My Over-night Bus Rides

I have been in Bangalore for almost 3.5 years now. And being a Keralite, home is always a night journey away. And as one of my colleagues exaggerated, if you cannot find me office, you find me in one of the highways to Kerala. On an average I use to travel home once on every 3 weekends. And I have always travelled in bus. I would like to share some of my funny and memorable days in the bus.

My General Learning

There are some general rules:

Rule 1: Ladies can’t travel when a guy is sitting next to her.

Rule 2: Your bus will never reach even 30 minutes after departure time on a usual day

Rule 3: Bugs are free entertainment in bus, be prepared for that

Rule 4: Last row in the bus is the worst seats in the bus, and ladies are “Weak Sex”, so can’t sit there either.

My First Trip

First time I came to from home, I did not know about the bus service. So have booked a KSRTC Super Express Ticket. To tell you about the bus, bus is having shutter for windows, no pushback or cushioned seats. Not aware of the climate in Bangalore either, I came in the thinnest shirt. And in the bus I was the only passenger except some people who travelled between some intermediate points. It was damn cold in the bus, tension of attending an interview and lonely travel – altogether it was one of my worst trips.

Rule 1 can have exceptions

Rule 1 can have exceptions but people always look at with wrong eyes. Once when I was planning to travel home, as usual have asked couple of my friends whether anyone who was travelling so that can go together. But one of my friend’s friend – Stephie - was travelling and did our ticket together. We were not close but quite familiar to each other. The travel was not much eventful in the initial phase. We had usual chit-chats regarding office, weekends in general and so on. Stephie was a bad sleeper in bus according to her. It was so cold in the bus, and I was smart enough to have the jacket. But Stephie didn’t have anything thick to help her and being just a friend’s friend, I dint even bother to offer her my jacket.

After reaching Palaghat, somehow suddenly the rear glass of the bus broke. Don’t ask me how a glass can break itself. But all I can say is it was Kerala SRTC A/C bus. But nothing to worry, when I returned back Bangalore next night, aluminium sheet had replaced rear glass! But the funny the thing was my co-passenger didn’t wake from the sleep nor she knew the glass has broken till I told her. But she cant sleep in the bus!!

But the journey is not yet over. Finally we reached Thrissur, and we had to get down there. We stood to take the bags, the guy sitting in the back seat was signalling something to me with his eye. I dint get what he was trying to say. He was having a smile as if he was found out something big in life. He was still giving me some instructions, but this time with his hands. OMG!! He was totally misunderstood us. The problem was some part of her inner was popping out of her salwar around her shoulder. I was not the culprit but ….! I am not sure whether he knows me or my family as we got down at the same stop. And the next question was how will I tell her about this. We never had such talks between us. I dont know how I signalled her, but somehow I conveyed the message. It was the most embarrassing moments. But till now I haven’t told her about the source of the message. 

A lady who booked Driver’s Seat

Sometime back when I was coming back from home, I lady got into bus. She started searching for her seat. A man looking like his dad was helping to locate the seat. To speak about her, she looks like a proper local girl – in salwar who has a crisp slang and loved food (her physique says so atleast). She had booked ticket online and has booked one of the worst seats – the window seat in the last row. The seat will have only half the push-back effect. She don’t want to sit there and she found the conductor single seat empty. So she declared, my seat was a single seat when I checked in the website but it was conductor’s seat. Then she changed her stand, it was a single seat on the right side. There is only one single seat in the entire bus, unfortunately driver was already sitting there. Or has the KSRTC selling driver seat too!! She was shouting and might turn into a tears soon.

She is not going to her original seat. She just sat on conductor’s seat. It was like saying to conductor, if you want your seat back, arrange me a good seat. So conductor has to start negotiating with her for his seat. She was not going back, he gave up. By then there were some KSRTC officers in the bus. They just tried to be the smartest sales men and here comes the offer – if anyone can give their seat to the girl (she is nowhere near maturity to address as Lady), I will give you window seat. Suddenly roars of laughter raised in the bus among strangers. Everyone in the bus knew which was the “window seat”. So conductor of the bus had to move to the least accessible seat in the bus – the “window seat”. If it was an old man or lady I would atleast thought about offering my seat but not to such person. 

A night of Fun

It was one of our classmate’s marriage and four of us – Manu, Treesa, Bhavani and me were travelling to Kerala together and Saleesh in a different bus. None could sleep or perhaps it’s better to say, no one will let others sleep. Every 5 minutes, someone has to make sure others are also awake. When you are making noise and disturbing others, it wont matter much. We were giggling, giving missed calls or sms to someone just sitting across and all idiotic things possible.

We reached Walayar at the checkpost around 4am. It always takes some time there. As men can use any road side as toilet, Manu and me didn’t have to search for toilet. But the ladies needs proper rest room. So we decided to search for it. So Manu will go to somewhere and ask someone for a toilet leaving all the 3 others together and then when he came back, I went to search. I asked in the shop/hotel first. Manu went to the police station asking for a toilet!! We, all four then went into a lodge and even before locating the toilet, we decided to walk back. No luck, and have decided to give up the plan. Bhavani was having a soar-throat and we went to hotel to get some Vicks or so. When we asked the guy overthere, he told us, “just go inside, straight thru the door”. Bhavani almost started walking, then she realized, “why should I go inside his house for a Vicks tablet”. Then we repeated, we need “Vicks”. Oh, he thought we were asking for toilet for ladies and we saw a lady coming out from the door, who was travelling with us. So all problems were solved – girls found the toilet, Bhavani got Vicks and Manu had a tea. By then bus was done with formalities at the checkpost and we resumed the journey.

Doing A Head Shave

It was one of my long time wishes to shave my head. I have heard from many of friends as it’s very cool and I too wanted to feel it. There is no harm in trying it as it will grow back in 2-3 months time. But there were too many ‘No’s, including a heavy one from Mom. Mom’s reason was, you can’t come bald for your brother’s marriage. It had taken more than 6 months to find a suitable alliance and marriage since then. But I had to wait and wait. In the deepest mind, I too was not sure whether to go for it – after all shaving your head will never go you a smarter look.

A week before the ceremony while at native with my bro, mom and a cousin; the same topic came up – my longing to shave head. As usual mom was against saying you wont look good in that and bro in my support. I loved my cousin’s attitude, “you go and just do it; after all its your head”. Yeah, why mom can’t think like that?? Her final argument of brother’s marriage is over but she was saying she don’t want me to take me along with her with no hair in the head. But I am in Bangalore and she is at Kerala and wont be at home not more than a weekend in a month normally.

D-Day

I have to do it, but when, that was a question.  I have decided my next hair cut after brother’s marriage is the one. And I had to wait for another one month to gain the guts. Each morning I will say today evening and in the evening I will say, “Oh!! It’s late, tomorrow”. Finally on the fourth weekend after brother’s marriage by noon I decided to go to barbershop. A question was still in mind – a usual hair-cut or…..?? Finally reached the barbershop and told the brand new model cj’s hair style. He dint have any emotional change (why should he have, he has done more than full moon’s he had seen; Oh I missed it, it was a Lunar eclipse night). I am still not sure; I have to do it, but today?? Very first scissor movement locked the decision. He took the heaviest lock of my hair in single cut from the middle portion. No more escape. So I am going to have a head shave!!

First thing I did after coming out, was a call to mom – “I did it!!”. Bro was also at home then. He turned to a politician – after supporting all these days, now he asks are you crazy. And both of them wanted to see pix. Soon I went out for a weekend cricket hours. It was a bad day with bat, and a mediocre one with ball. When I reach back, bro has given publicity enough among the cousins. Finally by dinner time, I uploaded my pix in Facebook. I have never got so many comments or like for anything on Facebook, not even on my birth-day. Mom immediately called after seeing it, “I am shocked” and was the end of call.

Why-syndrome

The question everyone had “why, why did you do this??”. I didn’t have any reason. So answers were filled by themselves – love failure, new love, someone special asked, anything religious, Tirupathi visit, saving money and many more. One of my colleagues have asked this 4 times or so. Why to a hair cut raise so many of “why”s. I agree the scientific approach starts with questions like “why” but why a “why” for such a stupid thing. I fear these people will tomorrow why I had breakfast, why I slept, why I walk to bus-stop, why I.. why I..

Verdict

Still in the first week, I don’t know how long it will take nor how it will feel after 2 weeks. But as of now, its too head is always cooooooool. A drop of water on head is really amazing. You have to feel it. I am enjoying by gentle pats on my head even when I wrote this sentence. And more proud after doing another senseless act in life.

Nelliampathi with family

Nelliampathi was our land of attraction again for the family trip with maternal relatives. We were 41 and were visiting the place after a span of 4 years. The idea behind the trip is simple – men can drink freely and women will get freely. I have cousins who didn’t come for my brother’s marriage a week before but reached for the trip from abroad. The trip is on weekend, have booked a stay almost 12km from road, no sight-seeing or outing.

I was the one to reach at Thrissur by 8 in the morning. Soon after taking a bath, I boarded the bus to Nelliyapathi. When I entered the bus, it looked bit funny to me – a thermocol box for ice-cubes, 2 kilos of peanuts, 2 kilos of onions and couple of bags for liquor!!! Are we going only to drink? I did not spend much time saying hello to all as we were all together last weekend. We had packed cricket bat, cards, chineese-checkers and so on suiting people of respective age group. Soon the music was on, bottles started emptying and trip was gaining momentum. But God never let us over joy, so he made a small accident, nothing serious, a window glass has broken. After 5-10 minutes stop, the trip continued.

Misty Valley

Misty Valley, as I mentioned is 12kms off the main road and jeep was the only mean of travel. 12km in 1hour and 15minutes, such good was the road!!! My cousin even asked the driver, “upto what angle does the jeep withstand; haven’t we reached the limit?” But I can tell you it was such an amazing experience.  There were rocks all over, sometimes steps, quite often the road is not even as wide single jeep, but you can always a jeep from other side and so on. And the best of all, you can expect an elephant or a wild boar or a harmless deer anytime on the journey. But we were not lucky except for a wild boar while returning. After the long drive once we reached the resort by 2pm, we were all tired and hungry. We soon had the food. Soon everyone went for a nap. I have a bad habit, if a sleep in the after-noon, I will sleep for atleast 3 hours. So trying to resist that, we tried to fly the kite. All of us have tried our luck, but could not get the kite even 10 feet high. All to blame our inexperience. Finally I too gave up and had a sleep.

In the evening, we all went for a walk by 5:30pm. It was getting dark early and as we saw to snakes on the way, we had to return soon. We decide to explore more next morning.

After usual chit-chats we camp-fire was ready. The couple dance was the ‘item of the day’. Couples  had to dance with the song we sang. The dancers included 68 years old uncle to recently married brother. Even though none of us had any taste for music we all sang and the next event was the limit of destroying the art of music - ‘Idea star singer’ . ‘If you cant sing , keep your mouth shut’ – is something which never works on these trips. Meanwhile I had omelettes from the kitchen and chicken was served to all. Dinner was soon served by 9:30 and was the end of the day. I did not know why people are sleeping so early during these days,  but had to sleep by 10:30 -11. And that was then end of Day 1.

Stories revealed

On the second morning, as we went for a walk after second trip of black-coffee. Almost everyone was there and it looked like a procession in the middle of the forest. We started to walk with not much plans. Unlike most of the trips to hill stations, there weren’t many leeches – hardly 5-10 for the entire crew. We saw monkey and some were black too. There were mooing of deers but could not see them.

The day-before we had located a coffee-shop too. So last destiny was coffee-shop. It was proper filmi style shop. Long back, it was granary to store coffee seeds. Seats were made of cane and seats on one side holed from half-way. The shop – I doubt whether it could be called so- had opened only with our arrival. The shop had nothing much than tea and coffee and some left-over snacks of previous day. There were people for tea, black-coffee, black tea and the snacks. So we had almost half an hour to hear the stories from the man in the shop. And I was the one who entered the shop first.

He was an employee in the coffee plantation. There was an elachi factory downhill as well.  The place was heavenly accoding to him those days. Even Ambassador  - the only car in Indian roads those days – could easy drive through these routes. They had 10 employees round the year to clean the road during these days. But the wage for coffee-estate employees was 2 Rupees less than tea-estate employee which was again 2 Rupees less than drivers. So he was the least paid among the wagers.

As usual, there comes the twist in their happy life. Some 12 years or so ago Govt declared is as forest. So no more plantations and you can’t even cut the grass that was growing into the roads. Soon the well maintained estates were converted to real forest. The owners of the land were least interested to help the wagers and they gladly closed the factory. So people like this man, has to get atleast his gratuity fund before he leaves from here. He says, they owe him 50,000 plus interests for all these 12 years.

His life was even miserable. He lost his wife in the past. His two daughters are married and youngest is still with him. His one son is at his native place – Kottayam. His other son is in “Persia” and don’t know much about him. He believes the astrology, and says he son is very rich though he doesn’t have any contacts with him. He might be relieving himself by saying so – his son is prosperous now. And as the estates are closed, he don’t have much sales too. He usually opens his hotel only by lunch.

Then we were more curious to know about the animal life around. It was for the first time I was hearing elephants were less harmful!! According to elephants will stay around for some time but will leave. And sound and fire are usual weapons for them. Wild gaur was considered as more harmful and had killed 2-3 peoples there. Porcupines, mongooses, deers were other common visitors. Life is never that easy. And there are frequent checks by forest department to make sure no wild animals are hunted.

Then the stories started to repeat. As the people inside the room kept on changing, the same questions popped up. Unlike the films, you can’t expect a saviour who will solve all his problems. Its always nice to hear others’ problem but how often do we help to solve them? We were not different either. On the way back to room we met few more natives and everyone had similar stories.

Day inside Misty Valley

Once we reached the back, beak-fast was ready. It was now the time for all games. I started off with cricket. The ball was having fantastic movement that I could not how I bowled some deliveries. Then I had time for cards too. Kids had Chineese checkers. Attempts to fly the kite made a few busy all the day.

Soon something unusual and unbelievable was boiling in the bar-room. My brother wanted to dance after having some drinks, so did my cousins, but what about the song? So and they wanted nattan-pattu (local traditional song) to dance. Finally my only non-alcoholic cousin lit up the party. None could believe what was coming. He was making lines instantly about the people and was delivering at the pitch of his sound. It was so loud that we, ladies started to peep though the window. After more than one hour show we decided to give a change to all. The agenda was to take everyone from the room and end up the procession in the courtyard. Oh!! That’s was simply the best time I had with my cousins. Shouting, cheering, dancing and what all we could do were done. Last procession itself was about ten-minutes video with a single person singing throughout – “Ente koodae vayyo thankammae” or “Aadaadu pamabae.. Aadaadu pamabae” . I cant say how great it was, you have to be there to feel it. The procession ended up in the lunch hall.

After the quick lunch, we had to pack-up. We were suppose to start by 3pm. Again I was the one who wanted to reach early – I had to catch my bus to Bangalore too. But as some elephants had blocked the way the jeeps reached by with a slight delay of two hours. During the two hours we had time for another session of loose talks and to roam around the rooms.

I missed out say about their communication media. They had a table which had a look like ham devised on it. A triangular white box out of which a cable looking like a telephone wire was kept on the table. The table had a speed-o-meter kind dial at the centre. When I went near it, the person asked me to move a bit as it was blocking the signals. I could not resist myself, what was that device behind that triangular box!! Any guess? Yeah, a CELL PHONE!!! Box was to prevent it from rain and sun and the signals was very weak over there.

Once our jeeps reached back, we soon started our journey back. And reached back by 9:30pm. We didn’t stop anywhere during the return drive.  And I managed to reach for bus in time. But as usual, if you are early, your bus is late. I had to wait for another 1 hour for my bus to reach.

I am not sure that was my best weekend in life, but it was certainly the best with my cousins. 

The BEST of course..

My Marriage

It’s very a great feeling when you know your friends trust you. But it’s always more fun when you can utilize that trust and ride them through a never existing story. I have to confess to many of my colleagues and friends for exploiting their trust lately on a well framed stories with the help of some of you.  The story was about my marriage, when I had no plan of getting married.

Triggering

Day after marriage fixing of my brother, I went to my senior, Mahi at office to share my plan of leaves for the upcoming months. In the evening, Noman was there for usual chit-chat. To tell of Noman, him he can get married on any day after his elder brother’s marriage and he was so eager to get married as well. His brother was not finding a suitable alliance. Mahi loved to have some fun of him and announcement, “cj’s marriage is fixed”. Noman could not believe it. Why can’t I join the party?

Me:“I am getting married”

Noman: “What is your plan?”

Me: “My brother’s marriage is in Nov and Dec is month of lent for X’tians.”

Mahi: “So we can expect it by Jan”

Me: “Ya, but I don’t feel like marrying now.”

Then the discussion went on like that off topic.

Late evening, I was on chat with my friends. She was also at Kormangala and her office was near Maharaja’s hotel which was hardly 1km from my office. I was just checking the location on Google maps. As Noman and I usually leave together, he came to my desk and saw me checking for a hotel at 7pm. So he made up his part.

“Going for date, uhh??”.  

“Not yet, her office is here. Just checking the exact location”

“Where is she working?”

“Philips”

“If she is so near, why can’t you go and meet her for lunch?”

“It’s still in the initial days. And I am not sure of the marriage yet”

“How did that come up”

“It’s my daughter of dad’s friend. It came up like that.”

“So over a drink, ‘My son and your daughter getting married’”

“Not exactly”

So outline of the story is ready. But we need more stories before presenting to friends and more digestable stories as they know me last 7 years or so.

Broadcasting

Once you have the initial story, we have to spread it among your friends. Now I have to start the process of spreading it. I send a mail to “Seis amigos”, a mailing group for my close group.

Subject: 

I am getting nailed soon!!

Content:

Yeah sh*t happens!! And this tym, its likely to be worst. My dad's frnd want me to call him "papa" in recent future. Thalkalam chettandae ullathu kondu block chaythu erikuvannu.(I can block for the time being in the name of brother) bt soon it could happen. I am trying to avoid by all possible reason i could ever figure out but doesnt look like it will work .. Afterall njan allae, i wil find a fix ennu oru vishwasam. (Afterall it’s me and I will find a fix, that is my belief) 

Anyways her name is Ann Jacob, working in Philips at 80ft-road kormangala. 

We met once on last sunday for lunch. She is nice bt as u know i am not in marriageable age and she is even worse. 

further details after escaping from the trap 

That was enough. More questions and enquiries like photos, her backgrounds, her college etc came up.

Concreting

Phase 3 starts now. Now I had to make sure the things are more reliable. When you are framing a story it should be flawless. Next time when I came back from home, my ring-finger became an actual "ring finger". I reached office on the Monday. During the tea-break, the usual stories came up – I am getting married in  next couple of months and Noman’s marriage will take long time. I dint say much during the chat, but just raised my left hand and turned the ring at Noman's face. It completed the stories but I got congrats from Noman only and a more perplexed look from Mahi, who saw a sudden twist in story.

Someday along the week, Thanku was on GTalk and the same topic popped up. The discussion topic soon changed to Ann. I was least interested in marriage, and my mom cant say a “No” to him. He had a heart-attack couple of months back too. I can convince Thanku more than anyone with worst of arguments. Not different this time either. Ann can be a could friends but never more than that was my point.

Side-effects

We can never break Newton’s 3^rd law. When you are framing a rumour with you as the hero, there is always potential risk. It may kick you back. For me it happened during the last team outing. If front of elderly staffs, Noman said the same stories of my marriage. They had better logic than Noman, your brother’s marriage and your marriage cant be together. But they still congratulated me!!

If I still proceed with the rumour, I might get into deep trouble with reaching at wrong people. And I think I had more than fun in last 2 months or so. Afterall I am so happy to see how much people around me take me by my words.

Coorg-Madikeri Trip

 After a small break of small 3 months, it was another trip. We could not break the jinx of having some out of “Seis Amigos”(Six Friends) to make it “Seis”(six). This time it was Manu who missed it out. Plan was pretty simple – we have a cab booked, home stay arranged and  trip starts by Friday night and ends by Sunday evening. Where to visit, when to visit or such questions had no answers. All we know is, we are going and my friends trust me as well on this.

Onward Journey

We started by 11:00pm on Friday, as usual I was the first one. We had pick-ups from Domlur (Bhanu and Apu) and Marthahalli (Thanku and Aliyan). And finally we had to pick Sali, who had urgent work for the Saturday and was supposed to “Work From Cab” with his datacards. The drive to home-stay would have been a normal one, unless the driver tried to make a roller-coaster on the road. He never disappointed a gutter or a hump, always drove through the centre line on the road and fabulous breaking skills. It was around 6:30am when we reached the home-stay. 

Home-stay at Coorg

Our coffee was ready as we reached.  We roamed around before places, refreshed, had break-fast and initial set of testing on photo-graphical skills before 9:00.

Meanwhile, all the 3 ladies stood around me asking for day’s plan and I knew the perfect answer for them “Where all do you people want to go?” and in actual I was totally empty and had no idea on schedule. The plan is ready now. Irruppu falls and Nagarhole National Park in the morning. Later to Madikeri, so Sali could complete the work when we outside “No-range zone” Home-stay. Day 2  we planned for Madikeri again with Kushalla nagar. 

The First-Sight seeing

A snap from home-stay

Irruppu fall was first destiny.The fall had too strong and was more crowed that we had to get satisfied by just watching the water. Near the falls, we got another testimony of girls- we found 2 boys and 1 girl coming from opposite side. Girl was identified as our 3-year junior at college by Thanku. Soon a long chit-chat as expected blossomed after which we understood, the guys too were our juniors.  

Irruppu falls

Then we went for Nagarhole Rajiv Gandhi National Park. It was unlike most of the parks in India. We saw many spotted-dears and a snake. Soon Sali had a long start and announcement, “Its 12:30, I want to send my report”. Ok guys, we are going back to room then to rafting, which hardly 5kms from stay. So our plan had started changing. We rushed to home and soon we had awesome lunch with chicken, fish, ghee-rice and so on.

Lunch was so heavy that the plan has changed again. Sali and me will go for the hunt - hunt for range – while others will have a nap.

Cloudy Sky:A usual vacation spoiler,
whom we enjoyed a lot this time

Post Lunch

Of course, I had to go with Sali. In the cab, he was equipped with 2 datacards and his mobile phone and was looking for first signal from anywhere on the way to town. I had nothing to do, but to roam around for almost 1 hour to take some random pictures and to make all the time-pass calls.

When we reached back by 4:00, Aliyan was in sound sleep in gent’s room while 3 ladies on the bed talking and probably some rumours too on stake. So I went alone to have a walk in and around the home-stay. I got a good fallen-wood to lie down and enjoy the sky with no disturbance at all. It was rain who interrupted me. I enjoy 5 minutes drizzle, but had to go inside when the rain got heavy. I love to have some time alone and had my share.

When rain subsided, Sali and me had tried some badminton. Soon Bhanu and Apu joined us and now time for some mixed-doubles. We decided for a trek now. Actually it was Apu who wanted to have trek. So we entered the forest by 6:15 pm. Even though it was reasonably dark, each of us had atleast 10 leeches on our legs to direct us. So soon girls started to protest which boys never hear. But the cook converted guide announced a wild-boar is somewhere near.

Crescent-Moon Night

Back from trek, we all went an investigation on home many leeches we all had. We had a hot bath before going for the camp-fire. The owner of the stay, Mr. Pratap was a nice man and offered me a drink atleast 3 times. I don’t know why, he was asking only to me. I doubt I look like a drunkard. The cook had a drink, he smelt. I saw driver sitting with Manshion House. His son, Abhi had visited the camp-fire and had a chat with us. He was a nice little chap.

Dinner was soon served- another delicious one with some 2 varieties of chicken, rice, rice-kheer and many others.  We had a plan for second show but everyone was tired that we soon went to sleep with plan ready for next day. We will be ready by 7:30, and leave after breakfast by 8:00 to Madikeri targeting Abbey falls, Dubbare Elephant camp, Kushalnagar, Omkara temple but to leave madikeri by 3:00 pm and reach Bangalore for dinner.We soon went back to sleep.

Madikeri

With a fully packed day planned for Sunday, we were supposed to get ready by 7:30. But it was 7:30 when we left the room. Madikeri was around 100km from there. Just as we started from room, we saw some kids in uniform. We dint care much for that. But at most junctions, kids were waiting their bus or so. Suddenly we all had a feel of “Hangover” movie. Did we miss one day? NO!! That happens only in movies not in real life. But did we..? And that was the first time our mobile was useful. It was Sunday, more importantly October 2^nd, Gandhi Jayathi and kids are going to school for that. During the journey, I enjoyed a lot alone - a head massage from one of my friends.

Abbi Falls

First we went to Omkareshwara temple. It was build during the Mughal reign, and was build more like Mosque with dome. There was a naming ceremony going on as we entered the temple. I could make some hymns which were wishing to have long life and all pleasures in life. We moved from there in 10-15 minutes.

We reach Abbi falls with lot of expectations. Last day we dint get wet at the Irruppu falls and we had planned to get into the falls. Yet another disappointment was the result. The water was so powerful that no one could get to the stream. But it was an amazing to see the falls from the hanging bridge build across the stream. The tiny water droplets that shattered from rocks and carried by wind could alone make the whole trip unforgettable.

We decided to drop the elephant camp as we were running out of time. And by around we started off for Kushalnagar. We had lunch on the way from a mallu-hotel.

Tibet in Karnataka

Kushaalnagar was a place I was waiting to visit the most. I am always interested to see different cultures and different people. As you enter town itself we will start seeing the difference. My thought of Buddhists was people who are so silent and left old worldly luxuries like Buddha. I saw them having now-veg food, playing most of the games, using mobile phones and doing everything like any of us. But I could not get answer to one question - what are they wearing, a skirt or a lungie like mallus?

The first room we saw had prayer time. They were using trumpets, drums and other musical instruments. It was making a lot of noise and I was actually running to see what was happening. I could not make out anything on what they were praying. Also they were serving some snacks and Pepsi for people inside the temple. We could watch everything from outside only. I tried to make something out from what was happening for 10 minutes or so. Finally I gave up and went to next temple.

Golden Temple

I can bet to you, if are not blind, the moment u enter the temple you would be astonished by the amazing 60-feet tall Buddha’s statue in copper plated with gold. There were a couple of other statues which was 58-feet tall on either side of the central statue. The statues were filled with holy-scriptures, teachings, clay and so on. The wall was adorned with 25 pictures based on the teachings of Guru Rinpoche. I doubt, some paintings had more of Indian style than the Tibetan paintings. As they had written, to understand those painting we should be aware of all teaching of the religions, I gave up the attempt to decipher the paintings. But another question that popped-up in my mind was, unlike most religions the Temple had too many dragons in too bright colours; very much unlike Christian or Hinduism. I dint allow my friends to sit for resting inside the Temple as was written somewhere as it was a place of worship and not entertainment.

We then did some shopping from the shop near the temple and started back.

Back to Old-world

All our plans were changing or dint work at all, but our plan to reach by 7-8pm has worked. We reached Bangalore by 7:30 or so and we had a coffee together

For anyone who loves to travel or nature or history or to just sit idle with no disturbance, you should visit Coorg atleast once and I am sure you will wait for your next visit. Never miss a chance to Coorg that comes your way.