Graduation Speech

For my university's graduation ceremony (a.k.a. commencement), students are able to send in an application be the speaker for the ceremony. Naturally, I had also submitted an application, although I was not selected. However, I just wanted to share the speech I had written here:

“Next station, Five Points – interchange station.” Ladies and gentlemen, here we are, after a long journey through our undergraduate career, we have finally arrived at our destination; an interchange station - a junction where we embark on another route in the journey of our lives.

Initially, when writing this speech, I was going to portray today’s milestone more as a terminus station, the end point of our undergraduate lives. However, I felt that this would be an injustice to the significance of today as it marks culmination of one journey, but more importantly it marks the initiation of another, like an interchange station.

I’m sure most of you, like me, would lucidly remember the start of your freshman year. Sitting in the Fox theater, with a genuine mixed emotion of excitement and anxiousness, wondering what life has in store for us. Back then, the mere thought of graduating seemed to be an eternity away. And yet, here we are. Three, four, five…maybe even six years later...standing in front of our loved ones, next to wonderful friends who, at the start of this entire journey, were probably just strangers.

No doubt, you will all be reflecting upon your college life; the easy times, the hard times, the memorable times, those not so memorable <chuckle> and those that cannot be described in words. Unique memories that have shaped you into the person you are today. As we look ahead to our future, it is important that we remember the past, remember our roots and reflect upon where we came from and the journey that has brought us to where we are now.    

Remember those who have touched your lives, and those who have gone out of their way to help you. Remember the people who stood by you during the hard times, and forgive those who didn’t. Remember those that made you laugh, and remember those that made you cry. For all these people, collectively, would have given you a peek at the different flavors of life.

And hence, as we all gather here today, I would like to impart a few messages. My first message is to embrace change. Just compare today’s world to the world back in freshmen year. A lot has changed within these few years. And be ready for more changes, as change is inevitable. The biggest change, in my opinion, is the flattening of our world, as geographical, political and cultural boundaries are blurred and the world has become a closer-knit network, thanks to the internet. So embrace the change ladies and gentlemen.

<Slight pause>

A stereotypical graduation speech always stresses upon the fact that today’s youth, is tomorrow’s leaders. And this, I would say, is completely true. We have the power to change the world, and this power has increased with the internet. Use this power responsibly, in order to create a better world.

Each and every one of us has the ability to shape our own lives. Don’t get bogged down with what is expected of us, or what other people are doing. Don’t let someone else’s definition of success fuel your goals. Yes, always aim for the stars, but don’t let it pull you down if you miss. For at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is that you and your loved ones are happy.

And remember, there is absolutely nothing wrong with going against the tide. Sometimes, you may need to divert from the mainstream, in order to get to where you want to be. Just like Robert Frost once wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the one less travelled by, / and that has made all the difference”.

Lastly, stay young my dear friends. Keep learning, and never sell yourselves short. For you are all a Ramblin’ Wreck and one hell of an engineer! You are now equipped with a world class degree, taught by some of the best minds in the world, alongside future world leaders. Always remember that, as you take your first few steps to make something of yourself. Seize the day, my fellow classmates, Carpe Diem!

Go Jackets!

Mysore

Mysore was….meh. Nothing too special. As I have outlined several times in my blog, I do not like visiting temples, palaces and museums, and Mysore is predominantly known for these very things. So yeah…I never expected too much out of this trip.

A good thing about this trip thought was that the company had sponsored the trip, and all of the interns were there. We arrived on Friday night, and were disappointed to learn that it was just like Bangalore…everything shuts down at approximately 11 pm. We walked around looking for places that was open and well, had fun just talking and joking around along the way.

I’m going to skip the boring parts on the palaces and museums since I didn’t care enough about it to remember much about it. Only parts I remember is trying to take jumping high five pictures with a friend of mine at random places, just because we had nothing better to do.

Oh wait, I almost forgot. There was a shop that we went to, selling shawls, and other souvenir items. One of the souvenir items were swords and knives. Really big and beautiful ones. I asked to see some of them, and when I held it in my hands, and pulled the sword out of the cover, I felt complete. I felt like a man. I don’t know, it may be just a metal stick (kind of), but there is something about it….but lol, the prices were awesome too. Most of them were more than my two month salary hahah

Sunday, when we had some free time in the morning, was much better. There was a lot of activities we could do on campus, and the two things I took part in was wall climbing and bowling. Rock climbing was fun, albeit I didn’t finish it. Out of us interns, I think only two guys finished it, and a third one got close. Most other people got stuck at the same place 
[battery running out, i'll finish this later]

The week before Mysore

So the week before the Mysore trip and the Mysore trip was different. By then, there was only a handful of people who had started the internship the same time as me left, and the majority of the folks there were the new guys who had just joined. On Wednesday I met up with a guy who is from the same fraternity as me, but goes to a different school (so the same fraternity nationally). A  few of us decided to go eat at a place called “Kobe”, which is basically a sizzler style food. Meat and other entrée dishes were served in hot sizzling plates, and he had joined us. The food there was (as you would expect), amazing. It may have been slightly on the pricier side, but it was definitely a good change from the usual North Indian combo dinner. 

 We then headed out to a place called Couch. Awesome atmosphere and on Wednesdays, everything is 50% off. I don’t really remember why, but there was a huge group of interns from my company there. There was also a group of British guys who had just arrived in Bangalore, working for a major grocery retail store (similar to Walmart). It was a good night, although our mood was slightly spoiled with the news of the attacks in Mumbai. As a result, dancing wasn’t allowed at all (police orders).

Nevertheless, Couch and Kobe were both excellent places and the fact that I’m even writing about it should tell you how memorable it was J

Relaxed Weekend

The weekend after Coorg, I decided to take things easy. Well, to be honest, I had said the same thing about the Coorg weekend too, but I just couldn’t get myself to stay in Bangalore, but well, this time I succeeded. It was a combination of getting tired of sleeping in a moving vehicle during weekend, fatigue and running low on money.

The same week, a new wave of interns had joined us, and Friday night was spent at Chandana, the local hangout place 5 minutes away from campus. The occasion was primarily the farewell for a friend of ours who had joined the same time as me. A group of my friends had already attempted to guilt-trip me into going to Chennai this weekend for some volunteering event. But having heard so much about the horribly humid weather there, and the lack of anything that could get my blood flowing in excitement, I managed to say no :)

Anyway, Friday night I met a couple of the new interns as well who I really managed to get along with well. On hindsight, even though I only knew them for a very short period of time (about 2 weeks I think), if I was to select only 5 people who I’ll keep in touch with, they would make it in that list (and no, if I can, I want to keep in touch with everyone)

Oh yeah, btw, I’m writing this on the flight back to BKK. Everyone is virtually asleep, and the movie on the main screen doesn’t seem too interesting.

Back to the story. Basically the new interns were all planning to go exploring Bangalore that weekend, and they invited me as well. I said yes, and when they told me the time (meet at the lobby at 8.30 am), my jaw dropped, and I changed it to a “maybe”. Finally I did wake up at 8 am the next morning, but just to text them saying I’m going to be lame and sleep in hahah. So Saturday was spent working on my other side projects, and I was planning to go into town for some dinner.

Another friend of mine had expressed an interest earlier the day before to go into town for dinner, so I called her up and we met at the gate. For some weird reason, I had assumed that she had booked a cab, and well the fact that I called her, she assumed that I had a cab. So there we were, at the front of the gate, staring at each other and asking “where’s the cab?”. Since we weren’t really that desperate to go into town (especially using the bus) , we walked straight back into the campus. This is where the difference between an undergrad and an MBA comes into play. She began walking towards the restaurant under our hostel, where they served buffets for over 100 rupees per meal.

Confused, I asked her, “where are you going?”. She had no idea that there was another food court on campus that was open on Saturday, whereas for me, I wasn’t willing to drop so much dough on one very mediocre meal and hence had gone hunting for open food courts earlier. At dinner, we met another intern and we had an interesting conversation about different places we want to live in the world. Whereas I had a very simple answer (everywhere), he had a much more thought out answer. He named about 5 places and had extremely good reasons for shortlisting these cities. I felt really dumb and immature at that point lol

Anyway, Sunday was an awesome day. It started off with a friend and I going to play bowling. There was a long waiting time, so during the waiting period, we hit up the arcade in the same complex. The arcade was fun, and when we were playing air hockey, a crowd had formed around the table. And then during the game, I accidentally hit the puck too hard, and it flew off the table and hit one of the spectator’s privates. It was extremely difficult not to laugh lol (I probably did laugh too!)

There was also this other game….basically hitting this thing with a hammer as hard as you can,, it tells you the score. The first time I hit it, the machine broke down! (I’m a beast!) So the dude working there put some credit into another machine and let me hit again. I broke the high score (of course) and then the machine stalled again. Apparently I’m just too good for these toys.  (as a side note, we realized later that every time someone plays and does NOT beat the high score…the high score comes down by one point….way to raise a guy’s ego and then crush it!)

We later realized that there were some games which gave away tickets, which can then be exchanged for prizes. One of the games was shooting hoops, and together combined, we won quite a lot of tickets (around 70 I think). Happy, we headed to the  counter to exchange the tickets, to find out that anything remotely good required like thousands of tickets. We finally got just one of those soapy bubble blower thing.

Bowling was fun too. My friend started off by saying that he isn’t good at bowling. And then his first two balls go straight into the gutter. So yeah, I believed him. He then comes back with 3 or 4 strikes and finishes the game with around 140+. You can imagine the look on my face….lol (I played bowling with him again in Mysore and again he kept getting strikes as if they were candy, so no, not a fluke)

We also had plans to meet another dude for dinner, and on the way to the place to meet the guy, we passed two places which looked good and we said we must go there one day. One place was called China Pearls, a really fancy looking Chinese restaurant, and the other was Mocha, a hookah lounge which we heard had good milk shakes.

As it turned out, the place we were going for dinner was China Pearl! I felt like an eight year old boy who just got a gift for his birthday. The food was incredible and yumm….i’m hungry now. Shouldn’t have mentioned food (Thai Airways did serve decent food, but the portion was tiny and they didn’t have extras :( )

After China Pearl, we went to a place that served Tunday Kababs. Best-kababs-ever. The guy we were with a big food freak and he really knows his stuff. The story behind this Tunday Kabab is that apparently it was very popular and started in Lucknow. The owner’s son did an MBA and then came back and expanded it to Bangalore and somewhere else I believe. Amazing kabab. So soft, and it just melts in your mouth. Wow.

We had some time to kill, and somehow (I don’t remember how the conversation went), but somehow, we eventually decided to go to Mochas. Oh wait, I remember now. We were looking for dessert (ice cream), but didn’t find one, and then someone suggested the shakes over at Mocha). So there you go…the two places that had caught our attention earlier…we landed up at both places.

What a night! An excellent way to spend my last weekend (and my third weekend) in Bangalore, since the weekend after that was Mysore and then after that, I was done.

Coorg

Just a bit of background on this trip and how it came to life. Well, after the shenanigans of the previous weekend, what with the rock jumping in the river and the moped adventures, I wasn't satisfied. I was still craving an awesome adrenaline rush...something I could compare to rafting down Nam Wa river in Nan (northern Thailand), combating altitude sickness on the way to the peak of Mt. Kinabalu or best yet, falling in the "washing machine" rapid in a river in Kota Kinabalu. The washing machine rapid is a rapid which keeps rotating around within itself like a washing machine, and while it was quite a thrill, it could also potentially be disastrous. For those of you who are unfortunate (or maybe fortunate lol) enough not to have heard the story...well, when I fell in, basically I felt wave after wave of water just hitting me. There was an extremely small gap of time to get the tiniest amount of air. Honestly, it required all my energy to swim out of that rapid safely without hurting myself in rocks, and by the time I got to the boat, I was just way too exhausted to even attempt to get back in the boat.

Oh, and then right before the trip, a friend of mine posts this picture in the internship group on Facebook:

"last near death-experience white water rafting at source of the Nile...maybe there'll be a repeat this weekend @ Coorg? Unlikely, but still promises to be a good time...interested in going?" - source: ADB

So yeah, I was looking for some adrenaline rush, and a quick search on Google revealed that Coorg, which is about 250 km away from Bangalore, is the place to go. I sent an email out and as it turned out, there was some interest...provided someone plans it. And yes, I was desperate enough to agree to plan it :)

Planning it wasn't that difficult. I found a package from the Coorg Institute of Adventure Sports, which advertised a lot of stuff, including rock climbing, parasailing, and so on (http://coorgadventure.com/). Unfortunately though, due to the monsoon season, a lot of it wasn't available. But that's fine, we went anyway. Transportation wise, during a conversation with one of the cab drivers a week earlier, the dude mentioned how he's been to Pondicherry a couple of times, but because someone hired him to drive there. So I tracked down this dude, and he gave me his friend's number (the dude drives an Indica, and since we were 10 people, we needed a Tempo Traveller). So yeah, a bit of haggling in price here and there (didn't have to do much, as apparently a group of IIT interns had been there earlier that month, and I managed to get it to their rate :)) The package included four things...rafting, zip-lining, hiking and kayaking.

We were supposed to leave for Coorg at about 3.30 am on Saturday, but the Friday night earlier had been rough for some...well almost all of us....and we got a bit delayed. The journey was extremely rough as well, with the roads designed to break our internal systems and a lot of turns. So yeah, was pretty hard to sleep, but nonetheless, we eventually got there. The van could only take us so far though...as we had to walk the rest of the way through half constructed roads and a lot of mud. hahahah, awesome start!

The people organizing the package were all locals from Coorg, many of them having lived in the city (Bangalore) and worked in big companies, but eventually realizing that the nature is where they belong. And man, these guys love the nature. They are very close to it and they respect it highly. And they enjoy nature a lot too =)

We were put in a dorm, with a lot of bunk beds, and two toilets. Honestly, the accommodation was awesome, and although at first I wanted to camp and stuff....but seeing the condition of the ground, it wasn't feasible. After we reached, freshened up and all, we headed off to river rafting. It was quite a long drive away, and I got some sleep this time. We then had some lunch and then headed to the river. We were split into two rafts. The other raft's name was "Team Don't-Hit-My-Balls", while we were too cool to have a name. Our raft also included two newly-wed couples,, probably on their honeymoon. And oh my GOD! The lady kept screaming for everything. The tiniest rapids could get her to scream (and by tiniest rapids...I mean just when the water turns slightly white...).

Anyway, so the water levels weren't high enough (or so they claim), and the river rafting was just way too easy. Absolutely  no adrenaline rush. Disappointment.

But hey! we did have fun throwing mangoes at each other's boats!!!! haha there were mango trees along the sides of the river and a lot of mangoes had fallen into the river, so we used it as a projectile =) I also had fun pulling a friend down into the river

Oh wait...almost forgot...there was ONE adrenaline rush part. At one of the rapids....once we passed it, the guide told the girls to go sit in front of the boat....like right in front. We were all wondering, what is going on? And then we understood...he turned the boat around, and then made up row backwards, into the rapid. As we got into the rapid. water began splashing into the boat. I was in the front, and it covered my face as well, so it was just amazing. We then did it again, and this time, I let go (for all the haters out there...YES, INTENTIONALLY! lol). and then we did it again for a third time. that was fun.

We then headed back to the headquarters, and none of us were smart enough to foresee getting wet, and hence bringing a towel or change of clothes. So our ride back was wet.

It was already gettintg late, so then the other activity for the day was zip lining. I was expecting something cool....but.....lol

There was a small pond nearby, and these nature-loving guys, after taking in the nature, took out a long rope and began tieing the line across the pond. We then all helped to pull it tight, but even then, there was still quite a bit of slack in the rope. Additionally, the rope was kind of wet in the middle, so everyone who went down could only go half way across the pond. We then manually pulled ourselves to the end, and then walked back, past a really smelly and decomposed dead animal...too decomposed for me to identify what exactly it was. The mess was horrendous though. But anyway, it was quite an experience.....half-way zipline.

We then cleaned up and headed for dinner. The people over there then set up a camp fire and began taking in the nature again. The scenery was really nice at night, and there were fireflies flying around. Awesome atmosphere.

Then dinner was served...initially just the appetizers. Some Coorgi pork (their specialty) and coorgi chicken. Most of the people in our group didn't quite like it, which was a very fortunate thing as I loved it. So more for me :) Agreed, the pork had more of fat and bones....but the parts that wasn't fat or bone, was awesome! The rest of the dinner was mediocre at best, but I was starving and gobbled it all up. We also got a chance to try some Coorgi wine, a very sweet drink that tasted a bit like Sangria. I actually liked it a lot.

Following that, we went back to the camp fire to take in the scenery and enjoy the nature around us. Later on, the entire gang of locals (before only a few were with us), joined, and then they started cracking jokes in Coorgi. Then one of the dudes pulls out his phone and starts playing different songs in Coorgi. As it turns out, it was actually him singing the songs, and all the songs are originally english. I forgot most of them, but the one I remember for sure is the "The real slim shady please stand up" song. In the middle of the songs, people will start cracking up at the words and stuff, and I guess i can only IMAGINE but never know for sure what was said in the song. Highly amusing :)

The next day, we went hiking. Since no one had proper shoes to hike (hey, we came to bangalore to work afterall...), we went to buy rubber gumboots, and the institute agreed to buy it back for half the price. Good enough for us, especially since we knew that these gumboots were going to save us from A LOT of leaches. and yes, there were  A LOT. Leaches were everywhere, and as one of my friend from Canada put it, that was all the adrenaline rush he needed for the day.

We hiked to some place in the forest, which overlooked a very beautiful valley, with a river below, and a waterfall nearby. The scene was breathtaking. The nature is just beautiful. Over there, we find out that one of the guys with us had a leech bite. In his belly button....no jokes! Pictures below

Credits: JC and thanks ADB!

Unfortunately, we don't have pictures of the aftermath of pulling the leech out.

Anyway, after the hike, we were tired and ready to get out of there. Had some lunch, and found out about the kayaking....it was again going to be at that small pond. And they had only one kayak. On the phone, I expected the kayaking to be in the river but nah.....just a pond. So we just said our goodbyes, paid the money, enjoyed nature one last time and went back to bangalore. Stopped for dinner somewhere fancy, but with quite good food. The bill was a pain though, as the dudes over there screwed up big time.

Anyway, that's it :)

So basically the entire mood for the trip was "up and down and up and down. Like a sine curve". I had a lot of fun in total, but in terms of the pre-trip expectations and the adrenaline rush I needed...not quite there. Nature is awesome nevertheless!

Hampi-ness (since I am not creative, I had to plagiarize)

Hello all! Before I start off rambling, in case you were wondering where I plagiarized the word "Hampi-ness" from, check out my good friend's blog: http://bit.ly/molkFP   (and you're welcome N, at least you'll get more hits and you never know, maybe some other company will fall in love with your pictures, and that's more $$$ for you to visit me)

Also, I apologize for my keen "fans" (if there are any left), but I started having to type a lot and work, and didn't feel like sitting in front of a computer after work.

Ok, to get to the point of this post, my trip to Hampi! This was an awesome trip, and one of the highlights of my entire internship. The ideal trip I would recommend someone is Hampi, Athirapally Falls and then hiking in the Coorg forests (in the next post).  :)

So the trip to Hampi ended up with almost all the interns at that time (I would guesstimate 80% of all the interns) going with us. We took an overnight train to Hospet, which is about 12 km away from Hampi, and then haggled with an auto to take us to Hampi. The guest house we were staying at had quoted almost double the price of the auto, so I was honestly satisfied. Due to the large number of people who went, we all split up the housing to different places. So there was a group of mostly MBAs who stayed at some fancy hotel in Hospet...and from the descriptions I've been given, I mean FANCY. Nice pool, restaurants, etc. then there were us...living in a nice, cozy guesthouse. Bed? check. Roof? check. Bathroom? check. Plumbing works? check. good enough! oh wait....AC? check! (we find out later though...AC didn't really work, I was sweating like a pig at night)

so we reached the guest house, freshened up, and then were supposed to meet our group and a guide at some other guest house. Initially, we thought this was far...but as it turned out, it was right opposite our guesthouse....and I could basically jump from one guest house to another! While waiting for people, we saw monkeys on top of the roof, so went to the roof to take pictures with monkeys, and hypothesize different scenarios.

following the formalities and settling how much to pay , etc. a group of us went to get mopeds. Why? Because we're awesome. We created a biker gang, and acted like goons. ok no, not really. but we did basically form a gang, and went on the tour of the different temples. the thing that was different about Hampi is that there were a lot of rocks around. Most of the temples and statues, etc. were also made of rocks. So even though I do not like trips that consists of sight-seeing....this was quite fun. Plus, the mo-ped rides between places made it more fun.

I'll skip all the rock structure stories (no offence to anyone)...except...oo, gotta elaborate on the bike gang. Well, we stuck together. and eventually, we had more interest to ride bikes than to follow the guide. I mean, it was nice to see (very beautiful), but do we really want to hear the history behind it? not really. although there was this one very explicit carving in a rock, which we would never have known without the guide, so yes, it was nice. But the guide just kept waiting for everyone to come before starting, so a lot of people starting getting annoyed waiting for the bikers (even though we told them to go on ahead without us)

Lunch was awesome. It was at this place called "Mango Tree", and to get there, we need to park our bikes/autos (for the non-adventurous people haha) and walk about 5 minutes through a mango farm. And then we reach the restaurant, which overlooks a very beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, I am not writing this on my own computer, so don't have access to pictures at the moment, but visit the link I gave above for awesome pictures. oh yeah, she also has good pictures from Hyderabad! But anyhow, the way it works is, at each table, we only sit in one row....the one leaning against the wall, and then while eating, just look at the scenery. Excellent concept. Food was good too :)

After the tour and everything, we returned our bikes, and then a couple of us decided to go chill by the river. The river also has rocks and in the middle, there was some sort of structure kind of thing. One of my friends has the bright idea to get there, so four of us set off on a mission. An awesome mission :)

So we start jumping between rocks, until we reach a certain point, where the jump is a bit far. Oh wait...let me back up a few seconds. Before embarking on this journey, we talked to two female french tourists, you know..just friendly chit-chat. Ok, so while jumping around rocks, we begin to gather a crowd. and then , when we reached the long jump, two of us (me included ofcourse!) get through comfortably. The other two have difficulty (more like scared to get wet, but that's besides the point), and then we finally convinced them to come. But then, we  reached a deadend (meaning, no more plausible rocks to jump to...haha an oversight on my part lol). There was a rock right at the surface which I had hoped to walk through, but then it was too slippery (duh!). So we decided to double back. This would require us to jump back again, through that long jump.

Now, what I had forgot to mention was...the fact that we were able to jump across earlier was because we were aided by the fact that the other rock on the opposite side was lower than where we were standing. So, that "virtually" gave us more "air", since it took us longer to hit the rock, since it was lower (if you still can't visualize this....I give up). Well, now we're going the OPPOSITE way, hence jumping to a higher elevation. And whereas earlier the rock was big, so we could run and get a good start, this time, it was a small rock. Only two steps of a start...that too, not in a straight line. Got to step perpendicular to the jump direction and then push off against the rock. Oh yeah, and our feet were wet! Tricky.

The first dude (from Peru) did it easily. I went went second, and had to scramble as I slipped a bit, but made it across fine. Now comes the American girl. Lots of drama (LOL!). Even more people watching now, and the two french tourists we were talking to earlier, they have their iphone out, recording a video. After some time of gathering some guts and some convincing, she backs up, jumps and.......

....straight into the river. LOL! we pull her up and the other dude (Canadian...kinda...) decides it's not worth the embarrassment, and wades through the water instead. So that's two wet, and two dry. We go through a different route instead. Again, have to go on a slippery rock, but this time, we manage it. Initially we formed a human chain until the first person got to a safe place (not too far, so there were too anchors on dry land)...but we eventually found out we could balance ourselves and go slowly. After all four makes it across, we were just starting to have fun, and well, continuing to plan our route ahead, when we hear a loud whistle. A cop (more like cop-wannabe), blowing at us to go back. We pretend not to hear (there are people who have tried to follow us), and the dude slowly walks over to talk to them. Finally, we couldn't ignore the dude any longer. So we head back...mission failed.

We did go to the french tourists, and saw the video recorded by them. Shows the American girl falling right into the water, and there was an awesome narration in French (which I didn't understand but seemed funny nonetheless). She gave them her email address to email the video, but I don't think they ever did (or so she claims)

anyway, we chilled out in the evening after dinner, just hanging out with our mates, and then went to bed. Woke up in the morning and today I didn't quite feel like getting a bike. Then a friend of mine suggested getting a bicycle instead and I was interested. It seemed like everyone were going to a place called "Hanuman Temple", and for that, we have to cross the river to the other side (same river we were playing around in). We figured we can get the bicycle once we crossed it (with a boat, not swim), but miscalculated, and well....there were no bicycles on the other side. A few of us didn't want to get on the autos, and well, there were three bikes and six people. So two on one bike. That began a very interesting day...

Initially I didn't want to ride the bike, and my friend wanted to ride it, so that was easy. But she couldn't balance it with me on the bike...so I had no choice but to ride it. And as it turns out, we probably got the worst bike in the entire town...

First off, it is BLOODY hard to turn on. You had to kick the bike and rev the accelerator, while holding a button, all with perfect timing. Only then it turns on. Secondly, every time you slow down, the machine GOES OFF. So yeah, refer back to the original point in this paragraph.....an endless loop lol.

Anyway, we eventually reached the Hanuman temple. For those of you who don't know, Hanuman is the monkey God, so yeah, there were a lot of monkeys around. The temple was at a top of a hill...so we had a LONG climb up a lot of stairs. And there were some funny scenes....for example on the way down, there was an uncle, who was scared of one of the monkeys. and so he tried attacking it with his slippers, which pissed the monkey off more...lol a wonderful scene indeed.

anyway, the temple was just an ordinary mandir, but, close to it...there were a lot of rocks. So we decided to explore, and hence, walked on and on and on....amazingly beautiful! Check this out (from the blog above)
http://bit.ly/qrlmwA

And this too

http://bit.ly/oJjLO9

Amazing right? Told ya!

Ok, after Hanuman temple, we went on to some place....where we had a flat tyre!!!! Ahhh...so we went to look for a tyre repair shop, at which place we met two british tourists having trouble with their cycle as well. We made new friends, and had lunch together nearby. And then we parted ways....but that's when we had trouble starting our bike again! lol....a bunch of local kids come to help us out...but to no avail. Even the local bike expert, one of the kid's elder brother was summoned....and still couldn't do anything. checked if we had gas....yes we had it. Finally, we got it working, and we decided,....no more breaking until we reach!

But then, on the way, we realized...oh no! part of the way back requires a very steep curve followed by a downhill ride.....no way we can't slow down (or else we'll end up in the rocks). luckily, the dude from the bike shop got worried and came looking for us, and he seemed to know exactly what the problem with the bike was, as after he sped along when he saw us....he and his young young son waited at the bottom of that hill. He then gave us his bike, kick started our old bike in less than a second, and was gone again. We just stood there wondering...WTF?!!?

After returning the bike, we then were walking back to the boats, when we saw some locals playing cricket. We joined in...and hahaha, so they were playing it at a hill...so and there was a building on the leg side (left side), and right over the building....is downhill. Obviously the rule is, if you hit it over the building, you're out. The awesome skills in me managed to hit it over that building twice. Beautiful shots...but also out T_T

I must say though, I have to thank my friend for her patience and good humor throughout the day and also for being such a good sport, because without that, the day would have been horrible. But as it turns out, it was an awesome day, and we all had a lot of fun. Well, I had a lot of fun :) So thanks!

After we head back to the guest house, I asked the owner if there was a place i can shower, and the dude allowed me to shower in an empty room, which was nice of him. Then off we went to the train station, had dinner at a small dhaba..well smaller than a dhaba, just a shack kind of thing, but still really tasty food. I had two servings (which meant that my TP came into good use haha, since it was after all an overnight train...and input = output....law of conservation of matter)

That's about it folks....thanks for the patience in reading all this (assuming you ever get to this part). As for the next blog post....Coorg!!! Another awesome adventure where we got very close to the nature :)

EDIT: corrected mistakes in the links

Kerala!!!!

Kerala...EPIC! So we (group of 7 people) took a train to Ernakulam, and reached like super early. We traveled in the sleeper class (non-ac) and it was the most comfortable mode of transport so far (compared to Bus Sleeper and Bus Semi-sleeper --> very uncomfortable)

The main point of the trip was to get on the houseboat and go along the backwater, but check-in was at noon. So we went to check out some fort, which as it turns out, was just the name of the area, and there were no actual forts

The fishing nets!

What was cool though, was the fishing nets in that area. Apparently the idea was brought by the Chinese some time ago, and it's been there ever since.  Pretty neat eh? The entire structure flips over  and is then submerged in the water. Later on, the fishermen then just pull it back and get the fishes out! Simple and easy.

A couple of the people in our group then decided to buy some fishes and eat for breakfast. Very adventurous...since I could barely stand the smell and the sight of live fishes wiggling around lol. But well, the pictures above depicts a local Kerala version of Fish and chips! They cooked and cleaned the fish really well, and yeah it was good =)

We then headed over to the houseboat, making a stopover at some church (seriously, it's not me wanting to see churches and temples and museums, etc. I prefer the nature!) Next to the church, there were a bunch of kids playing cricket, so my friend and I decided to join them. Lol, these kids started trying to do fancy stuff and impress us with their bowling, but it was a big time fail (wide balls, no balls, super high bouncers, etc.) Anyway, when I started batting, I think I annoyed them big time by hitting the ball too far (and they had to go fetch it). I hit it like 3 times, and then all the kids suddenly went away and started playing football instead. Hahah, we got the hint and left.

The houseboat was huge! It reminded be a bit of the barge trip we took in school, and as far as the backwaters go, it was very serene and beautiful. Makes me wonder what Bangkok khlongs looked like before it became a city made of concrete. We were greeted with a welcome drink of coconut water and they served some awesome meals. One question I have though...why is it that when I buy coconut water in Thailand, from the roadside (hence out in the hot sun), it's always cool...yet the ones here are not???? so frustrating!

Here are a few pictures of the houseboat and some of our meals.

The boat, according to government laws, wasn't allowed to continue sailing after 6 pm, so around 5pm we anchored at some village. We then went out to explore the village, which was very small, although there were some houses under construction which seemed to be big and expensive. One of the guys with us is a fruit-lover (basically buys fruits almost wherever we go), and well, when we're at the "market", he sees this thing that looked like a watermelon from the outside. No one in the village can speak Hindi, let alone English, so there was an interesting haggling period before they got the idea to start writing down numbers instead =P

Anyway, it turns out what he bought was NOT a fruit. It looks like มะเขือ, the bitter kind you put in different Thai curries. LOL! We couldn't stop laughing. Big fail. Anyway, the houseboat staff then used it to whip up another dinner dish.

In the evening, one of the local village boys also came to us and asked us if we wanted to go on a boat ride (the rowing kind). He could speak really good english, and as we find out later, he was a 2nd year engineering student at a pretty good university. He did these boating trips since he was around 14, taking tourists around the backwater, to some nice places, and since the houseboat can't operate and people have nothing to do, it was a good part-time business for him. That was when we got to see the areas around the backwater better, the trees (banana and mango), and he even told us about how it used to be rice plantations like in the early 90s. That was relaxing.

We had been discussing what to do on Sunday, when we're done with the boat at around 9 am, and have our train at 5 pm. We were at Alleypey, and we had two options: some elephant training center thing and athirapally falls. The majority wanted to go to elephant thing, which was a major disappointment. (all 3 places and the train station were in different cities....so traveling time had to be taken into account).

Anyway, the elephant place literally had 4 elephants, and the elephant which tourists ride was sick (and the main reason the people from the group wanted to go was to ride the elephant). Luckily entrance was only 2 rupees. But hey! We did see an elephant in a trance state. There was one dude that just kept shaking it's head and dancing....definitely a new experience.

Since we had plenty of time left, we made our way to Athirapally falls, and that my friends, was the highlight of the trip. I don't even mind going back again just to see the falls. It was huge, and very very beautiful. I honestly did not expect such a big fall. When we hiked down to the bottom of the fall, guess what? It "rained". And by that, I mean the fall was so big, and the water fell so hard that it splashed around the area as if it was raining. It was also fun because there were alot of local tourists in that area, and they wanted to take a lot of pictures with our group. I feel kind of bad for the girls though...they could barely walk around without someone grabbing them and saying "photo photo!" There were some really good pictures and that was an epic fall. It made me realize that I really really enjoy nature, and not too much of museums and palaces....

Well, that was about it. We had lunch at some restaurant in front of the train station. Oh wait, I forgot one more thing.....the train actually reached Bangalore BEFORE TIME! I felt like I should have checked the skies to see if there were pigs flying. It was scheduled to reach at 4.30 am, and at about 3.50 am I woke up to find us at a station in Bangalore. 10 minutes later, we're at the main Bangalore station. Amazing eh?

Again, photos credit goes to my friend, not me, except for this next one...just for my friends at Tech!

This was the name of a food court in the Bangalore train station

That's it from me folks! This coming weekend we're headed for Hampi...this time a pretty big group (28 people and counting!) Hopefully it'll be fun =)

Oh, and a special note to those who think I'm here just for fun and traveling...and get annoyed at me for not calling....I just want you to know that I actually WORK on week days. And when I do get off work, there isn't really time to go make house visits and stuff. So chill out. The only way I'm able to fund these trips is by working. Good, now I'm glad we're on the same page.