Khonoma was beautiful...

Hey everyone!! So here comes a post after a really really long time! Hope you enjoy it :)
 

So a few months back, I accompanied my Mom to Nagaland. Kohima to be precise. And after a week of work Mom, and Aunty M were ready to take a break. A friendly guy we met at Calcutta airport (News flash: there are no direct flights to Nagaland. You have to go through Calcutta), had told us about this village called Khonoma ,which was famous because it was an eco village.

  

On Sunday when everyone had a day off, we booked a cab and started off for Khonoma. The plan was to go there in the cab (an Omni), walk around in the village, and come back in the car. A normal day. No craziness involved. But we all forgot something. Where Mom and I are concerned, there is no normalness, and certainly no sanity.

Our car, stuck in a ditch

It’s a twenty kilometre journey. We are 10 kms away from Khonoma. And our car gets stuck in a ditch filled with muddy water. There’s a few cars behind us, and the men get down to help us push our car out. It’s quite a comical site. The men look at us in amusement when we start pushing, but realise that we’re just as strong as them. Yours truly is right behind the back wheel, and when the driver starts the car, I get a taste of the lovely, chocolate brown water.

That problem sorted, we get back in and start off again. Only to stop a little further. We started rolling up our sleeves thinking it was another car stuck in a ditch. But no this was something  even worse. The road had been blocked by a landslide.

 

A spider web 

The unknown

 The men called up the church and asked them to send a vehicle. The group going to church were going to cross the mud covered road to the other side and then go on to the church in the vehicle they would send. We had two choices. Either we sat in a car (like normal people) and went to Khonoma and back, or (like us abnormal people) trek.

My backpack was emptied of everything except two bottles of water, Cola (for the caffeine kick), lunch and my Mom’s purse (what good that was going to do in the wilderness, I still have no clue). I carried my camera, with an extra battery. And of course got some good snaps! We went about 7 kms before deciding to come back.

My once white and blue shoe,after
the trek

The locals start clearing the
landslide after Church

Therefore, in conclusion we actually didn’t get to see Khonoma at all. And the next time you see my Mom and me telling each other “Khonoma was beautiful”, with a cheeky smile, you now know exactly why we’re saying that. ;)

Goa to Bombay (2)

The day after the next, we hired a WagonR and started off for Kolhapur.
The journey was fun; with the driver playing just the one CD he had on loop. By the time we stopped for lunch, I knew all the Kishore Kumar songs on that CD by heart.

We passed through some scenic points, which were like all tourist spots crowded. The crowd spoilt the view really with their insane chatter, when they should have been staring at the horizon peacefully. Breathing in the smells of the forest that lay below us.

By the time we reached the Goa-Maharashtra border it was 1. We stopped at a small roadside restaurant for lunch. They said the food would only be coming at 1.15. This idea of food being bought form home to a ‘restaurant’ was quite novel to me.

It was delicious! Piping hot, home cooked and very different from what I usually have back home.

By four that evening we had reached Kolhapur.
Getting to the hotel proved to be quite exciting. No one seemed to have a clue about where it was located. The locals would point to the right and say go to the left and vice versa. We went round in circles for over half an hour before finally finding the hotel.

 To my delight the hotel we were staying in had a Baskin Robins store right in the lobby. We made plans to go to the Mahalakshmi temple the next day.

Goa to Bombay (1)

My first trip this summer. And it was to Goa, from where we had to get to Mumbai. With pit stops of course!

The bougainvillea

We reached Margaon, Goa at 10 in the morning. Getting into a taxi, the feel of a small lazy town soon drifted to us. Our hotel ‘La Flor’ was a small place, in a rundown area with a railway track opposite the hotel. Imagine waking up at midnight because of a train horn!
Of course the first task was to find a good place for lunch. Asking a taxi driver where we would find local food, we set off asking locals for the directions. At Khamat we had a delightful ‘thali’.

A truck on a train!

The hotel was lovely. Small but you could sit out front under a mango tree. The fusion of bougainvillea, mangoes, cats, trains and shouts of children enjoying the summer accompanied by a gentle breeze was enthralling.

In the evening, impatient to shoot a sunset at a beach, I dragged my parents out asking an auto to take us to the closest beach.
We soon reached Colva, which was your typical tourist beach. Cafes, roadside shops selling beach dresses and water sports. A lot of people were parachute sailing, others using jet skis. Frolicking in the surf was fun. After which I settled onto the sand getting some spectacular snaps of the sunset.

Dinner was cold pizza, and cola at a small café by the sea.

The City With The Pulse- Mumbai

This is what I’m missing I thought. It was eight thirty in the evening and I was sitting on the parapet at Marine Drive. The Queen’s Necklace as vibrant and colorful as ever. I watched a boy, probably sixteen or seventeen years of age taking a dog and a pup for a walk. People jogged by listening to music.

Not only did I not have a place like this to walk around in my town, there was no way I could do it alone, especially at night. During different situations friends and I had been forced to use autos instead of walking, thanks to hooligans on the street. Here, you scream, people beat up the guy near you and then ask what is wrong.

True, Mumbai’s a big city, too big for me, a small town girl at heart. But then you have these wonderful opportunities!
 You have restaurants by the sea where you have a karaoke night with DJs. Bookstores with wonderful collections and cozy armchairs tucked away in corners to escape reality, and cafés with scrumptious food. Believe me serious reading makes one hungry.
 

The true essence of Mumbai is, I guess, the way all opposites seem to live together happily. You have your Bollywood superstars, and you have the biggest slum in all of Asia, Dharavi in the same city. You have people selling toys and porno movies on the same street. Buildings that look Tudor and Victorian house banks like HSBC and BSNL.

Mumbai cannot be described in one article. In the coming days there’ll be more I assure you. So keep an eye on this page.

The Crazy Class Trip (3)

Warning: 24 hours on a mini bus strictly not recommended, especially for people with sensitive backsides.

Imagine this. 24 people, sitting close to midnight on a nearly deserted station. Oh yes, and to top it all one of our classmates wanted to have a dance off with a drunk Michael Jackson wannabe.

The teachers were calling up senior teachers, trying to figure out what to do. One thing was clear. We were not supposed to spend the night in Bangalore. We did try telling the teachers that we could take a Volvo and then later pay. But no. They wanted to do it their way.

We got into our tour bus and started off for some place. I don’t really know the name. The girls and boys were separated and put in two mini buses. Oh did I mention one of the guys had chicken pox?
 

So at 1.04 am, I was sitting on a mini bus, trying to sleep, which was a bit difficult due to three reasons. Firstly I’m a long legged person, and there was no leg space at all. Second, the window on the other side was completely open, and it was freezing cold. Third and most annoyingly, the driver was playing Himesh Reshamia songs and refused to play any others. (For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Reshamia sings through his nose, and it can be quite irritating.) Two guys were on our bus, and one refused to sleep saying that most accidents in the state of Karnataka occurred because the driver fell asleep.

In the morning, my phone was the only one with charge so it was used to call up the parents. We finally stopped at a petrol pump to freshen up. My friend and I made a beeline for a shop asking for a plug point to charge our phones. I must say I fell in love with my phone all over again because in fifteen minutes it had four bars. We stopped to breakfast at a small roadside joint. Lunch was at four in the afternoon. And I finally made it back home by around 1.30 am.

Here’s the best bit. A week later I got chicken pox, and so did all others in the class who hadn’t gotten it before! Moral of the story? Never ever let your teachers plan your class trips!!

The Crazy Class Trip (2)

After spending two days and a night in Mysore, we headed back to Bangalore to shop some more.  Stopping at a stadium opposite the entrance to Commercial Street, we were told to get back by 7 pm. That gave us around 3 hours to shop. We spilt up into many groups and went different ways. We all got back to the bus on time and started off for Pizza Hut, to take pizzas so we could eat on the train. After getting the pizza, we started off for the station.

One of the teachers just happened to take a look at the ticket. It was 8.50 pm…and our train was leaving at 9 pm!!! Apparently out guide had though 21.00  meant 11 o’clock. A mad rush for the station took place. Many of us, seasoned travellers tried calling the station. And then we suggested instead of Yeshvantpur, why not go to Bangalore Junction, where the train’ll wait for more time. But no, the teachers were stubborn, and by the time we reached the platform, our train was gone.

Now what would happen normally in a situation like this? Teachers would take charge and calm parents, guardians and students down right? But then my school is not normal. They started weeping!! And our sir disappeared somewhere! I must say that is one time my class was at it’s best. Dividing wordlessly into groups, some started calming the teachers down, two of us contacted friends in Bangalore to ask for tickets, and while I did that I also had the honour of calming down a classmate and calling up his grandfather.

We sat at the station till 11 ‘o’clock, waiting for the teachers to come to a decision. It was 15 degrees C. Two girls didn’t have jackets, and the extra cardigans were greatly appreciated. Phones were switched off to conserve the battery.

Trip to Karnataka (5) THE GRAND FINALE

After the most uncomfortable night (try sleeping with the fear of falling off your berth in a BUS, and getting your nose squashed against a window) we finally reached Bangalore! Unfortunately the hotel where our friend was going to stay at (and we were going to use the shower and have breakfast) was quite a distance from where we had gotten down. Still an ‘autowalla’ agreed to take us there.

The cold morning air, a bad road and too much time in getting there was having quite an effect on my bladder. I do think I might have seemed a tad odd to the receptionist, who saw a girl run into reception, ask for the bathroom, and run off in search of it.

After leaving our luggage in the room, we went to have some breakfast. On the way we saw the pool. Big, with three water slides, a pool bar and water polo nets. It was decided that a swim was in order before we left for the city.

What a breakfast it was! Doughnuts (yes you read that right!), pancakes, fresh cut fruit, cereal…right I better stop. After breakfast, we played a little ‘table’ tennis. Thing is, it wasn’t just table tennis. I managed to bounce the ball off the floor, the wall, the ceiling and even the window frame before finally hitting it out of the window. A little game of one on one basketball followed. The court was absolutely gorgeous.

After a brief shopping trip to a nearby mall, Mom I and started off for the airport. We reached at one for a four PM flight. Three hours at the airport, especially a cool one like Bangalore, no biggie right? One hour passed, then another, then another half. Mom got up and asked a guy already troubled many times by us what was going on. He said the flight had been delayed till seven. And there was no other flight before that. Security check done, we visited all the shops, had some food and sat down and relaxed. I called up my best friend and described the airport to her. And then I saw Deepika Padakoune (yes I just wrote Deepika Padakoune). We finally left at seven and reached home at ten thirty. I had spent a total of seven hours at the airport. And thus ended the most fantastic trip one could ever have!