On the road

Though strictly not a road trip, the unique travel experience bears sharing! Socially awkward, shy or even reticent.. all these are the words I would use to describe myself. I painted this water-colour of VoF from a picture off the internet.. and it made me want to see the valley for myself! Yet I chose 'realistic' (with a little help from the bestie) as a prefix for my name; as the word that describes me the best in a game our trek leader made us play after the first day's trek was done. The game was an ice-breaker and designed to familiarize ourselves with our trek-mates. Each of us was supposed to prefix our name with an adjective, preferably starting with the same letter as our first name and recall all the adjectives along with the names repeated. After walking 12 kilometers (all uphill) and having gained an elevation of just over 5000 ft, my muscles were screaming as we sat crossed legged on the corridor of the guest-house in Ghangria, from where we

Mangalore, Udupi and finally back to Pune! We had informed Jerry that we would be checking out a day earlier than planned, and we were eagerly looking forward to the prospect of visiting Mangalore. Since we were experiencing coast-withdrawal symptoms, we decided to cut short our stay in Mangalore by one day and go to Udupi instead. We booked a beach resort called Paradise Isle beach resort, and were eagerly looking forward to spending some time, albeit short, on the beach. After a quick breakfast, we hit the road around 8.30 am. The distance from Wayanad to Mangalore is approximately 260 kilometers and according to our calculations, we would be able to cover this distance in approximately five hours. Upon inquiring, Jerry and Mr. Joseph were of the opinion that we should climb down the ghat and take the coastal route, which was easier of the two, and hence less chances of us getting lost on unknown roads. Having ignored sage advice once on the way to Mysuru, we decided to take the

Day 3- Around Wayanad: Edakkal caves This is what we had started dreaming of! The next day brought with it the prospect of Kerala ishtyle breakfast again, much to our dismay. We had requested for dosas to be prepared and had kept our hopes quite low. As it turned out, the dosas couldn't be prepared as they were short of one ingredient and we had flat appams with vegetable stew. This too is one of the dishes I love, but the stew had the same spice combination that we had been eating during all our meals. Eating lunch at the resort was out of question and the view from the balcony that had totally impressed us on Day 1, wasn't doing much. (We were like yeah, birds, hills, big deal! Give us some food!!!!) Were we being too fussy? After all, there are millions who cannot even afford one square meal a day, and here we were, turning up our noses at supposedly good Kerala-style food. Though this thought shamed us, it was also true that the food being offered was making me il

Part 4- Around Wayand and the Muthanga Wildlife sanctuary The next morning, we woke up quite early in order to do some bird-watching. Even though early morning and late evening are considered the best times to do a bit of bird-watching, we were quite disappointed to note that there weren't many of them up and about. But the weather was all misty and lovely, and we decided to go for a walk. We took the same route as on the previous day and walked up to the tea plantations. Taking in as much of the surroundings as we could, we walked and talked for quite a bit before deciding to turn back. For breakfast, we had requested the Kerala-special breakfast dish called puttu. I had eaten this at my friend's house and had absolutely loved it. This is made in a special kind of mould, which is tubular and open at both ends. Rice paste and grated coconut form alternate layers of this steamed dish. It is served along with kadala curry, which is a mildly spicy curry made out of bengal gra

Journey from Mysuru to Wayanad A night of undisturbed sleep had done us good. We were feeling refreshed and ready for the next leg of our adventure. This time, we found out the best route and decided to stick to it. We had also decided to enjoy the journey itself as much as we could. This resulted in various unscheduled stops for photos and increased the journey time. The drive towards our resort in Wayanad Before leaving Mysuru, we just HAD to buy Mysore-pak. Mysore-pak was invented by the royal chef of the Mysore dynasty. It is a sweet made out of gram flour, ghee and sugar and is extremely delicious. We had also forgotten to get the memory card for our camera. The short drive from our friends' place to our 'shopping' destinations brought forth a wonderful fact about Mysuru- the people are selflessly friendly! Be it the people who politely pointed out the fact that we have entered a no-entry zone, or the auto-rickshaw drivers who offered to escort us to the s

Day 1 of the road trip: Pune to Mysuru: Part 2 Finally, the day arrived. Eight days on the road! We were definitely excited. We left around 7 am from Pune. Not as early as we had hoped, but still it wasn't too much of a deviation from our original plan. NH4 is a pleasure to drive on,especially after crossing the Maharashtra border. The bit till Nipani has multiple diversions and unfinished fly-overs. During peak traffic hours, it gets really irritating, mostly because it cuts the speed and unnecessarily increases travel time. To add insult to injury, this bit of road also has multiple toll collection booths. It is nothing short of a sacrilege to pay toll for a such rubbish stretch of road. What is really sad, is the fact that this scene has remain more or less unchanged over the last decade. The concept of a service road is non-existent on this stretch, so all the commuters, especially those on two-wheels are forced to use the highway. This is not just irritating, but als

How a road trip covering approximately 2120 km gave me the courage to quit a job I hated Part 1:Materializing of our plans One of the many beautiful stretches of road on this LONG journey!   In October 2015, my husband and I decided to do something we had never done before. We decided to go on a road trip. Though it was true that we had done plenty of road trips earlier, this would be by far our longest one till date. We both love traveling by road and even though I do not drive, the husband enjoys driving, so it works out just great for us. To say that this was a much needed break would be an understatement.  This had gone from bad to worse at my workplace. This was my first job ever after completing my post-graduation and even though I had initially loved it, the circumstances changed in such a way that I grew to hate it. The mental torture at the work place along with the long commute got so bad that it took a toll on my health. I started having menstrual irregularities