Trip to Kodaikanal

It had been sometime since I had used my Club Mahindra membership and so decided to visit one of the popular South India destination, the good old Kodai(2133 m /7000 ft above sea level). Our plan was to take a trian from Bangalore to Madurai, take a taxi from Madurai to go see Rameswaram, come back to Madurai and then head to Kodai. We had our train reservations done (but were waitlisted) and our taxi reserved in Madurai. To our luck, our waitlist never got cleared and at 4 pm, I came to know that we did not secure ourselves seats on the train. It was a scramble time. I asked our driver Prashant if he can drive our Scorpio to all the way to Madurai and Kodai and he readily agreed. So, with all the bags packed and now with the extra drivers kit, we left Bangalore shortly after dinner on a roughly 450 km journey to Madurai at around 9 pm.

The roads till Salem was very nice and we reached Salem in just about 3 hrs. At Salem, we took a wrong turn and ended up wasting almost 30 min driving on a wrong road until we realized the mistake and did the course correction which essentially took away almost 45 min. The problem with Tamil Nadu is most of the road signs are in Tamil including the mile markers which is a real problem for anyone other than Tamilians. The road from Salem to Madurai is under construction (part of golden quadritalateral) and so every now and then you have traffic in both directions on the same road which can be really painful if you are driving during nighttime. I took the wheel for couple of hours to relieve my driver Prashant and then he got back on the wheel again as we were approaching Madurai. We reached Madurai around 5:00 am (8 hrs which was a decent time considering the road condition). We rented a lodge and crashed for 3-4 hrs. We woke up, had breakfast and went to see Madurai Meenakshi temple. Unfortunately the temple was closed that day (a bummer) and so we decided to head straight to Kodai.







From Madurai to Kodai again because of non-english road signs we got misled sometimes by ourselves and sometimes by people with whom we managed to have a conversation and finally got on to the right road where they did have signs in English. We reached Kodai around 1 pm and decided to have lunch by a lakeside restaurent which turned out to be so so. Club Mahindra has an associate resort in Kodai called Hill country resort and that turned out to be a very nice place. It is not upto the standards of Club Mahindra especially when it came to room amenities or cafeteria but still was a good one. To our surprise our neighbor turned out to be also from Bangalore with two of thier kids who happened to be class mates of our two kids. We rested for the day.

During the next 5 days we had lot of fun doing the usual stuff like boating, horse riding, bicycling around the lake etc. However, I had more fun with our neighbor Sunil who turned out to be a very active and jolly personality. He taught me Snooker, billiards and gave company for drinks. It also turned out that he is a very good hiker and we hiked on 2 different mornings climbing some pretty steep hills. I was amazed as to how the kids handled the hike compared to me who nearly gave up. Having our vehicle turned out to be very handy as we could go anytime anywhere and eat whereever instead of at the resort. I have to say that Kodai has much better eating places compared to Ooty. At the seven hills junction there is pastry/pizza shop that turned out to be very good. Another place that I liked was "Dal Tadka" where they serve hot phulkas with north indian curries. Has a definite home cooked feel to it. Woody's was one of the worst eating experiences in Kodai with below average food and pathetic service. Our favorite place turned out to be pure veg restaurent near bus station called "Astoria Veg restaurant". This is a very clean place and wholesome food that is reasonably priced. The service was very good.Sivaruchi is another good place.

We did the ususal sightseeing like coaker's walk, suicide point, pillar rocks, Green valley view, Silver cascade etc. Silver cascade was very disappointing as there was hardly any water coming down and the access to it is now disallowed. I remember when during our college days, we went to kodai, it was so much fun to bathe under Silver cascade.

We did the usual purchases at Kodai like chocolates, spices, medicinal oils etc. I am particularly pleased with the Aloe vera gel that we got.

Revisiting Goa

Country club representative stopped by the other day and sold me a package where if I were to take their membership, he would give me a 1 week vacation in Goa at Royal Goan Beach Club resort. I had been planning to visit Goa and I knew RGBC was a good resort to stay. I agreed to buy the membership if I could get the vacation during the last week of Dec (the busiest week) and probably the best week to spend in Goa. He agreed and got me the week I requested for both me and my friend Satish. Once the resort booking was confirmed, rest of the things were pretty easy.

We booked our journey from Bangalore by 3 tier AC coach. From Bangalore you can travel by Vasco express (you will have to board at Yashwantpuram and not Bangalore central station). Since Yashwantpura station is far from south Bangalore where we live, we booked our journey on Chennama express which starts from Bangalore central and reaches Londa 1 hr before Vasco express gets there. At Londa we switched over to Vasco express. Between Londa and Madgaon (Goa), the train passes through about 18 tunnels carved through western ghats. This ride is very scenic and enjoyable.

Also on the way the train stops at Doodhsagar station which is located right in front of the Doodhsagar falls, a very pleasant site.
We reached Madgaon around noon on Dec 24th.

Madgaon has a good Rly station and outside you will find prepaid taxis. We took a taxi to RGBC at Benaulim where our accomdation was booked. RGBC Benaulim is a good resort but not in top bracket. The good thing about this resort is there are plenty of eating and shopping places right outside and is within 10 min walk to the Benaulim beach, probably the best beach in Goa (more about it later). We had lunch at the resort (mediocre) and stretched out for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening we went shopping groceries in Madagaon and ate at Sagar Kinara (at Kolva beach) which was horrible. My suggestion is to skip this place if you are near kolva beach.

The next morning we walked to Benaulim beach and it is simply fatastic. If you are a person who likes shallow, white sandy beaches that are quiet and do not attract lot of tourists then this is the beach for you. Most of the popular Goan beaches are in the north and are swarming with tourists especially during December. Benaulim is in south Goa and is very quiet and beautiful. The beaches in the north Goa are brown sandy beaches and sometimes black and are also rocky. We realized how good this beach was after going to so many other beaches during the next 1 week and repeatedly feeling what a gem of a beach we have right next to where we stay.

That evening being Christmas day, we decided to go to Club Mahindra resort which was further south from where we were staying. The club mahindra resort is absolutely stunning. It is a 7 star resort if there is any such rating. Every single thing about it speaks of class. Next time I go to Goa, it will be at Club Mahindra resort.

Right next to our resort was this pair of bengali babu's who were running taxi service. One guy had a Qualis perfect for 8 of us to go if we were going far and the other guy with a diesel powered autorickshaw that could accomdate 4 adults and 4 kids comfortably for the short rides. The Autorickshaw guy whose name was Madhu was very helpful and would come and pick us up from any spot and all we had to do was to give me a buzz on his mobile. For about Rs 1200/- we rented Qualis to go see South Goa that covered parts of Old Goa with its numerous temples, churches and portugese neighborhood. As part of this tour they take you on a tour of an old Portugese Governor's mansion which was interesting to go through may be more so because of the guide.

However right next to it is a museum called Big foot and that is the most bogus, time wasting tour that I advise you to skip. It is waste of time and money as they have statues displaying village life which if you really care to see or experience then there are plenty of villages everywhere for you to see.

.The rest of the tour was visiting temples and the popular St. Xavier church and watching some crate which is supposed to hold the dead remains of St. Xavier. I have no idea what is the purpose of this since the photographs clearly show there is nothing left as far as the body is concerned. Just another one of those meaningless exercise of glorifying a dead body bereft of the soul of the saint that once occupied it.

The tour ended with what was supposed to be a river cruise. My suggestion is skip it. Goa, inspite of its huge foreign tourists doesn't have a boat worth speaking of and this sunset cruises are pretty lame. The feature couple of ugly dancers who are supposed to perform the Goan dance but were pathetic. The name of the boat that we went on was called Princess.

However, there was one bright spot to this. Our driver took us to a liquor shop and the prices of liquor in Goa is very cheap compared to Bangalore. As an example 1 ltr Teachers whisky costs Rs 750/- in Goa as opposed to Rs 1200/- in Bangalore. The cashew nuts from Goa are pretty good and of course the fenny, the Goan drink made out of cashew. Here is a tip. The Cashew fenny is not a social drink since it has a very strong flavor and also high on alcohol content. The coconut fenny on the other hand is very smooth and goes well with Sprite.

Panjim the capital of Goa is a nice town with a good beach and all those old churches and temples. Mandovi river flows through Panjim and joins the ocean. The boat crusises start right under the Mandovi river bridge. They also have a free ferry crossing for vehicles and people across the river.
Next day was spent in the resort with with kids spending most of their time in the pool and the activity center.

Following a day's rest we set out to see North Goa. There are many private tour operators in Goa who take you on this tour and charge you about Rs 150 per person. The tours are ok. The tour bus will take you to all the popular north Goa beaches like Calangute, Vagatore, Anjuna etc. The best day to go to Anjuna beach is on Wednesday's when there will be a huge flea market. We missed it but heard that it is a suckers market since most of the shoppers are foreigners. We however found some good bargains on Vagatore and Calangute beaches. It was sad that most of the merchandize sold in Goa did not carry "Goa" on it but some foreign brands.

To me the most exciting part of the beaches in Goa was the water sports and the sunset which are totally awesome.

Parasailing is a very fun sport and I strongly suggest you try it when you get a chance and especially near an ocean since the view will be truely memorable once you are airborne. Also, it is a very safe sport and everyone in our group from the youngest 8 year old to ladies tried and enjoyed it.

The first to be airborne was my brave 8 year old daughter Anisha who is always ready to try anything new and that is the best part about her. Never in doubt and never hesitant. Seeing her do it with ease gave everyone else the needed confidence. When she came back, she asked "Can I do it again?". Now, that's Anisha for you. We had negotiated Rs 500/- per person for parasailing which was cheap compared to what others were getting charged. Lesson in point, bargain and bargain. During parasailing, you strap on the parachute and then you will be drawn by a speed boat. This will get you airborne. Since we did it during sunset time, watching sunset from high above was an added bonus. Anirudh, my 10 year old son, had a great time doing both Parasailing and Jetskiing.

We also went Dolphin watching and that was a surprise to me that Dolphins are found near Goa and that to in such close proximity to the beach. The best time is to leave early in the morning before 8 am. We did get to watch 2 dolphins who sometimes came close enough for us to get a view of their bottlenose, but however they get chased away when all the boats rush to get a look at them. Most of the time you just get to see their humps as they come up and go down.

After all the fun, we celebrated Anisha's 8th birthday on our favorite beach, the Benaulim beach on Dec 29 after just having done the parasailing. She is a lucky girl since she celebrates her birthday every year in a different place because of the holidays.

The following day as we headed back to Bangalore by train again, I was reminiscing about my first trip to Goa 23 years back when in college which at that time had proven worth every Rupee spent if you know what I mean as nudity hadn't been banned yet in Goa. This revisit to Goa was special in several ways and will remain so for many more years to come.

A trip to God's own country, Kerala

Kerala is a heaven if you love natural beauty. The entire state is so lush green that it simply amazes you. It's got some of the most beautiful landscapes that you will ever see.

Our trip to Kerala was born out of the Club Mahindra membership. Soon after we bought our Club Mahindra membership, we booked our first vacation at thier flagship property in Munnar. Our plan was to spend 4 days in Munnar, a hill station and 3 days in Poovar an island resort near Trivendrum.

We were two families with 5 kids and 4 adults. We set out from Bangalore at 8:30 am on an Air Deccan flight to Coimbatore that kept the schedule. We were joined on the flight by our Neighbour whose son studies with Anirudh. We were excited to go eat at Annapoorna (From our past experience in 80's) but this time around the breakfast turned out to be an OK affair. I think several small restaureants in Bangalore will beat this place hands down.

We had rented a Toyota Qualis from Coimbatore that took us to Munnar. The driver was very good at what he did. We reached Club Mahindra resort, a beautiful resort overlooking the "AnaiIrankal" lake.
The resort is top notch and we were lucky to get 2 cottages situated in a prime location facing the lakes. The rooms were very well kept. This resort is one of RCI's gold crown property and lived upto that standards.







That evening we just relaxed with some wine that I had carried from Bangalore. Next morning when we stepped out of the cottage our jaws dropped to the ground looking at this marvellous fog covered Munnar with its vast sprawling Tea plantation. The scenes were simply undescribable. After breakfast we went around seeing the waterfalls which are dime a dozen here and went for a boat ride on lake Methupatty.


We were lucky to run into 4-5 wild elephants (see in the pic on the left) that had come down to the watering hole and everyone had a blast. The lake is vast and simply beautiful, the words that you will keep ringing from me again and again.

The next day it was a trip to Kolukamalai , a treacherous drive up to the highest point in Munnar where is situated a Tea factory. We rented a 4x4 jeep and like in any town, one had to haggle with the taxi driver but it turned out that we were not able to extract much concessions from him. This is partly due to the unionised nature of this profession in communist Kerala. The scenic beauty as you go up this drive will blow your mind away.


The jaggedy peaks and little hamlets at the foot of this tall mountains will probably make a swiss feel right at home. The Tea factory is very tourist friendly and lets you be part of the whole process and kids simply loved it. You could taste and smell the freshness in the the Tea that they served.




Coming back from Kolukamalai we went to "AnaiIrankal", the lake which our cottage overlooked.











Club Mahindra has lot of activity for kids onsite and we decided to spend the next day in the resort with kids taking part in some of these activities. Anisha and Anirudh went for Rappeling and Jummaring and some painting classes.
















It was fun watching them enjoy themselves. The food at Club Mahindra is very reasonable (Rs 400 for 3 meals) and they do have a good spread and a courteous staff. The resort also has a small grocery store for you to purchase ingradients and cook on your own since they do provide a decent kitchen in each cottage. We cooked our food twice in the cottage and rest of the time ate out.


From Munnar, we left to Poovar, an island resort near Trivendrum. The journey took about 10-11 hrs by road since our driver drove through Tamilnadu instead of Kerala because of permit problems. I ended up seeing a lot of Tamilnadu countryside than I care to since it isn't as beautiful as Kerala.

The Floating Palms resort at Poovar is a classy resort with a fantastic location. It is sorrounded by backwaters but not far from the ocean. The resort has floating cottages which is what we got and it was fun living in those. They do float on the water and move occassionally by about 1ft - 2ft but do not drift away.




At Poovar the resort had a really nice swimming pool with swim up bar which we enjoyed thoroughly. We went to visit the Raja Ravi Verma palaces in Thiruvanthpuram. The amount of wood used and the carving will amaze you. Definitely worth visiting. We were disappointed with the behavior and attitude of priests at the AnanthPadmanabha temple. Covalam beach was a disappointment and may be because of the taxi driver who took us to the wrong end of the beach.

We took a day trip to Kanyakumari to see the famed Vivekananda rock. This place is really tranquil and especially the meditation room. Next to Vivekananda rock is another place where they have now erected the statue of Thiruvallavur, the famed Tamil poet. Souvenier shopping in Kanyakumari is fun since things are really low priced.

We flew back to Bangalore from Trivandrum (Thiruvananthpuram). The Thiruvananthpuram airport is definitely nice, nicer than Bangalore airport.

Journey of the Tea from plantation to your home

On our trip to Munnar which is home to a huge tea plantation, we learnt the whole process of how tea gets made and because it was very educational I have decided to share that experience and knowledge here. The tea factory we visited is situated at Kolukamalai at a heigh of 8000+ ft above sea level. The journey to the factory was very treacherous with only a Jeep being able to make it. The breath taking view from the top compensated more than enough for the hardship of the journey. The Tea factory made our whole journey really worthwhile experience

The Tea plant is allowed to grow to a height of about 2 ft from the ground. Once it reaches that height, the new leaves get picked and because of which the plant always stays about that high.

Mostly women pick these leaves by a simple instrument that looks like a pair of shears with which when brought together will form a box that collects all the leaves as they are cut. The leaves are then transferred over to the bag that they carry on their backs.






The next step is sorting of the leaves and putting them in nylon bags.









These leaves are then brought to the factory where they are first put on a huge belt and hot air is pumped from beneath. This reduces the moisture content by 50%.








The leaves then are dropped from a chute and go into a grinder which chops up the leaves. This process is called crushing.








From here they go on to a sieve where the finer chopped leaves are separated from the coarser ones. The coarser ones go back into the grinding machine.

The finer part is now spread out on the floor and allowed to oxidise for about 3 hrs.





The next step is another machine which dries the oxidised tea. Again at this step some waste matter is removed or sent back to the previous step.








After drying, it goes into a machine which consists of several cylinders and each of them makes it little finer and send the good tea to the next step cylinder while the not so good part gets collected on the side. This not so good part is bagged and sold at a very cheap price.






By now the tea is nearly ready for consumption. The next step is quality control which separates the tea by its size using a series of seives. Each of them is bagged separately and sent to the stores for final consumption.

The interesting part of this education was that this was something that I had no clue about and the whole process seems extremely simple and can be done without any machinary if need be.

A memorable trip to Kabini Jungle Lodge

Little did I realize that I had not posted anything new in the last 6 months to my weblog. The memorable trip to the kabini jungle lodge inspired me to start writing again.

Karnataka government runs several wildlife tourist lodges called Jungle Lodges. I had heard quite a bit about these but this was my first experience with them. We picked the Jungle lodge at Kabini since this was rated as one of the top ten wildlife resorts in the world by a British travel magazine. If there was one thing true about this resort, this is a real top notch resort with excellent facilities, location and most of all service. It blows your mind off knowing that this is something run by a government entity. The one time I felt proud of govt work in India.

We set off on Aug 12, Friday at around 8:30 pm after dinner from Bangalore and reached Mysore around midnight. We rested in Mysore for the night and next day after breakfast at around 10:00 am headed out from Mysore towards Kabini Lodge which is in Nagarhole forest also know as Rajiv Gandhi National Park. Surprisingly the road was excellent but for the last 10-15 km. We reached the lodge by 11:30 am. There are 3 kinds of accomdations in the lodge, New Cottages (6 of them) right on the banks of Kabini, other cottages not as cool and tents. Because we had reserved well in advance, we were able to get the one of the new cottages right on the banks of Kabini. Kabini is a tributary of Cauvery river . Bandipur National Park (famous for Tigers) and Nagarhole National Park (famous for Elephants) are on the either side of Kabini.


The cottage had one large room with 3 beds and a nice big bathroom. The room and its furnishings was comparable to a 4 star hotel. All throught the stay the staff was very courteous and very attentive. After we checked in we went around the place admiring the natural beauty and came to Gol Ghar a meeting place for lunch/dinner.
Right near Gol Ghar were couple of tree houses overlooking the Kabini.


The kids got very excited and started going up the rope ladder hanging down from the tree. Over the next 24 hours they went back to the tree house at every opportunity they got. After a while it actually got addictive to even the adults. They had a rope net tied under the tree on which kids could roll down from the top of the tree and so all in all it was a blast. There were lot of guests with kids in the same age range of 6-12 and there was lot of bonding happening.

They served us lunch around 1:30 (very good vegeterian lunch. They had non-veg too). After lunch Bhavani and I relaxed while kids stayed busy with their new found friends at the tree house. At around 3:30 we gathered for Tea at Gol Ghar again. After Tea they had us split into groups with some going for boat rides and some going for safari. We got to go on a safari with another family also from Bangalore. The safari was great. We spotted Chital (spotted deer), Sambar, Macau (black faced monkey which is really adept at long jumps from one tree to another), Snake Eagle, Peacock, KingFisher, Bison, herds of wild elephants. A big male bison was so huge it almost was the size of a small pickup truck.



We had an interesting incident which scared living daylights of everyone in the jeep except of that of the driver. A herd of elephants wanted to cross the road to get to the watering hole when we spotted them and stopped our jeep in the tracks. The elephants decided to wait us out. Because we wanted to see the whole herd pass infront of us, our driver backed the jeep for about 100 feet and stopped. After 2 min waiting we decided to move on since the elephants were showing more patience than us. As our jeep started moving slowly again, the leader of the herd came charging at us to get us to move fast. Seeing a big animal charging at you in the Jungle is not pretty and everyone screamed at the driver to hit the pedal but the driver knowing the behavior took it easy and the elephant stopped in its track. That was something we will recollect for sometime. We then stopped at a village deep inside the Jungle where there were several tamed elephants. We got to ride one of those in the jungle and it was not exactly a pleasant experience knowing how elephants walk.

We came back to the lodge and kids were absolutely thrilled with their experience by now. In the evening they had a video showing the wildlife in the Nagarhole park. While kids watched that, I had couple of shots of Vodka and some good munchies. We them had some really good dinner and retired for the night. Next morning they woke us up at 6 am and served Tea/Coffee in the room. At 6:30 - 6:45 am we set out on a boat ride. This was to catch glimpses of animals which come to the watering hole either early morning or late in the afternoon. We could only spot a herd of Sambar deer. We came back to the lodge at around 9:30, had breakfast and checked out leaving completely satisfied with our stay at this wonderful place.

Disappointing Mysore Dasara

We wanted our kids to enjoy the world famous Dasara and we ended up achieving just the opposite. Schools in India are closed for about 10 days during Dasara and as soon the schools closed the kids left for Mysore with their grand parents. The grand parents took them over to see the palace at night and they definitely enjoyed it. The following is the story of the other famous events associated with Dasara in Mysore



Dasara Exhibition: The grand parents take the kids to the exhibition on the very first day it opened for public. They were let in without having to purchase any tickets the reason for which became clear pretty soon. Inside the fence there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. No exaggeration but all that was there was an empty piece of land. God knows what did the chief guest helped open that morning. Apparently they initially charged people to go in and see this NOTHING but when the crowd got irate (for all the good reasons) they may be refunded the money and let the people who came later for nothing to see this big nothing. What a joke!



Bhavani and I decided to go join the kids and because of the vast crowd ended up riding in the infamous Red colored bus from KSRTC from Bangalore to Mysore. This Bus has no shock absorbers of any kind and I swear I will do anything to avoid getting onto that one. This was almost a precursor to the things to come in the next couple of days.



Dasara Procession: We decided to provide the best viewing of the Dasar procession and hence bought these Rs 200 tickets. For Rs 200 you get to sit on the chair near the road by which the procession goes by. We reached there by 11:30 and found that the road was so well blocked that we could not get t o the entrance through which we had to go to grab our chairs. After some real gymanstics of climbing over fence and gates, we finally managed. Once we went in and sat down we thought we had made a sound choice in buying these tickets. But just when the procession was about to start (around 1:30) you had this sudden gush of people from the road from all different directions and soon they were all sitting next to you without having paid anything. Some even joked about the foolishness of people who pay for these things and there I was sitting and listening to this not knowing how to react.



I also saw that there were huge posters of the Chief Minister and deputy chief minister of Karnataka right in the center of the big KR circle and I couldn't figure out what they had to do with the Dasara until there was this mad rush of police running behind 2 fat guys who happened to these honable ministers. Apparently they were the chief guests and had decided to turn it into their personal dasara. The procession was a long drawn out (over 2 hours) of mind numbing, total bull shit parade of villagers dressed in everything from cave men to your normal towel on the shoulder and beating drums of different sizes. Later I learnt that all the drum beaters come from the same community as the deputy chief minister and he thought it was so cool he decided to waste 2 hrs of everyones time on that. We left the procession totally dejected.



Torch Light Parade: That same evening there was this torch light parade (supposed to be very cool) in BanniMantap. We had purchased the highest denomination ticket for that one too just to get a good look. The problem was the roads were so badly blocked we had to get off the Autorickshaw and walk. There was commotion all around with vehicles running on the sidewalk because the roads were like parking lots. It was unsafe everywhere with fights breaking out and we still decided to walk to this place without realizing how far it was. It turned out to be 3 km and like idiots we still kept going. I didn't even realize until later that I had lost my mobile by then. When we finally reached the venue there were police all over and none of them were helpful. There was this mad crowd near all entrance gates and making your way through them was next to impossible. Couple of times we were in the middle of this crowd when police started swinging their sticks and the kids by now had totally freaked out and I was begining to feel unsafe. Bhavani would not give up and we finally enter the stadium to realize that the stadium was filled to twice the capacity already and we did not have space to put both the fee on the ground. Since people kept coming in, I was NO JOKES on one feet. Forget your seats that you paid for since all of them had been occupied by everyone but people who paid for those. After 10 min, I couldn't take it anymore and with great struggle got everyone out safely. Bhavani went to complain about the situation to a Police officer and he questioned her wisdom in coming there with the kids. Go figure!! I swore that was the end of Dasara for me



Adventure Sports: For the first time the organizers decided to provide adventure sport opportunities for the tourists. They had organized Parasailing, Water scooters, Bungee jumping , hot air ballon rides and each one of them turned to be an interesting story.

• Water scooter: This turned to be such a low horsepower scooter where there is a guy who sits behind you and holds the handle like you would when you are teaching a two wheeler to your kid. He will not let go and so imagine yourself being hugged from behind by this guy with whom you wouldn't share a table if you had your choice. Added to the fun was the scooter hardly moved. I have no idea what was the adventure part of that.
• Bungee Jumping: This one was particulary good and you could clearly see both the watchers and people who were jumping of this platform hoisted from a crane were really enjoying it. However they had sold so many tickets (Rs 500 each) that after waiting for 4 hrs, I realized that I would have to wait for 2 - 3 hrs more before I could jump at which time I gave up and took the refund
• Para sailing: This was another popular one. You would strap on a parachute and be tied with a long rope to a Jeep. As the vehicle start moving you will get a lift and will hover about 100 up in the air. Looked like fun but same problem. Went on 2 consecutive days, waited for several hrs and did not get the turn.
• Hot air balloon: This was a joke since all you got to do for your Rs 1000 ticket was you would go up 100 ft up in the air, while the balloon continues to be tied to the earth with ropes. Did not even touch this with a 100 ft pole.

The only enjoyable part of this whole trip was (no jokes) the return journey from Mysore to Bangalore in a comfortable A/C coach, which truly captured it all (the best thing you could do was to get out of the town ;-)

Trip to Hogenekal Falls

Pictures of the trip:http://thejoshifamily.com/Travel/Hogenekal2004.asp

Our trip to Hogenekal was really memorable and here is the recount of it. Hogenekal falls is att the border of Karnataka and Tamil nadu. Hogenekal in kannada means smoking rocks because of the mist that kicks up around rocks as a result of the falls. Hogenekal is about 185 km from Bangalore. We set out at about 8:30 am after filling up the Scorpio (our SUV) and the customary morning coffee. The first half of the journey (About 90 km) is on the NH-7 also called Hosur road. This is a divided 4 lane highway and so the drive was very enjoyable. At around Dharamgiri you have to break off from the Highway and head east. The road isn't bad but not great either. You drive about 90 km on this road to come to Hogenekal. Hogenekal is mostly fisherman's village which is immediately evident as soon as you enter the village. Fisherman here use what's called "Teppa" in kannada or Coracle. It is very crudely built boat that looks like a saucer.

We were eight of us and so rented 2 of these coracles agreeing to pay Rs 500 (about $11) per boat. You walk down this dirty stretch of the road to the water with local ladies selling fishes on either side of the road.



Once you get into the boat you sit down in a squatting position. The boatman steers the boat with a single oar with such deftness that you will be amazed. Especially evident is their skill in maneuvaring around the currents and riding upstream. He rowed the boat for about 20 min and asked us to get off the boat and walk to the falls.

The walk to the falls took another 20 min with several times having to walk through the river and over rocks. Once you reach the falls the view is breathtaking. You will be standing at the edge of the falls and viewing down. The falls is wide and not a whole lot high (like Niagara). It is a great feeling to stand overlooking the falls and cool down with the water splashing against your face.

After that we spent about 2 hours playing in the shallow water next to the falls. Kids especially had a great time. We finished eating our lunch and headed back in the boat. This time around the boat takes a different route and goes through some rapids. You will really appreciate your boatman's skill. The next stop was at the tower from where you can overlook the entire falls and it is a great view point. It is a great view point because that is when you will realize that what you saw earlier was only half the falls.

We left Hogenekal at 4:30 and reached Bangalore around 8:30 with a pit stop on the way. One of the things I did not try but seemed to be very popular there was getting a oil massage from the local folks and then taking a dip in the cauvery river. May be next time