Tuesday, June 3, 2008

One Night With Nature

"Feelings change But memories Don't ".

"One night with nature" is my first lazy outing I had so far. Well, even though it was a lazy outing I would say I cant forget this night. I would love to cherish those moments, probably when I sit with the same pals in some pub at my late forties.


Well, it was me, vinay(mamu), pradeep(reddy) and arif sipping a drought beer at Guzzler's Inn planned to go out of Blore on the coming week end. Guess what ! Four guys.. ....and discussion ended up with five destinations. We started with Jammu and ended up in Kanyakumari, still were not sure where to go. Couple of the days passed and guys remained silent as if nothing happened or discussed on the Friday evening. Somehow after forty odd mails got exchanged, we decided to gather to a common place and toss a coin to decide the destination :(. Later reddy's effort was enough to book the Home stay for us right in the middle of the thick forest and this decided our destination.

Alright, On saturday morning Vinay drove his OPTRA(magnum) all over the blore to pick everyone of us. It was 6:45 when we hit NICE road, the thrill started from here. Mamu made 2.0 engine to roar to point the needle on the speedometer to 188. It was an stunning experience for me. After the speed testing, we joined mysore road and were able to race it only up to 140 max on that road. However we managed to reach hotel Dasprakash in mysore for breakfast within two and half hours.

Trust me this is the best scrumptious, yummy breakfast I ever had while traveling. Reddy made sure that everybody had adequate quantity for their first meal of the day.

After everyone repleted, as usual arif started complaining about so called stomuch..... But this time looked like mamu was not much intersted to suggest him anything. It was the time to say bye to city of palaces. We maneuvered our car towards HUNSUR and at the deviation steered towards our left to reach GONIKOPPALU.This drive was awful as it was the gateway to the dense forest. From Gonikoppalu we drove to a village called T.Shettihalli. Even this drive was awesome as we had dense forest on both the side of the roads and AC was off in the car and windows were down. Mamu's car was driving him crazy and the cool breeze was driving all of crazy. When we just neared Rajiv Gandi National Park, the view of the lake between the bamboo trees made us half-baked. It was something like it looked as if it is very easy to reach the lake through the bamboo forest, But it was not that easy. Anyway we didn't get out of the car.

It was almost 1:30 when we finally hit our destination called "Mountain Mist Jungle Stay" located in KKR estate, which is right in the middle of the dense green forest.
One single house near the natural pond which is surrounded by the thick forest and around 35 km away from the place where one get see some people movement. It was a house totally detached from the world. Forget about mobile signal or TV , They did not even had a power connection.

Well all of us had a great lunch and admired nature by looking at the peak of the mountain located at the border of Karnataka and Kerala. Giving break for short period started playing the short pitch cricket. More often Reddy or Arif use to hit ball into the jungle and we spent more time in searching for ball rather in playing. Later we converted that short pitch into full pitch and started playing. This was the remarkable part of our outing. Boys played enough and sat

for round table conference in that small ground, the extended sides of which are encircled by forest. By the time coffee with bajji and sweets was served by aunt all of us were deep into the topic of "Improving Farmers life in India". The discussion ended up with the conclusion that "Retail is going to be biggest boom and hence invest".This is how we improved the life of farmers.

Finally the most awaited part of the outing took its charge as it was 8 o clock. Within no time everybody said "CHEERS" sitting in front of the camp fire arranged.
Though all our watches read the time as 8 o clock, it veritably was looking and feeling as if midnight is been passed already. I felt I am on top of heaven during this time. What else do u need ... Totally detached from the world, You are with the best pals, clear sky on your head, shuddery sounds from the forest, camp-fire, absence of your manager and most important "Chilled Beer" can in your hand. Spoke some nonsense for hours sipping the drought beer. Then realized the fact that its still 10 and we can not afford wait till breakfast. Hence headed for dinner.

After having delicious dinner, came back to the same spot and started arguing on "Software company Modeling and Policies". Poor engineers were not able to reach conclusion this time.
Hashed out about some crap for hours together and surrendered ourselves to sleep.

By the time I woke up in morning, Mamu, Arif and Reddy were enjoying the nature and Pranab was enjoying his sleep. Went for a walk in the jungle. When we went inside the smell of the decayed leaves with wet soils made us crazy. After a long walk boys returned to the nest and had a breakfast and drove back to mysore. We had our lunch in my house and headed to blore.

Overall it was a great experience, as we enjoyed every second of the trip.

The route
Bangalore <-> Mysore<->Hunsur Road <->GoniKoppal <-> T Shettigiri <->KKR Tea Estates
Contact to book the Estate : Ravi/Swathy
08274 317663 / 9449334801 / 9480556670