Tadiyandamol

First contributor: Sundi

It had been a fortnight since we went out. Though that would not have meant much in normal circumstances, considering the fact that we had been going every weekend during the summer break, frustration had started to creep in. My ( and Mabhi‘s) internship at ITTIAM was ending on July 20^th and Hrishi had been working from home (I think) for IBM in those days.. I’m getting old, you see! Memory is starting to give Kai. Bacat, as usual had been coding and was always free. Kantha, who had just smashed GRE was more than willing to pack his bags. Mabhi, like always was fussing about “not feeling like coming”. Yeah right, we all know that trick of yours, Mabhi! Bhat and the rest had some “family commitments” as always.

What better place to go to during the monsoons than Tadiyandamol! It had been due for more than a year now. It was also the first time we would be camping. My sis had recently got me a tent, and I was desperate to test it. And, of course. Hrishi hired the other tent from the “reliable” Wildcraft and we were all looking forward to it. At that time I didn't have a clue about camping in the monsoons, which most people would logically reason out to be insane!

Finally, all five of us met at Platform 6, KSRTC bus stand. I was beginning to wonder how there were so many chicks in a KSRTC bus stand. That’s when I understood why Mabhi and Bhat were amazed at Coorgi chicks. Oh hell yeah! they were hot! Mabhi and me made major plans to flirt with a few in Coorg, but as you may have guessed by now, such plans never materialize! We hopped on to our bus only to realize that all of them were getting onto the neighboring buses. Not a single one in our bus. Damn! Why didn't we book Rajahamsa instead of some semi deluxe 2+3 bus ;) Baah.. Who cared, we had lots of other things to look forward to!

With all the usual laughing ( and belting Mabhi) for a while, we slept well that night, not knowing the blissful sleep we would all get (other than mango) the next night.
I shall not elaborate much on Abbey Falls and Raja’s seat right now. Anyway, so here we were, at the Nalaknad (not sure of that name) palace at around 1 in the afternoon, all set to trek! The green was enough to keep us all in high spirits for the next two days. We met a local at the start who literally laughed at us for even “dreaming” about camping at Tadiyandamol during the monsoon. He was like a black cat which crossed our path. Like he knew how crazy all of us were. Those were the days when we used to just jump into something without knowing what awaited us. Wild, so to speak. So, anyway, green could not have got greener. Air could not have got cleaner, spirits could not have got higher, and we soon trekked to the camping place by 4:30 in the evening, without a drop of sweat. There was not a single person apart from us that day, which was quire expected since it was a weekday (and the monsoon!!). The monsoons are weird, It somehow separates the trekking junta into two categories. The First, are those who don’t like to trek during the monsoons because of leeches ( lame excuse!) and like to stay indoors. The prefer trekking once the monsoons are done. The Second, are people like us, those who just adore the monsoons. Those who get high just by the smell of rain ,not giving a damn about the leeches and all the other trivialities of life.

Moving on, we took almost an hour to set up our tents. We had a nice duel with the wind, which had started to get quite steady . By 5:30, we were all covered by mist and the visibility was reduced to less than ten feet. What a feeling!! What a place!! We were almost shivering standing outside! We were terribly hungry and since it was too early to have dinner, it was junk food time.. Mixture, Kurkure (wink), KalleKai et al. Once done with that, we were generally chillaxing in our tents. Hrishi and I in mine; Bacat, Mabhi and Kanth in the other. Soon, like in every trek, our laughter session had reached its heights. The laughter here is inversely proportional to the quality of jokes. The more Chappar the jokes are, the more value it gets ( in terms of number of spits/ second). The wind had started to get really crazy now and it also begun to drizzle! We were all happy that we were in our tents. That’s when the Wildcraft tent began leaking.. Oh my gosh! It was still seven in the evening. We decided to finish up with dinner. It was time for all the MTR ready to eats to be eaten! Once done with dinner, Kantha and mabhi ( It might as well be me ;) ) volunteered to stay in the leaky tent for as long as possible. Hrishi, Bacat and I slept peacefully in my tent. By now, the rain was steady and the wind was getting impossible! At some point in the night ( which I thought would be around 2 or 3 am) Kantha and Mabhi complained that they couldn’t stay in the tent any longer. We pretended to be asleep. But somehow they managed to jugg into our tent. So, here we were, five of us in a two man tent! It was still 10:30 in the night (fraud.. It was supposed to be 2 or 3).. What a night it turned out to be. Every half an hour ( fraud.. It was supposed to be at least one or two hrs) one of us would invariably ask the time and all of us would be awake! On second thought, only four of us. Mango was having a blissful sleep. He was making himself, “felt at home”, so to speak! The rest of us were awake most of the night. Mabhi (it might as well be me) was sitting upright while bacat, kantha and me were trying to lay down. I was wishing I would be like Shreyas at that night! Time seemed to have frozen! After rolling around for a long time, finally I fell asleep at 3am ( it was actually 3 am) and got up by six, amazed by the fact that the tent was still there. We couldn’t believe the tent had taken this much beating. It had rained for like six hours on the trot and the wind had literally slapped the tent all night! We inspected the “leaky tent” which, by now had a nice pool inside it (with a couple of frogs mating.. Vole). Anyway, so we packed all our bags and had a hard time rolling up the wet tents and the Styrofoam mats. The night was over. We were all glad and reached our usual spirits in no time. I wanted to crap, but that rascal Hrishi, scared me saying some of the leaves caused constipation ( and imagine, I believed that!). Naah, not really. It was more of the fact that I dint want leeches up my ass… wink wink.

The rest of the trek was uneventful till the peak apart from the usual pseudo peaks which keep leading you to believe that you are just 100mts from the peak for almost an hour. I hate them! We reached the top and what a view we got. It was nothing like I had ever seen before.. I could not see anything! Thanks a lot MISTer fog! Like most of our treks, we laughed at mabhi( and kantha, who had developed this knack of staying 100 feet behind us..???) . A few times it did clear up and what a view it was. Phew!

We went to that rock! That rock.. How could any of us forget it. We just sat there for two hours contemplating, overwhelmed by nature. Its one of the few things ( apart from the beach) which could silence me. Everything seemed perfect. These were times when you think of everything else in the world as trivial. You are lost in thought. Things just seem so right. I call it, “right click, refresh!”. it’s the feeling I just crave for whenever I just want to get away! But yeah, reality soon reminded me that we needed to get back.. I hate it! Time.. What a bastard it is. Just when you think you are on cloud nine, it gives a prompt alarm that no one can ignore and throws you back on ground.

Anyway, we descended quite fast. Ran for most of the time and we were at the palace in less than two and a half hours! Phew, what a place!! We went to Chaluvara falls, which was a kind of a let down coz we couldn’t do anything much. The jeep dropped us off at Chayyandane (yeah hrishi, I still remember that name) and we waited for the bus. The bus journey from there to Napoklu was memorable. Hrishi, you should buy a house in Coorg man.. Remember that discussion we had?

We had arbit dosa/ meals in Napoklu in a shady hotel, some Hotel Ganesh or something of that sort. We decided to spend the night at Kushalnagar. and loaf around like other “normal” tourists the next day. Kantha decided that he had had enough and called it quits. We got off at Kushalnagar at 11pm and started looking for lodges. In the condition that we presented ourselves , one of the pseud looking ones decided to deny us rooms.. Lol! Finally, we got into hotel Vinayaka after much haggling with the owner . That night, we all slept like logs. Woke up at around 7 the next day, feeling really fresh! Its not often that you would find us staying in a nice hotel on our treks. Tiled bathrooms and clean white linen arent something we are generally particular on our trips.

The day was pleasent. Again, I will not elaborate too much on it. We went to the Golden temple monastry, Nisargadhama ( the hyped up place which sucks) and dubare( love that place). The days highlights were -

1) the Jackfruit craving ( wink wink) was finally satisfied.

2) amazingly sweet, juicy pineapples which we just belted ( much to the surprise of the waiter there)

3) hotel Athithi.. Amazing food

4) the elephant ride.. On those bare backs.. Ouch! It hurts

5)the fresh honey, in XXX Rum bottles.. Wink wink again!

6) The monks, dressed in saffron clothes and studs, playing soccer ( I would have called it football, But I‘m in the USA, you see ;) )

7) the shop keeper near the monastry asking me if I was buying stuff for my girl friend!!! And that rat, hrishi embarrassing me in front of him. I’ll get back at you for that man.

Finally it was time to get home! The conductor of a Rajahamsa bus claimed that all seats were booked and expected us to believe that. He took some bribe to let us into the bus. We dint have a choice and none of us were really in a mood to argue. The bus reached Bangalore at 4 in the morning! And guess what… me and mabhi got a bus at that time. The BMTC night service. He took some 1.5 times the usual fare. That’s like 15 bucks instead of 10. Going by an auto would have cost a fortune at that time. At least a hundred and fifty bucks. We were more than happy to just hop on to the bus knowing that these memories of the last few days would last a lifetime! Rock on, guys!

Its kinda incomplete… Its just my perspective of the trip! Lemme know if you guys can think of some more interesting stuff that I left out. Some philosophy fundae are there.. I can remove that!