out!! I slept. (Advantage of being a bachelor 😉 ).
Saturday:
We went to Dharmasthala temple on Saturday Morning. Had a good Dharshan of god. Then came back and had rest for sometime. In the evening we went to the Bahubali temple nearby. On return, we only the guys went for a night walk. We sat near the old car museum. Talked for a while and came back to room and slept. Nothing eventful.
Sunday:
We started around 8:30 – 9:00 in the morning to Kokke Subrahmanya temple. (On the way home). There also we god a good dharshan. Had cucumber with chilli powder.. (After a looong time) and decided to leave around 12:30. So that we’ll reach Bangalore by 8 or 9 at night and will be able to go to office next day.
The return:
The fun begins 🙂 We started and around 1:15 or so, we were on the Mangalore highway!!! Suddenly, our cab stopped. We were seeing fumes from our engine. The driver said that engine became hot and so we have to wait for sometime. We were roaming around the place and spent around half an hour. But the time engine cooled down. Again we started around 2:00. We would not even gone more than a couple of kilometers and again the engine started fuming.. And our driver found that there was a fan cable and that got cut.. We have to change it to go further.. This happened around 2:15 or so.. Then he said, he’ll go to town and get a new cable.. I think the nearest town was round 30-35 kilometers. And it will take around 1 hour to get to the town because of the road (curved) and lot of container vehicles going on…
We were in the middle of highway. That area is a mountain area and so we didn’t had cellphone signal. We didn’t had lunch and as it is around 2:30, everybody started feeling hungry. Suddenly, my brain (though it is a tubelight, sometime it does!!!) started glowing. We had maggi and Sanjeev has brought his small gas cylinder. The reason is, Sanjeev wanted to give the kids some warm food.. He has lot of experience in going wild/trekking :). So he had brought it.. Then we started preparing maggi for everybody and had it. Like this we finished lunch around 3:30. Don’t ask how many of us had full lunch 🙂
After this, Sanjeev was looking around in his binoculars and found a bird watch tower somewhere. So we decided to go for a small trekking to it. Sanjeev, Me and Sanjeev’s daughter went for the trekking. She is not more than 4 years and she walked through the forest. She really did.. For some places, he carried her. But, most of the places, she walked by herself. The tower was near and we climbed on it. It was old and it was not maintained for a long time. So we could not actually go the shed that was there at the top. We went till the top most step. We spent a few minutes there and came back down around 4:30.
Still the driver was not back.. We used Sankar’s digicam and we took an interview of the Project Managers we had. (Murugan and Sanjeev). I was the compeering and Sankar was the camera man. We just pulled the managers’ legs 🙂 And towards the end, they have decided to send somebody to the town to see what happened to the driver. Atleast we can call him from a place where we can get signal and ask about the status.. I was asked to go voluntarily 😉 to the town as I am the only bachelor (Disadvantage of being one). To my luck the driver came exactly at 5:00 with the new cable.
He tried to fit the cable. But, as it is a new cable it was very tight and as he didn’t had this experience before, he could not fit it. So we tried a bit but nothing happened. We decided to stop other cabs and ask them for help. Meanwhile, there came an oil container lorry. It didn’t even cross our cab and suddenly the joining rod (in the lorry) broke and it stopped there itself. By that time, we had stopped a cab and that driver was helping us to fit the cable. While this was happening, there was a tata indicab and that too broke down 🙂 It didn’t start for some time. On seeing that, the person who has hired the other cab (the one who was helping us), started hurrying his driver. It was as if he was telling, “Let us get the hell out of this damned place :)” And then they left. But, before going, that driver has given our driver a tip on how to fit the cable. And, as the container lorry was stopped in the middle of the road, I did some traffic police job and helped the lorry driver to get his lorry to the side of the road. Meanwhile, the tata indicab too left.
After all these, our driver could fit the cable at 7 and we started leaving. The good thing was, there was no rain and there was enough brightness till the time we left. (No lights there!! Only natural light.)
On the return, we just pulled Sriram’s legs before his wife and other than that the rest of the travel was uneventful. And, yes, we had heavy dinner at night 🙂 Finally, we reached Bangalore by 1:45 midnight.
So far, this is one of my unforgettable travel 🙂