A Drive Through Mudumalai/Bandipur National Park Via Ooty

I had 2 days of free time and did not want to waste it sitting idle or watch “Avathar”. So me and Arun decided to just drive down to Coimbatore to a relatives place. There are multiple ways to reach Coimbatore from Bangalore. The well known route is the Hosur road. We decided to take alternate route via Kanakpura Road.

Bangalore – Kanakpura – Malavalli – Kollegal – Sathyamangalam – Coimbatore

Apart from a 30km bad stretch the road was quite good and were able to reach the destination in 7 hours. On our return journey we wanted to take the Ooty – Mysore Route which is much longer but very scenic

Coimbatore – Ooty – Mysore – Bangalore

Here are few photos taken during the road trip.

Trek In Shiradi Ghats (Aramane Gadde) – An Adventurous Disaster!

Itching to kick start the winter vacation, we decided to trek Aramane Gadde in Shiradi Ghats near Mangalore. Me and 2 other friends Uttaran and his brother Ayushman drove all the way to Gundya (near Mangalore). This was our basecamp. We reached Gundya late in the evening and it was pitch dark. There was no mobile signal and had to use the public phone near the Gundya check-post to inform our arrival. We had booked a room in the Forest Department IB. In the dark it was quite difficult to locate our place of stay. After a lot of confusion regarding the booking and our inability to understand and communicate in Kanada, we managed to settle in for the night. The next day, my other two friends Arun and Sharath joined us. We met our guide and planned out the schedule. He took us to a small hotel for breakfast. Our trek trail started from a point 8kms from Gundya. We had to take an auto to that point. The roads were in very bad shape and the journey to the trek point was bumpy.

…..Of Wedding, Rituals & People Part 2

This is the second part of 4 part series “Of Weddings, Rituals & People”. Its assumed that you have already read Guest’s (Women’s Dressing)

Guests(Men’s Dressing):

North: Men, in this part of the country love to dress up grandly for an occasion like wedding. Although handshake is the gentlemen way of exchanging pleasantries, one must be extra careful when lending out their right hand. The men wear rings on all their fingers. It looks as though they escaped from “The Terminator” movie set and forgot to remove their robotic hand glove. If their fingers can talk, iam sure they will yell out “Gold ring around my bottom (similar to a life jacket) is not going to help me stay afloat in palm full of sweat. TAKE THIS SHIT OFF!!!”.

…..Of Wedding, Rituals & People Part 1

“Marriages are made in heaven” a well known western phrase which holds true to anywhere in the world. However there is a slight twist in the Indian context. When the west came up with that phrase they did it with their style of wedding in picture. A predominantly Christian society where the wedding takes places with a small group of friends and relatives who are either dressed in white or sober colored clothes with a very light music playing in the background giving a closer to a perceived heavenly experience. In Indian context this is quite the opposite.