Fresh memories of Dandeli Trip

The unofficial-story-teller is back again to share his wonderful experience of last weekend trip to Dandeli. I still can't come out of memorable 3+ days that we spent together, from 23rd Jan to 27th Jan 2009. I was longing a journey in train for quite a time and that became too special with 21 other friends!

We all boarded Yeshwanthpur-Hubli train at 10:10pm on 23th friday night and reached Hubli at 7:30am the next morning. We had loads of fun in the train, right from cribbing our managers to pulling each others legs ;)

We reached Manish's place at Hubli and got ourselves refreshed. Manish's mother had taken a lot of trouble in preparing variety of dishes for breakfast - Idli, Upma, Chutney, Sweets, pathre vada,many fruits...(and the list continues). We all felt like we were at home. All the credit and million thanks to Manish's mother for everything.

Having "heavy" breakfast, we set out to Dandeli - Kali jungle resort. Thanks to Manish and his brother who had done all the travel, accommodation for all of us in beautiful resort.

It was noon by the time we reached the resort. We all had nice lunch and slept till 4:30pm until we had coffee/tea and got ready for evening walk to sunset point. It was awesome in exploring the place around till dusk. The sun hid under the blue clouds as it approached the horizon. Shimmering golden waters beneath the sinking sun was so beautiful to watch. Setting sun became a toy in our hands, as we captured in camera as if holding it, gulping it, and even smoking it!! Coming back to our base we had lots of fun in playing cards(with no bets, ofcourse!) Thanks to all the bluffers who taught me how to play. Later that night we all celebrated Manasi's birthday at resort and guess what the birthday gift was!! A pink heart shaped birthday cake, a pink adorable soft-toy bunny, which was named "Madhatter!" by her and a board game of scotland yard. All the credit goes to Sundar for choosing the gifts. It was already 1:00am by then and we had to leave at 4:00am for wildlife safari in the morning. So we decided to have a night-out that early morning and it all kicked off with the Director's cut! Hats off to Joseph's creativity (or perhaps the kick :P) in making 17 sequels of the same movie "Pati patni woh aur Doodhwaala!" with different ending and twists(by santosh) :P Hope everyone took it sportively.

The next morning we all went early morning safari with our red-painful-sleep-filled eyes and to our bad luck we could only see bears! and elephants! and bisons! and tigers! and panthers! on the road side boards below which it said "protect me!" :( All we had was good red-mud-facial for just 500 bucks! with all the muddy roads of the forest. We then reached a sunrise viewpoint in the forest and in a somber mood we returned back as we couldn't even have a look at real wild animals! Every one had to settle down in calling the stray dog as tiger (while having morning coffee) :P

Then we visited cytheri/sintheri/syntheri rocks(I really saw all three different version of names on billboards) and the red mud path till the giant monolithic granite! was just awesome. Harsha, Sanika, Prashanth and I practiced monkey-business on the way (and soon we realised - Latak ne se height nahi badtha, mummy ko bol complan deneko!) ;)

Coming back to our temporary residence we had lunch and slept for a while to go for the coracle(theppa) ride that late afternoon. The branches of trees and their reflections touching the still water were so alluring that I could not stop taking snaps from my camera.

Since, It was just 4-5 kms the way back to resort, some-of-us decided to take an evening stroll and on the way I found "biodegradable buttons" (This discovery would make Manasi happy :P), A beautiful shiny rounded seeds from a wild tree. Namarta was so happy to get a snap posing on asphalted road! And I can't forget the "boulevard of broken dreams" song - "I walk a lonely road.. The only one that I have ever known..." that Prashanth and I sang on our way back. So true, for the silence around and also it was the only path that we knew for our way back!

Soon after coming back we started off playing Kho-Kho till we started camp fire later that night. Sonu turned out to be champ at Kho-Kho! It was nice fun.

On 26th, The republic day morning we left early for most adventurous and famous Kali white water river rafting in Dandeli. As we reached the place early, at around 8:00am, we had nothing to do till all 8 rafts were brought to starting place. So we started off with celebrating republic day as I had got a tri-coloured plastic carry bag cover. We set it on a pole and called it our national flag and sung our national anthem and saluted mother India with great respects. We didn't show and disrespect by using the cover as we all have immense patriotism within us.

Again to kill time, we started off with Kabaddi and many of us really got hurt, but not so badly to discontinue rafting.

Rafting was the best part in the whole trip and the guide made us all sail together as a team. The fast rapids and the turbine-like river flow at the end forced the adrenaline to rush through our veins.

After rafting we had lunch at hotel Santosh (I do remember it as Shreyas, SL and Joe had Santosh spl ice-cream after they couldn't get honeymoon spl ice-cream that they had ordered for! :P) We headed back to Hubli thanking Manish's Bro on the way back and had great! great!! dinner again troubling Manish's family at his place.

Apart from all this literal documenting of the entire trip experience in words, there are certain things that I ought to share that I really felt from my heart.

I had never thought that Harsha could sing so well. It was surprising to see him sing with full emotions and expressions even at high pitches! I really enjoyed it a lot. Kudos to you mate! You eased all our comfort levels by mingling with every other as their own. And special thanks for being kannada teacher! to Sanika who was so eager to learn the new language. Reading out billboards in kannda named "Huballi Junction" and "Daandeli aranya pradhesha"(Dandeli wildlife santuary) were too much to ask for, that too from a beginner! But that was good to see her making an effort. I appreciate it.

Hats off to brave and adventurous Sonu. He was the first one to drop himself into river water, even though he had no experience in swimming, when asked to show the demo of laying down on back in flowing water as a part of white water river swimming.

I have great respects for the girls of our gang and I envy that they were more united than the rest of us. I appreciate your patience and your ability to console the crying kid :P and bring back smile in minutes!

Foremost of all, I had not seen the doofus(in her own words :P) acting so sensitive like the curious little sister not being allowed to join the game played by her big brothers! I know, Birthday away from family seems not at all special but gloomy. The next day while coming back in the train I couldn't sleep for a long while and mind was bogged in those memories. So I borrowed train tickets from Rajesha, a pen from Sanika and disturbed a whole lot others(who were wondering as to why?) just to jot down whatever came to my erratic mind! and here it goes dedicated to little sister doofus ;) (Remember the song that I sang in cab? "phoolon ka thaaron ka sabka kehna hai.. Ek hazaron mein meri behna hai".. I owe it to you!)

In search of destiny,
I met so many people on the way.
Living in the past,
I miss a lot of them long gone away.
But forgot the eternal truth-
That I only have today.

Family, Friends or colleagues -
I don't know to choose when and how!
But i want to live life the fullest
and make the most of it now,
being happy for and enjoying their
affection, care and love.

Today is "also" my birthday,
as I celebrate life every-single-day.

-Happy birthday again and again.
-Forever cheers!

I uploaded a collection of all camera pics that I could collect and selected ones are present @
Dandeli trip web album

I have embedded the picasa album slideshow here.


Have fun, Enjoy!
'Short is life; Sweeter we shall make it by living life like there's no another!'
Cheers to our brotherhood!

Run++;

(Above pic: L->R: myself, Keshav, Chetan, Adarsh)
(Above pic: Mera number aagaya!)
(Above pic: All ready to set track on blaze)

I feel so great that I ran my first half-marathon(21.95 kms) and completed it successfully!

It had been in my wish-list for a long time to do something like this as I had never done it before in my lifetime.(Don't ask me the remaining ones now!)

Quote -"If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a Marathon." - Emil Zatopek, Olympic Legend.
Inspired by the words above I took up this long distance running as a challenge and also to face an entirely new wonderful experience.

I did run for the cause to save environment and for greener world as I like nature the way it is untouched by humans. Also I did run for I like being a part of adventure and to burn the pizza's and burger's that I keep having now as a "software engineer" :D

Yup, That was a hell lot of challenging workout! Though I was no way close to world class time(1st place guy had more than 11 km lead!!!), it was an awesome experience on the way.

I left my place to join my three other college friends(Keshav,Adarsh,Chetan) enroute to whitefiled at around 8:00pm on Saturday evening in Car. We reached the place in-time. It was 10pm then. We had light dinner of kaati veg rolls, which even turned out our purses light( Damn, every food was double the rate!) Having already registered, we had no other choice to wander around till the start. So we killed time in taking photos in-front-of the big banners put up and watching the rock show ongoing. As usual, there was no surprise in kaddi(Keshav) untieing his long hair, looking around for beautiful "pieces"(He will definitely kill me for saying this TRUTH! :P) and sha(Chetan) exagerrating whatever he told!

It was already 11:15pm. We all changed our clothes, put on running shoes and the bibs on our chest. All ready for jet-set-go, we had a photo session again to proudly show our bib numbers.

Bengaluru Midnight marathon started exactly at 00:00am, the very early morning of 11th Jan, with about 700-800 runners all stretching and warming up for the long run. Counddown timer buzzed as few bunch of chaps roared hip hip hurray at the beginning. The initial running started with full enthu untill few dropped back after 5-10 kms. We four of us couldn't go together as we planned and we decided to meet back at the car after the run it over. There were 5 ambulances around for emergencies and water was avaiable for every 2 km run. Hats off to the volunteers who held water, glucose, electral for all runners and cheered us to go further. Participants of every age were present right from 15 to even 65+!! The elderly runners even went past several youngsters who were panting to breath in the second loop of 11 km! I even saw 6-7 year old kids along with their whole family standing outside there homes adjacent to the running track and clapping their little hands to cheer us even at 2:00 am in the morning. I even gave "high five" to the audience who held his hand out to reach us which made him happy and me too! The first 11km run(1st loop) was not difficult, but as I closed the 15 km run it was really tiring. As the muscles in thighs ran short of oxygen, the veins fully bloated and forced a lot to stick to walk-run(less)-walk policy instead of run-walk(less)-run. In the 22 km half marathon, I did about 4-5 km walk alone.

As I closed the finish line, I met kaddi(Keshav) from behind who had picked up pace and we reached the finish line. We saw sha(Chetan) already outside the track waiting for us and I still wonder if he ran back to base the half way :P

After re-hydrating and resting for a while we headed back to parking lot and it was 3:15am by then. Results of the Half-Marathon were being declared when we headed back. Soon Adarsh came back from his run. Emptying out the relispray and whole glucose packet, we sat(or hardly slept) in car till 5:00 am. We finally found an Empty Cafe Coffee day!! with no pizzas, no cakes, no pastry, not even chocolates. So we had to settle only with cafe latte's and capuccino's :(

We had a great time in the morning remembering our college days and our RV 2008 CS batch as the best ever. Jigit, Rampa, Mass suspension by our HOD were the main highlights of our discussion. We didn't even spare our "good" lecturers :P

Tired and hungry we left at around 6:30am bidding farewell to meet soon again.(i.e., for my next cycling to Nandi hills/Ramnagaram. Aren't you guys coming!?)

I slept whole sunday afternoon and night except for eating lavishly ;)

Every time I have a look at the Bib number-"1257" at my office desk memories of my 1st Marathon passes by. Thanks to friends who accompanied me on that wonderful night.

See you sooner or later. I hope it's always sooner :)