My First Passage - A Passage to Mysore, Ooty and Goa
Part 1: The Nilgiris
(Written July 29, 2001)
Day 1: 05-Jul-2001
Waking up in the early hours made me feel easy today. I was almost as ready by about 8.00 am. I helped my mom pack things for me. I couldn't feel anything right now because I was in the trance of my journey's fantasies. I started my journey on my own, with a first but short walk to Suman's house. There, I collected him and his friend Sandeep and here we were- starting our first ever trip. We were at the [Warangal] railway station by 10.00 AM. We started our first waiting for Thota Suman who hereforth would be known as Thota to avoid ambiguity. So, we waited for Thota till 10.30 AM and found him near the stairs. [No cell phones at that time]. It wasn't much time that elapsed that we were already on the train.
The train (Golconda express) was luckily empty. We occupied enough seats as to let our friends Karun, Satish and Ramesh get their accommodation; soon we caught them in the Kazipet railway station. We bantered all along the journey to Secunderabad. We were at the Secunderabad by 02:00 PM. Thota and Karun departed to Karun's brother's flat at Secunderabad after sharing 'Pulihora' (bought by Suman)- lunch of tamarind rice with us. As for the rest of us, we kept our luggage in the cloak room and went out to have some fresh air around the station.
By about 3.30 pm, we were all back in the station. Mind you, we still had Karun and Thota to join us. As we were eagerly waiting for them, suddenly the clouds roared and down came the drops with a constant but high acceleration. Soon to our relief, arrived the much awaited friends. We were off to the platform number 3 where our darling "Secunderabad- Bangalore express" awaited our arrival. We got on to the train and spread our bags on the berths that were reserved for us. It was not until 05.45 that our train started. We cheered up all at once, at the moment of our departure from Secunderabad to Bangalore.
It was our first night in the train and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We played cards and then had more fun having all sorts of badinage. We had for our dinner, the remaining tamarind rice and also the puri-aalu - my contribution [from home]. This was it, we fell asleep by 12.00 in the night.
Day 2: 06-Jul-2001
It was about 05.00 AM that I woke up. After getting myself cleaned up, I woke up all others. We were all ready to go downtown Bangalore by 07.00 AM. We had a good look at the station and its premises by 07.15 AM.
07.30 AM - We were out of the station and had our tea at a footpath tea stand
07.45 AM - Karun and I went in search of the 'buses' that could take us to Ooty. We found one National Travels at the right end cornet of the road to railway station. We enquired and Mr. Ashraff, the man at the desk, provided us the details. We found it right and came back to our friends.
08.15 AM: All the seven of us were at the National Travels' desk. We paid our fee, which would mean that we could see Mysore, stay overnight at Mysore, and see Ooty and return back to Bangalore.
08.45 AM: We were all on the posh bus to which we were booked. After boarding the bus, we found ourselves feeling uncomfortable due to hunger and weariness after the nights long journey. We were given a stop, where we had our breakfast. But unfortunately, we didn't have much time to change ourselves into fresher garments.
Anyway, we were going to the city of Srirangapatnam first, we saw the Gol Gumbus, where the tombs of Tipu Sultan, his father and mother lay. After having fun there, we were taken to the fort of Mysore. It wasn't so amazing. Then we were taken to a restaurant where we had our first lunch of the tour.
After lunch we had some shopping spree at a Centre. Then it was the time we were waiting for- the time to go to the Maharaja Palace. The more we say about it, the less it would be. We had gala time at the palace. We had most of our photographs taken at this palace. I loved it. But it was time for us to leave. Hey! No chance of getting disappointed, after all we were to reach the Brindavan Gardens. It was almost dark when we reached the gardens. We had a lot of photographs taken and spent our time graciously in the greenery and wetness of the gardens.
It was the end of the day after we were given the rooms to stay in. We badly needed a bath and had it at last. This night we had our dinner at the same restaurant, which had, lodge to provide rooms for us. Now, we were given 3 rooms (double cot). Satish and I shared one of those rooms, while Karun and Ramesh shared the second and Sandeep, Suman and Thota shared the other. It was indeed a good night to all of us, because all of us were already half asleep when we reached the hotel.
Day 3: 07-Jul-2001
After the successful completion of our first 2 days of journey, we were ready yet again to board the bus.
Now it was Ooty's turn to receive us and make us joyful. The journey began at early hours on this morning. It was a bit cloudy but no sign of heavy rains. As a lucky omen, we were first taken to Nanjankhud village, where the famous South Kasi temple stood. We had our darshan with a great pleasure and of course with clean and devoted minds. We had a picture of all of us with an elephant before the temple. This event had been of a great humour for us throughout the journey.
Then we started towards Ooty, on the way, we went to the Chamundiswara temple. On this way to Ooty, there was the Bandipur Wildlife Santuary, this was on the borders of Karnataka and Tamilnadu. We had great time throughout the journey. I got acquainted with my little friend Anis. He and I got loads of fun while we were coming across wild deer and elephants. I had a pretty nice time with him.
Now we decided to stay in Ooty tonight and tomorrow and leave to Bangalore on the day-after tomorrow. We were given accommodation in one Hotel Sapphire. Indeed it was good. We had 2 cots, heavy blankets, a TV set with cable connection, nice bathrooms and toilet facilities. The rooms we were offered were more than what we looked for and that too for a very much affordable price. We did nothing that day but watched the cricket match, and then we were out to have a nice dinner. Then, we speculated the final bill couldn't be unaffordable and so, we entered it. We had nice lukewarm water served to us. We had a nice dinner and were ready to throw shivering and shaking anatomies and so we rushed into our rooms and closed the night with our sound sleep.
Day 4: 08-Jul-2001
On the way to Coonur, we came across many scenic beauties, which are hard to describe in prose. May be in poetry it is possible. The Nilgiris were one of the most beautiful parts of the nature that God created. He must have been in great mood while creating them. The clouds thick though white, stretched their whole body onto the Nilgiris. The sky may be due to its inferiority under the Nilgiris, could be seen no where.
Soon we were at the suicide point. It claims to be the highest point in this part of the country. About 8648 feet high, the place was indeed a place of heavenly pride. I used to dream a lot to fly in the sky. I felt my dreams came true, partly though, since I was still touching the mother earth. Any way, I was in the happiest moods and was very enthusiastic here on this peak. I am ashamed to say that I can't describe the feeling I had then. And then we got beneath the peak and were taken to a restaurant. We had lunch and then, we were on the way to the remaining part of today's journey. We saw the Kety Point, where from, the 35 villages of Coonur can be seen. It was great.
We saw Wellington Army Regiment, the widely stretched tea gardens and the Dolphin Nose point. We got our tea packets bought here itself. Then we were badly effected by the continuous journey among the ghat roads, so we were back to our rooms. We got warmed up and then in the late evening had our dinner. That was the day for today.
Day 5: 09-Jul-2001
We woke up late this morning and lazily had our bath finished. We then packed our luggage and kept it in the cloakroom of the lodge. We were out on the roads of Ooty exploring every part of it. We went to a posh restaurant (Chinese Shogun). We had our lunch here and then started towards the botanical gardens. We went onto the dead ends of the garden and breathed air at every point of the garden. We played, sat, got up, ran, fell down, rolled down and what not. We did everything that we were not allowed to do in our daily routine. We had some of the greatest moments of our life.
This part of the whole tour made it felt that it was not less than an adventure. And then by about 4.30 PM, we were back to our hotel and took a fresh room so as to get ourselves refreshed. Within half-an-hour, we were on our bus back to Bangalore. We had to meet varieties of people. I met people from Chattisgarh, Lucknow, Nagpur and few of them all the way from U.K, some journalists from Delhi and so on.
On the journey we were stopped at a restaurant and we had our dinner there, The rest of the night was in the bus.
Day 6: 10-Jul-2001
It was about 3.00 AM, when the bus stopped. We were told that the bus wouldn't start before 4.30 AM. So, we got down and got ourselves seated on a heap of sand which was readily thrown there. We had a variety of banters among ourselves and had an extremely gala time.
When it was 4.30 AM, we had to board the bus, this time for the last time now. We were now in Bangalore and I am sorry I did not introduce Mr Raju earlier. He was our guide all along Mysore and Ooty. We bid goodbye to him and were back at the National Travels desk by 6.00 AM. Sandeep and I went to search for some room to freshen up. But all the hotels demanded a high price for rent. We could not afford it. So we went to the best place we could go: to the railway waiting room. Although the incharge did not allow us first, later he himself let us in after taking a handsome bribe. We got ourselves freshed up a bit and then we were on our way to a restaurant and returned to Mr Ashraff. He gave us a van and we were on our way to look at the city of Bangalore.
Here we saw Tippu's summer palace, the Lal Bagh gardens. The ubiquitous flyovers and then the much awaited Vishweshwarayya Technical Museum. We had most of our time spent here. We saw the various sections- Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Space and more. It was a great place to get stuffed in with interesting points relating to our fast developing science and technology.
After all this, we were back at the station. Here we befriended a vendor who had a cool drink stall. What's strange is that this guy called Umesh did not know Hindi , English and Telugu. What all he knew was Kannada. Even then we could make conversations with him. We said we would meet him again on our way back. We also met an Army man, Mr Laxmikanth, who shared a few funny as well as emotional moments with us. We took a picture of us with him. We did not know what time it was, when we knew the train was awaiting on the platform # 9. So, we got our luggage taken out from the cloakroom and were running to the train again. We got boarded on our seats and had a nice time this night. We had to get up pretty early in the morning , because the station we had to get down was not the final destination.
Hold your breath- the station that we had to get down was called LONDA. The real fun starts here. As for the day, bye! Good night!
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