Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Mountains of Makalidurga: My first trekking experience

“It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.” 

― Cheryl StrayedWild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail


I had heard a lot from all my friends that trekking is a fun experience and that everyone must try it atleast once. Each time I heard my friends talk so passionately about climbing the mountains and discovering new heights, I would feel inspired but
never really dared to step out of my comfort zone until that day when I saw a new meetup (on meetup.com) announced saying "Trek to Makalidurga"  and I don't know what got into me but I just decided to go for it.

After giving my contact no to the organizer, I got introduced to a bunch of people on whatsapp none of whom I had ever met. For me, it was a really big step to go out with a bunch of guys and girls who were all strangers to me. I just made sure that a few girls were tagging along for the trip and thats all. Around 10:30 pm when my ride arrived, I was still not sure about the risk I had taken. What if the group isn't fun, what if I can't climb up, what if I slip off and die ... I had a thousand doubts but decided to go for it anyway.

When we all finally arrived at the neetup point, the final count was 11 and we all started on bikes and cars towards our destination, the foothills of Makalidurga. When we finally reached there around 1 am, I looked up and the sky was clear. It was the night next to Poornima and thousands of stars had illuminated the sky, a sight so rare in the cities that I savoured the moment. But when I finally looked back at the hill we were supposed to climb, all my doubts were back and I was sure I was gonna end up dead somewhere in those rocks.

It was pretty dark and we could already see a group of people who were halfway up through the mountain. The challange for me begin when I started climbing up the mountain whose peak stood at a height of 1.3 kms approx. I was hardly 1/3rd way up when I realized that I got myself into something that wasn't my cup of tea or coffee for that matter.

I didnot want to climb up anymore but I was too scared that I will be left behind at 2 am in the mountains and won't be able to find my way up so I tried to keep up with the group as much as possible but finally gave up. I was already short of breath and the rocks were too high for me to climb. While rest of the group went up, one of the group members stayed back with me probably because he could see how bad I was struggling and there was still almost 2/3rd of the trek left.

So finally I and he started to climb at a much lower pace, stopping every 20 minutes for a 10 minutes break and then continued climbing some more. For sometime, we could see the rest of our group climbing ahead of us but after half hour or so, they were nowhere to be seen and only the two of us were on our own trying to look for way up. It was dark, scary and we were surrounded by thorny bushes and slippery stones. Everytime I stepped on a rock, I could picture myself slipping off and rolling down the hills.

I was scared but alert, trying to place my feet on the rocks as firmly as possible, holding on to the surrounding rocks or to my travel mate for support. While we continued climbing, three other groups passed by us and climbed up while I was still struggling to even take another step. With every step I was taking up, I was more and more exhausted to climp up anymore. I was least bothered to see the the awesome view from hilltop anymore but staying in middle of nowhere at 2:30-3:00 am was not an option so we continued climbing with me complaining almost all through the journey.

So finally when we reached the top of the mountain, it was almost 3:40 am and we had taken almost an hour more than rest of the group to reach the top but I didn't care. I was happy that I finally climbed up, it wasn't a big deal for most of the group but I felt accomplished ... and dead tired. I just lied down on the big rock facing the sky and finally let myself cool down properly. My feet were aching and I was feeling very hot from all the climbing but in 15 mins, once I cooled down I finally realized how cold it was and put on 2 jackets and lied back down.

The others then lit up a bon fire and stood around it for a while but I was just too tired to even get up for some heat so I covered my face with the stole and kept lying instead. Later on everyone decided to lie down as well and although I could not sleep for very long as it was pretty cold at the top but finally when I got up around 5:45 to witness the sunrise, I felt much better.

We looked around the place, clicked the view from top, clicked selfies and had a lot of fun. Although we could not witness the sunrise properly due to cloudy sky, the view from the hill top was spectacular (not sure though if it was worth all the pain I endured or not ;) :P )

Finally when we had to get down, all my nightmares were back. I was still pretty tired, my feet were aching and now I had to get all the way down to the foothills. As scary as they looked, it somehow felt easier to get down that climbing up. As expected, I was among the last ones to get down but this time I had three more people giving me company, getting down at slower pace and taking breaks now and then. Dead tired, we finally reached down to the parking about 20 mins late than rest of the group.

On way back to Bangalore, I was so tired and sleepy that I dozed off a few times in the pillion seat of the bike so we took a break at CCD to freshen up a bit. As a whole, it was a really fun (and a little painful) experience and luckily the group was fun. All the inhibitions I had about travelling with a bunch of strangers was broken and turns out most of them love to travel frequently so I have turned in my RSVP as a permanent Yes ;) :P :P

Thank you Barkha for letting me know about a platform like Meetup.com and thanks to Prasad and Prashant for organizing this and making my first experience a memorable one. For anyone looking to experience trekking, I would definitely recommend this place. Looking forward to getting together for lot of trips and a lot more fun.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Pages of Pondicherry

After joining job, I had been quite busy for the first few months adjusting in the new place and in a new daily schedule which was very different from the student life. There are bosses and their bosses, meetings, deadlines, some more meetings and discussions and then work in the left over time.

So after getting really bored with this routine, I decided to get back to travelling which I love to do but haven't been able to do much as a student due to time and budget constraints. However one of the advantages of doing a job esp in software field is we get weekends free so around a month back, I finally decided to go visit Pondicherry as I had been craving to visit beaches for quite sometime and I must say I did not regret a minute of that experience.
Pic: Near Le Cafe

As this was the first visit to Pondicherry, we ddin't want to get into arranging for stay and stuffs so we spent exactly 12 hrs at Pondi and utilized every minute at the fullest. We took an overnight train from Bangalore on Friday night and were at Pondicherry sat around 8:30 am.

Me being a travel enthusiast, I had already made a list of places to visit, good eateries, what to eat where and most importantly, where to book a 2-wheeler so that we can travel the city at our own pace. So the Here maps came handy (Yes! I am a windows phone user) and we went tracing Vijay Arya rental which was one of the most recommended place by people who visited Pondicherry.

The shop opened at 9 and we were already at the door ready to collect the keys for an activa. The owner was a nice friendly guy and he also gave us some tips about the surrounding areas and at what time to visit what place. Once we got our 2-wheeler, the fun started.

Pic: Seaside view from Le Cafe

We marked Le Cafe on our maps and followed the directions to have breakfast at a restaurant looking the sea beach. Although the food wasn't out of the world but the view was to die for.

However as this restaurant was situated on the side of Rocky beach, there wasn't much to do on that beach as there was no way to get into the water. So after appreciating the view there for sometime, we headed towards the serenity beach and the Auroville beach which are more crowded as we can actually get into the water and take a bath if we want.

While on way from one beach to other, there were places with quite a few nice views where we could see a small stretch of water and sand so sometimes I would just get down and take a few clicks. After I finally reached Auroville beach, I could see there were already quite a lot of people bathing and jumping around in the water and some kinds playing with the sand or screaming on seeing the big waves coming towards them. On seeing the gushing blue water, I too left my bag and shoes on the beach and jumped into the water playing around for an hour and got completely drenched.

Now the problem with getting drenched in sea/ocean is that as soon as u get out of ware, u can feel sand particles all over yourself including in the fold of jeans, your pockets and even in the hairs. Now as we hadn't made any arrangements for stay, we didn't have any place where we could go change our clothes so we decided to let our clothes just air dry and continued roaming rest of the city with sand all over.

By then it was time for lunch so we decided to Hidesign for lunch. I know what most of you are thinking, that hidesign makes wallets and purses, not food but to our surprise, they had leather stuffs in 3 floors and served French food on the top floor. I love to try different food items as well and decided to try a baguette. The best part here was that I never had french bread before and never knew that the breads are supposed to be hard. When I took first bite of the yummy looking baguette that was served, I was in for a surprise when I couldn't take an easy bit off of it. Luckily my friend had had a baguette before and knew that's how the bread was supposed to be. The fillings were actually good but I decided that I like Indian breads better.

Once done with the lunch, we visited Richie Rich which was recommended by the rental place owner for ice creams. So we went in for some ice creams and also got assorted chocolates packed to later eat on the beach. After that, we decided to roam around a bit and then took a tour of the French colony on our activa. The place was serene and there were hardly any people on the streets and the old French architecture gave a very pleasant look to the whole place. After looking around there for some time, we headed back to Auroville beach but this time I didn't go into the water much as I knew air drying the clothes would be an issue once the sun goes down. So we just walked on the shores bare foot feeling the grains of sand pressed against our feet leaving our foot prints which would get washed up in a few minutes just so that someone else could leave his/her marks on the sand again.

After spending quite sometime on the beach, we decided to head back to the city and explore the mission street. There we found the famous Baker street but didn't try anything as we were full and I was in no mood for French breads again. Our next stop was Zuka choco la where we tried chocolate cupcake and some other dark chocolate dessert (forgot the name) which looked so yummy I couldn't wait enough to even click it's pics. By the time we had our chocolate treats and left, it was almost 7:45 pm so we decided to give back the activa and head back to railway station.

On the way back to the 2-wheeler rental, we found some small roadside shops which were selling clay items so as a souvenir, I got a small clay cup to drink tea in and a small clay aromizer inside which I can burn dhoop or aroma tealight candles. By then, it was almost 8 pm so we went back to the rentals, returned te activa and got an auto to head back to the railway station. So from my 'to-visit' list of Pondicherry, I visited almost everything  apart from the Paradise Beach which I will try to cover the next time I visit there. So as a whole, I made the best out of every minute I spent there and it was all worth it.

Ps: All the pics in this post are my clicks.