Playing with the Grandmaster

On Thursday, 21st Dec, 2006, Grand Master Vishwanthan Anand visited Sun Microsystems office and I had the privilege to play a game of rapid chess with him. It is a great feeling to shake hands and get an autograph from the world No.2.
I took a few pictures and autograph on the chess board. After the game of chess, we had an informal chat session with him. He has a good sense of humor.

More pictures HERE

140 KPH and going ....

Speed is the name of the game. As I always say, there is only one way and that is the 'High way'. The highway could not elude me for long and I had to hit it on my Baleno. The destination too had eluded me for long, which was none other than the famous ChitraDurga fort.
People generally ask me for places to visit around Bangalore. ChitraDurga is an ideal place for a one day outing, as it is only 200 KMs from Bangalore. Approach to this place is excellent. One can start in the early morning and return back to Bangalore on the same day. ( See also Places to visit around bangalore )
I had wanted to visit this place for a long time and finally the time had come. I had to get a few enthusiasts who could join me during the trip. It was hard finding people who would not mind waking up at 4.30 a.m. on a Sunday and start the journey. After making a lot of phone calls, finally I could convince 2 of my cousins (vijay and Nanda) and 2 of my engineering class mates (guru and chaitanya) to come with me.
After picking up everyone, we reached the outskirts of Bangalore by 6.15 AM. We set out on Tumkur road, and there was already a fair amount of traffic at that time. We reached Tumkur by 7.00 AM and stopped for break fast. Then we continued on the NH4 to ChitraDurga. This particular stretch of road between Tumkur and ChitraDurga is really very very good. It just reminded me of the free ways in the USA, with the only difference being that there were no entry and exits. But otherwise, the road is one of the best roads I have traveled in India. One can really test the Max speeds of the car on this stretch and I was trying the same on my Baleno.
There are a lot of wind mills all along the route. This is the only place in karnataka where wind energy is utilized. We reached ChitraDurga by around 9.30 a.m. And headed straight to the fort where we hired a guide to show us around the fort. They have a lot of things to tell us about the history of the fort. The famous song from kannada movie 'NagaraHaavu' explains the history of this place very nicely. 'Obavvana Kindi' is the most popular spots inside the fort, from where, the soldiers from the army of Hyder Ali tried to enter the fort, during their war against the 'Madakari Naayaka', the ruler of ChitraDurga. To our surprise, there was a Kannada film being shot inside the fort and we saw none other than the famous kannada film actor/director Upendra shooting for his film 'ParoDi'.
There are a couple of good hotels in ChitraDurga where one can go for lunch. After lunch we went to 'ChandravaLLi thoTa'. There is a small lake and an underground cave at this place. We did the mistake of entering the cave without a torch and that's probably the reason why we had more fun. There is pitch darkness inside the cave and luckily we had a cell phone with a torch without which it would have been impossible to take a single step. We got lost multiple times inside the cave and started going in circles. Finding the way out was quite fun as each time we took a different route, we would land back in the same place we had started from. We saw many groups like ours looking for the proper exit out of the cave. Outside the cave there are some beautiful and magnificent rocks. October to February is the best time to visit this place as this is a dry region and the rocks would be extremely hot during other times.
On the way back, if one has time, can go to a 'Jogi Matti' which I have heard is famous for high speed winds. Due to shortage of time, we did not go to this place. On the way back, near hiriyur, we took a deviation of around 20 kms from NH4 to reach the 'Vanivilas sagar' dam. This place is also popularly called 'Maari kaNive'. We reached this place by 4.00 p.m. The weather was ideal. We took a walk on the dam from where we could see a lot of wind mills on all the surrounding hills. We took a coracle ride in the dam waters with the cool evening breeze hitting our face. This is place not to be missed when one goes to ChitraDurga. After spending around 45 min. at the dam, we headed back to Bangalore, stopping in between at Tumkur for some refreshments.

Place: ChitraDurga
Distance: 200 km from Bangalore
How to reach: Excellent roads from Bangalore.
Time: 3 - 4 hours by road
Best time to visit: Sept. to Feb.
Places of interest : Jogi Matti, VaniVilas sagar Dam

More pictures here

- Nagendra HK

what sex is your brain

This is not about the relationship between man and woman, but about how your brain works.
It is all about
- how emphatizer are you,
- whether you have an engineer's brain or not,
- about how you can read people's emotions.
- etc

Want to find out how your brain works, take the test (This will take around 30 minutes)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/

On Top of Savanadurga

It had been a very long time I had trekked or climbed. It was an instataneous decision. I asked my cousin Nanda, if we was game for a climb to Savanadurga. He too is a very enthu guy when it comes to traveling and was game for it. We decided about going there at 10.30 PM the previous day and started at 6.00 AM next day. This was atleast my 5th visit to this place.

SavanaDurga is one of the largest monolithic rock in Asia. It is always debated with Madhugiri betta (hillock). The Savandurga hills are frequented by pilgrims who come to visit the Savandi Veerabhadreshwara Swamy and Narasimha Swamy temple sited at the foothills.

To reach Savanadurga, one has to travel for an hour on Magadi road from Bangalore. We stopped by for a small round of break fast. We reached our destination by around 8.00 AM. It roughly takes an hour to climb the peak. I would advise anyone trying to climb Savanadurga to carry lots of water and some snacks. If you are not physically fit, the climb could be a little tiresome. It is always better to start early in the morning.
It gets difficult to climb as the day progresses due to the heat.


We clicked a lot of pictures during the climb which slowed our progress. After an hour's climb, with a couple of breaks in between, we reached the top in an hour. On weekends there are quite a few climbers who come there. From the top, one can view TippaguNDanaHaLLi reservoir, which is one of the drinking water sources for Bangalore. There is a small broken temple at the top and a statue of Nandi.








After spending an hour on the top and clicking a few more pictures, we descended and headed for home.








click here for more pictures

My first car

I finally fulfilled one of my big dreams. I bought my first car on 29th sept, 2006. The wait had been long, but I think it was worth it. I bought a Maruti Baleno.



Now the highway is just waiting for me. There is only one way and that is the high way.










Some of my good friends had come to visit me to wish me on my new car. It was a day off for everyone as there was a strike in the city. So everyone landed at home and we had a small get-together with some snacks.










Thats my house and car in the frame along with my close friends.

Solve this

http://www.freestuffhotdeals.com/hacker/1.html

Hint: google and wikipedia can give you a lot of answers

House boat Experience

It had been my dream to go in a house boat for a long time. I had been thinking about it and planning for a while. A few months ago, during my first year wedding anniversary, I had made all plans to go to kerala and take a house boat for a day. But due to some other constraints, I had to cancel my plans. After this incident, I was even more eager to take the house boat trip. Finally I decided that I could not wait any longer and hence started to plan my trip for the Aug 15th break. I had to go to Alleppey which is 65 KMs from cochin (which is overnight journey from bangalore in a bus or a train) to take a houseboat.
Inspite of planning the trip almost 2 months in advance, I could not get train reservations on the dates I wanted to travel. So I finally planned my trip as per the availability of trains. I spoke to a travel agent, who agreed to give me the boat after Aug 15. This was the first time the three of us (myself, mom and sandhya) were going on a long vacation.
The plan was to stay in a Hotel in Alleppey for a night and the next day take the boat house and then return to bangalore. On 13th night, we boarded the kanyakumari express from bangalore railway station. After settling down in our seats, we had our dinner which we had packed from home. As this was the starting point for the train, there was no pantry service. Then we all hit the bed. I was woken up in the middle of the night as someone was moving around in our compartment. A fellow passenger was trying to pull the emergency chain. When I asked him what happened, then he told me that he was trying to switch on the light as he had to find his chappal to go to the restroom. I couldn't stop myself from laughing at his ignorance. I was woken up at around 6.00 AM with the sounds of 'chhaaaya ,... chaaaya' and 'kaaaapi......kaaaapi'. People who have travelled in trains in india would know that these were the guys trying to sell chai (Tea) and coffee. I couldn't sleep for long with these disturbances and hence got down from my seat and walked up to the door. The train had stopped in Palakkad station. The weather was very pleasant. It had just stopped raining. I got down from the train to strech myself. When, the train started again, it passed through some lush green fields. There was an overflowing river which was flowing in the direction of the train, which added to the beauty of the route.
The train reached Ernakulam station by 9.45 AM and the travel agent Nivi was waiting for us there.
We had to reach Alleppey which was about 65km from the station. As we were hungry, we asked Nivi to stop at some nice place for breakfast. He took us to 'Sarovaram' . We had very good breakfast at this place. I was very impressed by the service, ambience and food at this place. I can recommend this hotel to people visiting cohcin. Nivi told us that this was one of the best vegetarian resturants in cochin. After breakfast we took an hour to reach Alleppey . All this while, it was raining on and off. Sometimes it would rain so heavily that the visibility would get reduced to less than 50 mts and within 10 minutes we would get clear sky. I had already booked a room in hotel Royale Park and we checked in by noon. Except for some communication problem with the house keeping boys, I was very happy with the hotel. Except for the people in reception, no one could speak english. But with our broken Tamil, we managed our way. By evening, we went to the beach. The beach was around 3.5 kms from the hotel. The sky was clear when we reached the beach. Mom and sandhya were quite busy playing with the waves and collecting shells from the beach and I was busy clicking pictures. I might have clicked around a 100 photos on that day. Fisherman were getting in to the sea in their boats for fishing . There were quite a few tourists around. We took a long walk on the beach watching the changing patterns of the sky . The clouds started getting thicker and darker giving us clear indication of heavy rain. So we walked in to a resturant close by for some coffee. It had become quite dark now, so I went in search of an auto rickshaw leaving mom and sandhya behind. Found an auto after walking some distance in heavy rain. After a nice dinner at the hotel, we retired for the day.

Next day morning, I woke up early, to go to the beach and jog. I walked 3.5 kms in the rain. There was hardly anyone in the beach. As usual, there were many fishermen busy with their work. Having watched them work for some time, I jogged for 2 kms on the beach and then returned to the hotel. Then we all had our breakfast and reached 'finishing point' where had to start our boat journey. The travel agent was waiting for us and quickly ushered us to the House boat.

The houseboat experiece is amazing. You get a full boat for yourself. The boat has a good room (roughly 10 X 10 ft) with attached bathroom. The rooms have mosquito nets and fans. The boat also comes with a kitchen, a 10 X 10 portico with sofas, dining table and more seating. Some boats come with an upper deck for better site seeing. At some extra cost, you can get boats with AC, TV and hot water shower too. There will be 3 people at your service (1 cleaner, 1 driver and 1 cook). They provide 2 meals, evening snacks and a breakfast for you. You can ask them to cook anything for you. I have been told that non veg dishes are very good. You will be on the boat for around 20 to 22 hours. The boats come from Rs 4,000 during off season to Rs 20,000 during peak season. It all depends on how you can bargain with your travel agent. The boats come with one to three rooms. Up to 3 families can take a big boat. This way the cost will come down.
The rates are less during the monsoon.
My package included pick up and drop from cochin and cochin site seeing. I did my bookings from
bangalore. Though this is off peak season, my booking happened to be a semi peak season owing to
two reasons
1. the famous boat race (which was on aug 12th)
2. The long weekend (aug 15th) for Indian Independence day.

The same boats were priced at Rs 15,000 during the boat race. So, even though, I had booked a 2 room houseboat ,I could get a single room houseboat after I landed in cochin, the reason given was that the 2 room houseboat had a engine failure and the agent had to borrow the boat from someone else. I was not totally convinced.

Once the boat starts from alleppey the experience is wonderful. Alleppey town has picturesque canals, backwaters and lagoons, and is described as the "Venice of the East". This trip made me realize why kerala is called 'Gods own country'. The boat passes through many villages in the backwaters. We could see that almost every house in the villages owned a small boat. The boats departs from Allepey at around 12.00 pm to return back to the starting point the next day. The boat stopped for lunch for an hour. The lunch included rice, sambar, 2 vegetable dishes, curd, papads, kheer, and kerala special dish aviyal. After lunch we spent some time playing cards. The boats stop where ever you want. You can take a walk in the picturesque locales. I preferred to stay within the boat as it was difficult to take my mom out of the boat many times. All during the trip, the weather was very good. It was cloudy all the time with occasional rains and clear sky. Evening we all sat on the upper deck of the boat to enjoy a lovely view . We could see many govt. motor boats which would ferry people from one place to other. People use boats as thier primary mode of transport in this place like people use buses in other places in India. Tea was served where we were sitting. At around 5.30 pm, the boat stopped at one of the villages. We could see smaller boats which were used to ferry people from one side river to the other. Milkman used smaller boats to supply milk .
We were told that all the boats would stop for the night at different villages. The fisherman would also get busy during evening. We sat outside enjoying the rest of the day light, but couldn't sit there longer as mosquitos got busy with there acts. So we went in to the room and started playing cards. The cook served us hot pakodas while we played cards. We had a light lunch and then hit the bed. The boat would sway gently when motor boats passses by. I realized how the kids would feel when they were put in cradles.
Next day morning I woke up early to enjoy the morning weather in the backwaters. We took shower and then breakfast was served. The boat started by around 8.00 am and reached alleppey back by 9.30 am. I was feeling sad that the wonderful trip was coming to an end. I noticed that all the boats were heading back finishing their trips.
At Alleppey, my travel agent was waiting for us. He picked us up and took us on a site seeing trip of kerala. We stopped again at Hotel sarovaram for breakfast. We were so impressed by the food their that we returned to the same place for lunch as well. After visiting a couple of places in cochin, we went on the marine drive in the evening which passed through the cochin ship yard. After an hour's boat ride in the sea, we headed towards the railway station. On the route we stopped to by some sweets and famous kerala banana chips for our friends and relatives. The trip back to bangalore was less eventful. Overall, it was a very memorable trip.

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One weekend in the USA

I was in the US on an business visit during feb 2005. On one of the weekends, I was with my close pals Junaid and Pavan. We were having dinner and were thinking of what to do on the weekend. Pavan was on google finding out the places to visit. At 9.20 p.m, he said that we could go to death valley. But we didn't have a car and we had to rent one. We couldn't rent a car so late in the night. The only place where we could rent a car was San Francisco airport which was 50 miles away and, the last train to SFO was at 9.40 PM, i.e, we had 20 minutes to catch the train. We had still not completed having our dinner. We quickly finished eating and started out of the house at 9.30 p.m. The railway station was 2 kms away from where we stayed. There was no time to call a taxi. We started running and reached the station 3 minutes before the train arrived. Pavan quickly fished out some change to buy tickets and bought the tickets. We then boarded the train to reach SFO airport and rented a car at 12.30 AM on saturday.
We went on a really long drive on saturday. Covered 800 miles (around 1300 KM) in less than 24 hours. This was the longest journey I have done on road in the shortest interval of time. We wanted to go to Death valley, but after 5 hours of drive, decided to change the plans a little and headed towards King canyon national park. En route, we reached a place called lake isabelle . It was a huuuuge lake stretching miles together. It was surrounded by mountain peaks on all sides. It reminded me of leh ladakh photos I had seen. It was a cold desert. There was not much vegetation around. But the approach to the place was through hilly terrain with a deep valley on one side, with a river flowing. It was very picturesque. We headed towards king canyon from lake isabelle with the idea of reaching SFO via yosemite. The peak we were supposed to reach was 9000 ft above sea level. The route welcomed us with snow peak mountains. A sudden change of climate from a warm sunny weather to snow and some chill weather. There were more rivers and waterfalls on the route. There was a heavy snow in that region the previous week and the route was closed. So we couldn't proceed much further from there.
We retraced our route and headed back to lake isabelle. We had now circled the lake. We headed to SFO through Sequoia National Park. More mountains, more snow, and lot of fog welcomed us. The visibility dropped to 20 mts. There were really very sharp curves with slippery roads. At 4.00 p.m we felt that it was 7.00 PM. 27 miles in those snow mountains took us close to an hour.
Now the vegetation changed completely. It was now a green carpet for miles together. Lush green meadows with cows, horses and ranches all around. The country side here is really beautiful. Probably, only on the country side you will find children playing on the streets.
By around 12.30 a.m we reached SFO airport back. After returning the car, we took a train and headed back home. We were shivering when we reached home at 2.30 a.m. It was a very memorable weekend for me.

To view the entire gallery, click here

Air Crash near my house

On 27th dec 2005 morning, there was an army aircraft crash near my house (less than 1/2 km). My
sister and my nephew samarth, (who were at my house for christmas vacation) were the eye witness to the crash. My sis was drying clothes and samarth was playing on the terrace when they saw an aircraft (may be one of the MIG 29s) which had caught fire flying very low. They saw the pilots jumping off the aircraft and soon after the aircaft burst in to huge flames.


Lucky, it missed my house and fell in a no man's land. One of the pilots was stuck to an electrical cable in a parachute. Sis was telling me that everything happened as though she was watching a movie. 1000 people had assembled near the house. Two choppers came and took the pilots away

Riding in kerala

From article from web describing the experiences of riding a bullet in kerala. Really liked this one. Read on.


So the beeping thing -- If I beep like hell -- I'd be shot for this in the US -- all the way through the town, I'm okay. I don't even have to brake. Better yet, if I shift so the engine is straining like those guys with bumblebee engines AND I beep, well, that's even better.

So here are the beeping rules.

Beep all the way through villages.
Beep at blind curves.
Beep at people standing in groups on the curb.
Beep at all men under 30, under any circumstances.*
Beep at all bicyclists.**
Beep at all motorcyclists carrying wife and baby.***
Beep at all animals. Beep at all groups of schoolchildren, especially boys.****
Beep at intersections.
Beep at bridges.
Beep at bus stops.
Beep when thinking about overtaking.
Beep upon having decided to overtake.
Beep upon overtaking.
Beep as being overtaken.
Beep before you turn, slow down, speed up, or think of doing anything but maintaining current speed and position.
Beep if you haven't beeped in a little while.
footnotes

*Men under thirty they're immortal. Apparently, until a man is about 30 he believes that he can step out in front of a truck and live through it. Men over 30, more often than not, tend to look before they step into the road. This rule of nature is, of course, overridden by the rule of lungi. A lungi is the ankle-length cloth that men here wear tied around their waists. Of course they can't just leave it at that. They must always be adjusting the lungi, because the lungi is at any time uncomfortable. Now tell me, if you're a grown man and you've got a piece of cloth wrapped about one and a half times around your waist and legs do you think you might be uncomfortable? So you'd be messing with it all the time. Here's what you do. You pull the bottom of it from your ankles and fold it up and tuck it under what's tied around your waist, so now you are wearing a mini-lungi which allows your knees to be freed so you can walk. But still, maybe it's not really practical, maybe you want to bend over and do some work or ride a bicycle or something and don't want it all to hang out. So you'd pull the ends of the lungi around and pass them between your legs and tuck them up into the part that's tied around your waist, making a kind of balloony shorts. But that kind of gets uncomfortable, too, and will eventually need to be adjusted. Personally, I think that if men here started wearing pants a lot more would get done. Like, they could pay attention to the road, work, walk, talk, eat, and take a pee without having to be majorly adjusting their lungies. It's a common sight to see a grown man walking down the street holding the ends of his skirt up, absently trying on different tie-styles, open and closing it, tucking it, hitching it, tying it, pulling at it... It talks a lot of time, this lungi thing.

** Many bicyclists are quite competent, but many are boys under 16 carrying boys under 16 and the front wheel of his bicycle is wavering wildly, indicating either a desire to turn in front of you or a complete loss of control. I haven't yet figured out which, but at any rate, the effect is the same. Accident.

***Motorcyclists carrying wife, sidesaddle in a sari no less, who is, in turn, cradling a few-months old baby in her arms seemingly quite unconcerned that her husband is taking turns at a 45 degree angle. These people absolutely must be beeped at. This is a courtesy beep, just so he knows you're there, not that he would make any squirrely moves or anything.

**** I'm sorry, but girls just don't tend to do the nutsy things that boys do, like just run out into the road without warning, carry more than two other kids on a bicycle that's too large to handle, or pretend to throw things at you as you pass. I do not remember even once having to beep at a female person of any age here in India, or for a matter of fact, in any other country I've visited. What's up with that? I mean, could it really be chromosomes?

The left thumb of my leather glove is worn so thin that it's about to tear. I have a great idea. I want to invent a little device that will beep the horn in random intervals so you don't have to bother half the time. It wouldn't disable the beeping if you wanted to actually beep by hand, but it would save a lot of effort.

The original article can be found at http://www.motorcyclemisadventures.com/indiansunset/dispatches/dis_13.htm

And this is what my dear friend kaveri who was touring england at that time had to write after reading the above article

------
i am now in Ashford, Kent, getting suntanned like nobody's business. it is said to be the hottest summer in the last twenty five years. anyway, the only condition that my friend had for me before i left was to buy two lungis for him. not just any but spectacular 'KONGARA' LUNGI. the familiar blue with the big , darker blue checkers and blue with the 'god knows how it matches' big, pink checkers. he is literally drooling over them remembering the hot indian nights spiced up by distant memories of the samantha fox poster in his cupboard. well, the lungi is acquiring celebrity status with his white friends already. jai lungi.

------

Countries I have visited

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

sky diving experience

I did sky diving during Feb, 2005 from a height of 10,000 ft. ADRENALIN AT
FULL THROTTLE. It was an amazing experience. I was taken up in a
aircraft to a height of 10,000 ft before jumping off. It involves the
free fall for 20 seconds at a speed of 200 KMs per hour and later 8
minutes on the parachute, before landing. Maneuvering
the parachute was the best part. Going in big circles, changing
directions, the cold air hitting ur face, etc, were some unforgettable
experiences.It just can't be explained in words.
The place where I did it was a beautiful country side of the bay area.
There were all kinds of nature forms: grasslands, mountains, rives,
lakes. It looks lovely from the top.
People say that I am crazy, so am I. But is an experience for a lifetime. You have to do it atleast once in your life.


Getting ready at the airport














With the German (Tandem jumper)















Jump from the aircraft













Then the free fall for 20 seconds


















Opening of the parachute




















Smooth Sail back home


















Thats the best ever feeling, I want to do it again















All Done - Go Home - Landed in one piece
Cameraman who jumped with us, the Tandem jumper and Me

My ultimate dream

Get a great car, Get loads of music - start driving without any timelines and target. Do not worry about where, when and how long to stop. Start from bangalore and drive along the golden quadrilateral and reach all corners of india. Eat the local food, meet people and learn about new cultures.
Try to complete the trip in 2 years.

I love Mis(sus) Adventure

Read about my misadventure on a trip to yana
http://dreamroutes.org/dreams/nagen_yana.html

I am not new to mis(adventure), but this particular report I am writing is a new experience for me because, it was wife's first (mis)adventure and hence the title. Getting lost in the jungle - oh that's nothing new. It is so common amongst the guys who love the jungle. Trekkers would feel "lost" if they don't lose their path at least once during their trek. I have been lost on a couple of occasions before during my trek to Bandaje falls and Arishina gundi falls (from kodachadri). You must be still wondering what I am talking about. Well, here it goes... 

I am one of those guys who wouldn't prefer to go on picnics. Some people call me a "juglee", as I prefer to be in the jungles more often than in the city. But my wife prefers to be more in the cities (the PVRs, INOXs, the so called shopping malls of Bangalore) and likes more pleasure trips. So during Nov 2005, my wife (Sandhya) and me decided to have one of the pleasure trips. We had Sanjay and his dentist wife Deepa for company. After quite a bit of debating on where to go, it was decided that we would go to Jog falls and from there to Yana, Gokarna and then come back to Bangalore. The plan was all set and we booked the hotels in Shimoga and Sirsi. It was decided that we would leave Bangalore on Friday afternoon and stay in Shimoga for the night. The next day we were to leave for Jog falls and then head for Sirsi to see Yana, Unchalli falls and then head towards Bangalore on Sunday via Gokarna. The mode of transport was Sanjay's beautiful Wagon R. Sanjay was the only one amongst us who could drive. 

As per our plan, we left Bangalore on time to reach Shimoga by night. We had a wonderful dinner and went to bed. Again as per our plan (at the later part of the report, I wouldn't be referring to any plans) we left Shimoga and headed to Jog the next day morning. The roads were pretty good except for a few bad stretches. We stopped for a quick breakfast at Sagar. We cruised well to reach Jog falls. Sanjay was having a great time on the steering. Luckily for us, there were not many tourists, but unluckily for us, there wasn't much water in falls. It was quite a disappointing sight. But it did not dampen my spirits from clicking quite a lot of photos (I have clicked more than 5000 photos in less than 6 months on my digital camera). I had found a fancy for clicking B&W photos. The weather was quite hot and humid. It had been raining almost every day in this region. The weather was explained owing to the proximity to the ocean. 

We left Jog and reached Sirsi by lunchtime. We decided to leave Sanjay's car at the hotel and hire a taxi to see Yana and Gokarna. After a quick shower on a hot Saturday afternoon, and a decent lunch, we started in the taxi towards Yana. All this was according to our plan. What happened from here onwards was unplanned. 

We left Sirsi at 3.00 P.M. We were expected to reach Yana by 4.00 P.M. We were told that the car would go up to 0.5 KM from Yana. We had decided that we spend a little time and then go to Gokarna for watching the sunset. Now we took off the main road and the driver stopped the car as we had reached the end of the motorable road. As we were at the end of monsoon season, the route further was damaged with fallen trees and big trenches. The driver asked us walk up to Yana, which was a good 3 KM walk on a bad/steep jeep track. It was the first jungle trek experience for my 3 companions. Sandhya was already making faces. She showed her displeasure for walking. She expected a more relaxed trip and I had exposed her to the jungle on a very cloudy evening. And I very well knew that she hates walking. Sanjay too had started grumbling. Deepa was however a little enthusiastic and was the first to start off walking. Cursing my luck, as I would have to face everyone's wrath for making them walk, I too followed them. Actually, I was feeling happy that I finally could force my wife to trek and trekking is something I love. To my surprise, no one complained. Sandhya seemed to enjoy the walk. We being the newly wed couple enjoyed walking holding hands and helping each other on the bad road. 

leeches - the most expected friend on any trek was there to welcome us, waiting to feast. And there were a lot of them and they meant business. It was the first experience of leeches for Sandhya and Sanjay. I told everyone that if they stopped to remove the leeches, there would be atleast 10 more that would get on them. Sanjay seemed to be least bothered about the leeches. He started telling everyone that 'after all they are going to suck 3-4 ml of blood so don't worry'. The road seemed to never end. I was enjoying the forest sounds. After a couple of kms, we reached a small stream. There was not a single soul on that route, inspite of Yana being a popular tourist destination. There were a lot of fallen trees. We had to creep below a few and get off the jeep track on a few occasions. The locals say that this was not the right season for the tourist to visit this place as the road was bad and there were lot of leeches due to the humid/rainy weather. People say that summer would be the best season to visit the place, as there would be very few or may be no leeches. But, I preferred this time, as there would be fewer tourists. The reason I hate tourist destination is because people make a lot of noise and litter the place. I could see a lot of plastic en-route. As we were crossing the stream, we could hear group of people coming towards us. After a good trek, stopping in between for some rest and some photographs, we reached Yana after one hour. Yana is famous for some beautiful caves rock formations. The first sight of rocks made everyone forget all the leeches and the leg pain. Everybody got busy removing their shoe to clean up the leeches and I got busy with my camera. I shot some videos where Sanjay, Deepa and Sandhya were busy removing the leeches from their shoe. There was a discussion on how to kill the leeches and why there should not be temples at some really beautiful places. 

Suddenly someone mentioned a cave temple at Yana. Till then I had not realized that there was a temple at this place. It was getting quite dark and the there were more dark clouds. We decided that we would quickly go to the temple and head backwards to the taxi before it started raining. The priest inside the temple informed us that we could go around the temple to see the real beauty of the Yana caves. We took fifteen minutes to go around the temple as most of the time was spent clicking photos and deciding if we should really go around the temple. By the time we came back towards the temple main gate, all other visitors had left. 

After taking one last group photo, we started heading back towards the taxi. By now, everyone had got used to the leeches and fatigue. The only goal was to reach Sirsi for a good rest. After walking back for 0.5 km back, we saw that the road forked. We were now debating which way to take. Both roads were looking quite prominent. Decisions had to be taken quickly as we were losing sunlight and the clouds were thickening. It was decided that we would take one of the roads to see if we could reach the stream that we crossed earlier. We randomly chose one of the roads and started walking. After a short distance, we felt that we (?) were on the wrong route. Everyone assembled together for another quick discussion. Everyone agreed that they didn't remember taking this route earlier. One of facts often neglected during treks is people failing to notice the surroundings. For a few people walking on heads down to reach the destination is the sole motto during treks. They forget to stop by and admire the nature's beauty and to mark the route. Needless to say that we were one such group. Unable to decide what to do, we headed back to take the other route. After a few minutes on the other track, we landed at another fork. This time, it was easier to decide which road to take. We took the more prominent road. After covering a KM, we realized that we were definitely on the wrong route, as we had not reached the stream. Not sure if the earlier route was the correct one, we decided to continue on this route as we were sure that this route would lead us to some place safe (either a village or a main road). But the tension had started creeping in everyone's minds � �The feeling of being lost in the jungle�. Sandhya had started fearing about being eaten by wild animals. Little did she know that the mankind had killed all the animals in the wild? In the last 6 years, the only carnivore I have ever come across is a fox in Orissa, which ran away after spotting us. Many people think that the only thing that the wild animals do in the jungle is attack and feast. In fact these animals are equally afraid of us, and would prefer to get away from sight quickly (source Kenneth Anderson's novels). 

We were losing light quickly. We had to walk fast to reach some safety, but the fatigue factor was showing its effect. I was some how very confident that we would definitely reach somewhere safe, and if not go and stay back at the temple in Yana. Now there was almost no light and we hit a final fork. We were now clueless about what to do next. I had a torch with me, which I pulled out of my bag. But the battery was low and I had to pull out the cells from my camera. In the pitch darkness, we flashed the torch in the two directions. Both the roads looked quite dense with jungle growth. There was no clear path ahead. After a quick discussion, we decided that we would head back to Yana. I was now very sure that we would spend the night at the temple, but the others were hoping against hope that the priest at the temple would take us back to some village. No one wanted to discuss the fact that the priest would have already left the place, though everyone was thinking about the same. Then it started raining. None of us had any sort of rain protection. We quickly pulled out all our cameras, cell phones and put them all in a plastic bag and put it in my small backpack. Now we were all holding hands and marching towards the temple thinking about all the worst possibilities. I was holding sandhya's hand and in the other a torch and showing the way. We could see a lot of glowing objects on either side of the jeep track. We wanted to believe that they were fireflies (jugnus). We were now almost close to the temple at Yana when Deepa hit a broken tree and hurt her leg. But at that time, she was least bothered about the pain and we finally reached the temple at 7.45 P.M. Being quite used to such situations, I decided to go ahead and look for some shelter. The rain was quite heavy now. After leaving my three companions under some shelter, I went to check if the temple was open and if the priest would be around. As I had guessed earlier, the search was useless. The temple was locked and the priest had left. After informing others about my findings, I decided to explore around the temple, when others patiently waited for me in the dark. The temple had a few rooms attached to it. After some investigation, I found that all the doors were locked. I was now getting worried, of course not about the jungle and the night ahead, but about the wrath of my wife's anger. After all, I knew that she would blame me for everything (she later surprised me by not talking anything bad about the trip). Well, I guess the luck was on our side (at least a little), I found one of the rooms with a door 6 ft high and a 1ft gap above it. I jumped on the door to reach the opening on the top and then put my head in the gap. Now my half body was inside the door and my leg dangling on the other end. I couldn't make out much inside. I pulled out the torch from my pocket and flashed it inside. I saw that the door was latched from inside. With the torch in my mouth, I reached for the latch. I managed to open it before I could realize that the door started moving and I was dangling on the door. Somehow I managed to balance myself and get down. The place happened to be the bathroom attached to the temple. It had a couple of taps, a big metallic pot (Hande in Kannada) that was kept on a fireplace. Needless to say that there wasn't any dry wood. There was a small platform on the far corner. The other end of the bathroom wall was the of rocks, from which there was a small quantity of water dripping. Happy with these discoveries, I rushed back to the others to share the good news. Everyone was happy that we found some shelter. All of us headed to our luxurious suite in the middle of the jungle. We decided to clean up all the leeches before we entered our room. Again I got down to work and removed all the leeches from everyone's legs. 

After that we decided that we would go in to the room one after the other to inspect ourselves if we had leeches anywhere else on our body. When I was inside looking for leeches on my body, I heard Sanjay calling out for me and he seemed to be really worried about something. I came out and he told me that he heard a wolf. In my past experience in the Western Ghats, sleeping in tents in all possible kinds of places from deep in the jungles to the top of mountain peaks, had never heard any such sounds. But not to take any chances, as we had a couple of ladies with us, we quickly entered the room and latched it from inside and in silence tried to hear hard. There weren't any sounds. But, Sanjay was quite sure about the wolves. Was it his imagination at work, was it his fatigue, or was it really true? Not worrying about it, we all decided to inspect the place. It was very homely - with a few crabs, a frog and a few spiders (does anyone know if the ladies fear spiders). Wondering what else was in store for us, we looked around and found a plastic bucket, 3 plastic mugs (Chombu in Kannada), broom and soap. I quickly covered one crab and a frog with the plastic mugs. They tried to escape through out the night, making noises and scaring us. Then we cleaned up the platform so that we could at least sit, if not sleep. There was very little room for the four of us on the platform. The place was cleaned using the broom and the four of us managed to get on the platform. Then we took turns to clean our blood stained hands and legs (thanks to the leeches) with the soap. Till then no one had thought about the food. All we had with us was a little MTR Bhel Puri and a few Hershey's chocolates. But no one was in a mood to eat. Deepa made some earplugs for all of us from the tissue paper so that we could keep our ears safe from spiders and other small life forms in that cave room. It reminded me of the movie "Cast Away" by Tom Hanks. We sat quitely in silence and by then Sanjay had made himself quite comfortable in one corner. He was ready to sleep. But, how can he, before doing a lot of bak-bak (a.k.a. lot of talking). To kill time, I started narrating some of my previous forest experiences - how I was lost on a couple of occasions and how we managed to get out the forests successfully. The forest has never harmed us. 

Sandhya was silently praying, she had made big plans of visiting a lot of temples if we got out of the jungle safely :). Sanjay was happily snoring while Deepa was in deep pain as she had hurt her leg. And I was happily thinking about the latest kannada chart buster songs of the movie Jogi. We were wondering what the taxi driver would have done. Would he have gone back to Sirsi, would he have come looking for us, would he come back for us in the morning? All of us in our own mood waited for the daybreak except for Sanjay who was already in deep sleep. It was close to 11.30 PM when suddenly Sandhya said she saw some light at (probably from a petromax). We were now a little alert, hoping that it was our taxi driver coming for us with help. After a while, we could hear some men talking at a distance. We decided to wait for the sounds to approach us. But no one came looking for us. We were debating on whether to call out for them, but decided against it as the women had a lot of jewellery and we had a lot of electronic items with us. What if the guys were hostile? We could take no chance with the women around. Deepa later told us that she was wearing Diamond earrings worth Rs 70,000. We remained very still not making any noise, as we didn't want to attract those men's attention. Later in the morning, the villagers told us that some Shikaris (hunters) roam in the jungle at night. It had stopped raining now. Luckily it was not very cold in the night as it was a cloudy night and the forest is known to preserve some heat during the night. The night never seemed to end. No one except Sanjay slept the whole night. He was least bothered about his surroundings. At around 5.45 a.m. we could hear the forest waking up. The birds were singing happily. Finally there was sunlight at 6.30 a.m. Sanjay and Deepa went out for a small morning walk. There was enough room on the platform and I slept for around half hour. Then at around 8.30 a.m. Sanjay and I decided to check out the correct route and see if we could find the stream. Leaving the ladies behind, we both went in search of the correct route. I asked Sanjay to wait near the first fork and went on the first route. I quickly found the stream and headed back to inform Sanjay about it. Then we heard some voices and saw two villagers heading towards us. We told them about our previous day's experience. One of the men was kind enough to come and show us a different route out of Yana, which would lead towards Yana village. He told us that we could find transportation back to Sirsi from there. 

We took some more pictures of the beautiful Yana in the pleasant morning sunlight and headed towards the village. I had never thought that Sandhya would face situation so bravely. I had expected her to panic and crib about our state. But she stepped up to the occasion and behaved like a very bold girl. This was something I discovered new and appreciated much about her. At the village we found Ram Bhatru who upon a lot of persuading agreed to take us in his jeep to KaDgal. The 16 KM route to KaDgal took us a good one-hour in the bumpy steep road. We bid good-bye to the forest. It was close to 1.00 PM when we reached the KaDgal town. We had spent 24 hours without food. After grabbing some light snacks there we hired a Maruthi van to go back to Sirsi. After a nice shower, we left Sirsi and headed to Bhadravathi to spend the night at Deepa's uncle's house. The couple was very nice to us and fixed us a very delicious dinner. After a good night rest, the next day we headed towards Bangalore. The trip till to Bangalore was less eventful. We stopped occasionally for some good scenic photographs. Everyone was happy to be back in Bangalore. Sandhya is still visiting some temples to thank God for saving us. I am not sure when she will agree to travel with me again. I am looking forward for more trips like this one.

wayanad trek report

Read about my trip/trek report to wayanad in kearala
http://dreamroutes.org/dreams/nagen_ooru.html