Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Bhadra and Muthodi – It is not just about the tigers !

Which of these would get you hooked - The rawness of Muthodi sanctuary with its only human inmates: the forest officials or the vastness of Bhadra with the classic and expensive treatment of Jungle Lodges? If you are still looking for an answer, reading what I’ve got to say will surely not help. And if you bother to go there, I can promise it won’t help you either!
Bhadra and Muthodi are neighbours in stark contrast. They share borders, they are just a couple of hours drive apart, but possess very different personalities. Muthodi doesn’t welcome you; you have to find your way in, while Bhadra spreads the carpet for its guests. Deep in the jungle at Muthodi, scorpions & creepy insects give you company around your bed in the single room guest house; in Bhadra, you stretch out with a chilled bottled drink to the sight of sun setting into the vast Bhadra reservoir. Take your four wheel power into the forest in Muthodi, while in Bhadra you are driven around in safari jeeps. At night in Muthodi, you might find yourself tuning your ears for that distant roar and other unfamiliar noises of the jungle; while nights in Bhadra cannot be christened anything but romantic. At Muthodi, insects around you and that slight chill in your spine demands more vigil at nights; whereas in Bhadra you pass out quickly and for long. Muthodi is raw energy and solitary solace, Bhadra is made for a nature lover’s honeymoon.
6+ hours drive from Bangalore one way, consuming at least a weekend plus a day for the whole course; you also discover something that is common between both: The scents, the colours, the different sounds, and the contrasts in both Muthodi and Bhadra stays with you. And if you did not spot any of Bhadra’s own majestic creatures, remember: ‘It is not just about the tigers!’
You can reach Muthodi via Chikmagalur (ask around for directions at Chikmagalur). It is preferable to book at any forest office (http://www.wildindia.org/wiki/Muthodi Bangalore/Chikmagalur) before you go there but then negotiating with the officials on the spot for a room wouldn’t be a bad option either. Proceed to ‘Jungle Lodges’ Bhadra from there, again via Chikmagalur and Kadur. Check out some Chikmagalur maps / http://www.junglelodges.com/.

Monday, March 24, 2008

...Ladakh - The ascend henceforth (contd from the previous blog)

Manali is reached by a million (err or maybe a huge number of) people round the year. The place is always teeming with newly weds (first attempt), families with one kid (for the second attempt), families with two kids (for the third attempt), families with a few kids (don’t know why) and a lot of grass. Grass grows freely around Manali. And here we begin our real ascent.
The bikes raced along well on very good roads (compared to the subsequent phases of our journey) always leading upstairs until Rohtang. On a bright sunny day, with temperatures around 5-10 degrees C, something strikes you instantly as you reach Rohtang – the invisible but obvious message from everything around you, “good bye and good luck for the next god-knows-how-many days”. Rohtang –> Chandra Valley –> Koksar –> Tandi all covered in a day quite uneventfully except when Nestor overrode the rest of us and waited 100 kms and 4 hours away, when we stocked 40 litres of petrol from the last station before Leh (365 kms apart), drank a lot of tea, and remained mesmerized by the indescribable beauty and enormity of the strange terrain. We stayed over at Keylong and started afresh for the next leg of the journey which to me was when the program shifted from being an ambitious bike trip to raw extreme adventure. So much so that for the next few days until we reached Leh, my mouth remained closed only when I slept at night, unlike when I am at sea level (where the reverse is true). Hurdles unseen – Snow, melted snow streams taking away parts of the road, landslides, diversions – military clearing landslide deposits, freezing water, chill winds, lack of oxygen, unfathomable elevations (tops three highest motorable roads), lack of greenery – an eerie monotonous brown terrain, broken-down vehicles, blinding & burning sun, drizzles that drill through your skin, unmotorable roads, bikes & bodies misbehaving and sheer exhaustion – all accompanied us through Darcha -> ZingZing Bar -> Baralacha La –> Sarchu –> Lachlang La –> Pang –> Tanglang La until Rumtse and prepared us to expect the worst. And the worst was awaiting us.
Rumtse was an uncomfortable stop, all of us drenched, shivering and staring down at the only kerosene stove available to warm us, leaking. We all agreed to the idea of pushing on for another 15 kms to Upshi, the gateway to Ladakh. Let me take you with me and look back at we got into. I was the first in line, wading through slippery but thin layers of slush, concentrating on every meter ahead and just about aware of my friends behind. It was past dusk and was getting dark when we realized the slush was from a huge landslide ahead and saw two trucks stuck in it while there was just enough space for one. I moved with constant jerks, pushing the bike with the luggage behind to move inch by inch and avoiding slipping over / sinking into the dirt. I thought I heard Dixie and Nestor encouraging me to accelerate and push. I tilted, firmed my feet on the ground and slowly but steadily pushed my bike between the truck and solid earth (the mountain on my left). It felt like a trap, being taken through a funnel that finally got me into a spot where I couldn’t move forward or return, and all along I could only hear, and hear just the bike and the Indus roar. As I got past the truck and into the open road, I pushed harder at the bike, made it across the vast dirt pool that felt like jelly. As I parked my bike, hung my helmet and removed the footwear from my dirt covered legs, I turned around and saw none behind me. It was dark and I was stranded. Should I proceed to Upshi and wait there or trace back the worst part of the whole journey all over again searching for my friends? I started walking back, calling out loud at my friends. My first guess was that they might be stranded near the truck, but in any case I should hear back from them, and I didn’t. I moved on slowly, very scared and glancing every now and then at the faint picture of the roaring Indus on my left when suddenly I saw a light flashing. The same LED flashlight we had bought at Manali. I was relieved, and not by any small proportion. I gathered pace and met with my “long lost” friends at the spot where the trucks were stranded. Was it because the truck skidded or the earth itself, suddenly there was no space for the bikes to move through the gap that I had just about 15 minutes ago. But all that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that we are together and the rest can be “engineered”. We managed to get past the obstacles albeit with a lot of trouble and lot more obstacles, “wet all over with temperatures a little over freezing, more than eager to see another local human, riding on a bike on a three meter wide road with huge boulders ready to roll down the hill slopes on your left and Indus river flowing unlike anything you’ve ever seen before on your right, shadows of huge stones floating in it’s currents and the threat of another crippling landslide awaiting you around the next curve” reminded me of all the forgotten prayers which I repeated over and over till we slept in a makeshift “guest room” at Upshi.
Next few days we were at Leh and several places around it, this time on bikes without the luggage. Khardung La, the highest motorable road, Mahesh ventured to Pangong Lake and the rest of us to a rave organized by a local restaurant, location-undisclosed-follow-our-bus party (call me for detailsJ) as we thoroughly soaked-in Leh. We decided to be spectators than actors with predicted tough weather on our return back to Manali, and we hired a jeep. Heavy snowfall couldn’t stop us from reaching Manali in about 15 hours, since we were helped by significantly lesser number of “surprise” rivers across the roads. We reached Delhi from Manali overnight, and were among the daring countable few venturing to fly out of Delhi on Independence day amidst all the threats (well, either we didn’t care or it was too weak a threat than what we have been encountering in the last few days, damn it!). On the plane, someone exclaimed about the “romance” about a trip over the Himalayas. Romance? On Himalayas? The only sign of it on the Himalayas I can recall is this signboard on the road near Keylong that read, “Dear traveler, please be gentle on my curves”!
God, I was so happily enjoying the lovely green Bangalore as we circled above the Hindustan International Airport.
A few tips: It took us 15 days for the round trip (which is seriously good enough), have a route map (from which you would almost certainly deviate 3/4th of the time), carry entertainment material (except fm radios which is more likely to catch some Chinese which you may not understand), carry enough material to cover you (summer in Leh is slightly different from summer in Kerala), Travel with friends who know Hindi (Morning prayers, Kendriya Vidyalaya pride songs and 10 years of learning CBSE syllabus Hindi will terribly fall short), for bike repair tips and inventory, please do ping me /bike experts (talking to me is more relaxing than riding on those roads after realizing you forgot to replace your old tires), medically / physically prepare for the altitude, and search the internet for tips :)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Ladakh – where moonlight blinds you

Ladakh – Good to read, not so good to reach. Ladakh – more Israeli than Indian. Ladakh – where sun burns your skin in two hours. Ladakh – like a chameleon, changes color every season. Ladakh – where not one visitor would have left without uttering, “Yeah, finally”. Ladakh – final frontier of an avid traveler. Ladakh – as alien to a malayalee as bucket in an American toilet. For me, Ladakh on a bike was one ride too many!
I realized, malayalees take nature and its blessing, the greenery for granted. More than once during the trip, I thought and shared with my colleagues that a Keralite should be made to visit Ladakh at least once. At nine in the night, wet all over with temperatures a little over freezing, more than eager to see another local human, riding on a bike on a three meter wide road with huge boulders ready to roll down the hill slopes on your left and Indus river flowing unlike anything you’ve ever seen before on your right, shadows of huge stones floating in it’s currents and the threat of another crippling landslide awaiting you around the next curve is a decent enough combination to make you remember all the prayers your mom taught you and you’ve refused to remember since you joined engineering college. Once in Ladakh, I was depressed more often for the lack of greenery than oxygen. It looks too barren, lifeless like moon’s surface. The beauty of enormity and monotony demands more than your entire life’s training, your conventional wisdom, to be appreciated.
I was warned, I was coaxed against it, but somehow was determined to break off the sickening routine and blend into what was exclaimed as a slow transition from the most planned city in India (Chandigarh) into the “virgin-ness” of the country’s most famed heights. While setting our bikes up for the task, not once did I believe Mahesh that the instrument in its current shape wouldn’t take me all the way. In less than a week, I realized how important the initial make-over and the spares were! We packed them off to chandigarh a couple of days before setting out for what turned out to be the most adventurous journey of my life.Chandigarh was cool, relaxed and to Nestor, Mags & me, everything seemed rosy then. Kudos to GATI, they did an amazing job of transporting our bikes. We picked up a few last minute items, replaced tubes, oil, Mahesh’s camera, checked our emission, and rode off to Manali by noon. Dixie had made it a day earlier and was awaiting us at Manali, all stocked up!
To be continued...

Monday, January 14, 2008

LBS and you...

Well into the eighth year after graduation and a few grey hair above my forehead (not to mention the ones behind my ear), I have realized that it is too ambitious to hope that the ghosts (spelled fairies!) of your past will leave you. I believe the four years of “myLBS” has sown enough to last for the next eight years and most likely the rest of my life. My observations range from gatherings with an LBS lineage and otherwise, I’ve been surprised and quite often confused at the consistency with which any of these meetings fail to end without a mention of it. And if you have a larger gathering of the former kind, all sorts of ghosts come back haunting.

You land up at your friend’s place and the four of you huddle around a bottle of single malt, the discussions and memories apparently shoot back to the Meghraj days (the only bar in ksd then) when the same eternally cash starved friends used to sink bottles of AJ rum (Rs twenty a quarter), mind you, without water or soda (the secret is to block your nose when you pour the liquid down)!.....when you pull out a couple of hundred rupee notes for the ticket to that mal movie in PVR, you glance back and smile at your friend standing next to you who is also thinking of queing up in the sun at Roopesh, Mehboob, (I am painfully refraining from mentioning “Kanyaka”) with a ten rupee note lining your pocket ….When you pull out a hundred bucks for a pack of “Goldflake Kings” and wait for the change, in the back of your mind you are solving, “how much do I still owe Hameecha for all the beedis I have borrowed and left without a trace?”….You are rushing into a meeting when you are suddenly consumed by this urge to call your ol’ pal whom you are still in touch with and remind him of the party meeting just about to start in room # 203, first floor, men’s hostel “dei, oru kettu beediyum edutho, just in case”…and you don’t need no occasion to remember the story of your good friend who is seeing the computer lab for the first time for his university exam, typing in “Pleasecome-onC” to open the Borland editor!...and for a very few lucky fellas who are getting married know they will have an explanation to make about the memento sitting pretty in their living room – the best “couple” in college – indeed a sinking feeling…driving a spanking new car out of your parking to your grocery store just a turn away, you think of the umpteenth time you have walked back thirteen kms to your hostel after the late-night film!....

In internet terminology “LBSCE” is among the top 5 “keywords” of our lives, and in google terminology, it has gathered a pretty impressive “page rank”!

In the end I have given up, I tried but there is no way I am getting over the intoxicating four years of my life. But can I pass it on?
For current students: Traditionally at LBS, there has been more to life being in the back benches that the front ones and more to life being outside the buildings than the back benches!
For the alumni: As you read this, in your current capacity, what is it that can make you a great ambassador? And what is it that the college can gain from it?
Institute a cash award for the top 3 academic projects done inhouse? Sponsor a domain and hosting the college website? Help students spin projects around it? personally conduct sessions on tech trends, industry trends, job opportunities within and outside IT? Arent building impressive resumes, presentation skills, communication skills etc trainable and key to a graduate’s prospects? Help students network, reach out and present to the HRs of different companies that we work for? Or even more ambitiously, help find funding and market the ideas to be taken beyond the campus? Arent a lot of us making money from the internet doing a lot of unconventional things? and so on ...

Take a little time to pool in your ideas…and of course your memories :)

Cheers,
Anoop