a memorable adventure

Both mermaid and I were actually tired of cribbing about the boring monotonous life confined to our computers and office cubicles. I was really tired of just seeing us in this phase for quite long now and not even doing something about making our own lives any interesting...anyway, something happened and both of us decided to just go for some adventure. I think i'm more excited about adventure in nature than mermaid used to be...but I was really surpirsed to see her all enthu about going somewhere , doing something adventurous. Though I didn't tell her, deep inside I felt great to see this change in her of beginning to explore adventure. Thank god! now we'll have many memories of going places which we couldn't do in five years of our friendship. Our trip really turned adventurous because of the friends we went along with...bunch of very active, funny, adventure and fun loving guys. Wouldn't be as much fun without them!!It was also like a reunion. For a long time.. almost three years we had not been in touch with most of them. But we reallly really needed a break i guess, so when they offered us to join the trip, in the midst of lot of work deadlines, we decided to just join them and experience some adventure.

Not that we didn't come up with reasons for why we should probably drop out as work was calling for the priority ...I remember during such discussion Mush said something that was worth a thought. he said " C'mon you dedicate 365 days of your year to work, you leave everything else aside when it comes to work, can't you just give two days for your self". Ahh, that really rang the bell in my head. "Get up boring girl, don't crib...and break free" So five of us - Mush ,Harish, Suneesh, mermaid and me set out for this two day memorable trip. later my bro Sangye joined us on the way. So six of us. I guess for the guys it was like just another weekend trip they went for, considering their lives are pretty active and adventurous. For us it was a refreshing n memorable break.

The trip: Saturday 12th July '08

Mush, Harish and Suneesh were supposed to pick us at 3:30am sharp on saturday morning. So both of us hardly slept for 1-2 hrs and then woke up got ready...got remined of our night shift job when we used to wake up midnight and go throught the continous pukish feeling. But we were obedient enough to get all ready by 3:30 and waited for them to call us. No call from mush passed 3:30. Called mush to find out that the cab has not come by and harish is not awake. Both of us got lil wild obviously. While i was still sleepy and i think mermaid too...we waited n waited. called them again..finally at 4:30 they arrived. Finally we took off on our trip...thank god!!

In the cab, Harish was still strugging to try to find a comfortable position to sleep. Being tall is not always advantageous and being plump ofcourse not ;). Mush was sitting with the driver and guiding him ..later he took on to entertaining him as well. Suneesh was pretty active and was preventing harish from falling on his shoulder while trying to sleep. Mermaid told Harish, "I want to shout at you, please tell me when you wake up" how polite.. As we started moving out of banaglore, I felt great, mermaid also looked calm n composed. We were not sleepy anymore. Soon we saw the sunrise...it was a really good morning!!

Then there was a long long drive, everyone was quiet since harish was not awake...it was peaceful with blue sky on top, green hills and trees on either side and we just driving down the road ahead. The journey was faster and less painful now, thanks to the new broad improved bangalore- mysore road. Even beyond Mysore the road was rebuilt and freshly painted. We reached Bylakuppe at around 9:30am in the morning and picked up my bro from the monastry and then we headed to madekeri. After crossing Mysore district as we were heading towards Madekeri, the whole landscape started looking like a hill station, lush green tall trees and thick jungle throught out the drive, with some coffee plantations in between. Thats the natural beauty you can't experience being in the city. We reached madekeri at around 11am. We haulted at hotel Atithi, ordered some regular south indian breakfast from the Dosa family - onion dosa, paper dosa, plain dosa and it was surprising to realize that we couldn't get idli. Hard to believe not to get idli in South India. But in a way what we found is that the culture and the life style of the people of coorg is relatively different from the rest of the typical south Indian culture, it's like a blend of hilly lifestyle and south Indian culture. A beautiful calm place with simple life. Breakfast/brunch was accompanied by this lovely soft drizzle, very soothing to the eyes. After breakfast we headed to our 'home stay'. A very nice furnished house with two bedrooms, living room and a kitchen. We decided to just freshen up and move to Sreemangala for rafting. It was always the boys behaving like women(not the simple ones, the ones who are very fussy and point each other for making the fuss), taking lot of time for everything. We were ready pretty fast. The guys got ready after fighting, arguing on things. Each one claimed he was faster than the others and fought like dogs. Finally, we left for Sreemangala - The rafting place...

Aaah, the drive was soooo beautiful, the scenic beauty on either side of the road kept me awestruck and I couldn't stop admiring it. The jerks and bumps that we suffered due to sitting on the last row was all offset with this beautiful view outside the cab. There was so much greenary and the air was sooooo pure, chill and soothing. Lovely!!!!

Through out the journey mermaid and I were relatively quiet. Sometimes I would turn my head and look at her apart from looking outiside at nature, I always saw her sitting quiet, looked like she was in deep thoughts with her eyes wide open, without blinking much. So i think both of us were thinking a lot. My monk bro was always like a decent silent monk. But just in the front rows...lot of activites were going on. The three musketeers were upto all the mischies they could manage in the cab. Harish never missed a chance to pull Mush's leg and trying to prove him silly, Suneesh always added fuel to the fire. The journey was longer than expected...asking ppl for directions and couple of times going reverse (killing time) to head to the right direction.

Whenever these boys got a chance they wasted time. And the three of us, Sangye,Mermaid and me never wasted a single min. we were in the cab since they packed us in the last row when we started off. The three big boys took multiple 5 min breaks for two things - 1. the nature's call 2. their own call and craving for "smoke". They hardly bothered about eating.

There was no music in the cab, since no one got any music cds. Mush proudly took out his ipod, rather tried showing it off, but none of his acts would work when harish was present to degrade it. Mush couldn't stop saying "hey check this out man, the song collection". Harish & Suneesh took turns to analyze it and obviously how could they be nice to him! Both said the songs were crappy and even the ear phones were pathetic. Mush promptly took it back from them and then punished ppl for laughing at his ipod. with his ipod plugged into his ears he started singing loudly...actually braying louder and louder. The driver was a brave guy...he could still manage to be calm and composed. We were laugning out loud. Sangye woke up laughing loudly when he heard Mush singing.. and I really wondered how did the driver never ever laughed once. May be his singing helped him stay awake!! Or may be he was just being professional.

The cab had a vcd player, which the guys figured out much later. So now they wanted to watch some movie. We had very limited choices - 'Mungaru male', yarana, 'U, me aur Hum', fanaa.
Again they fought over which movie to play... mush loves fanaa, b'coz he loves kajol's eyes. Harish wanted yarana, suneesh said we won't watch mungaru male. Mush also wanted to watch 'U, me aur Hum' b'coz again he liked kajol's eyes. we the ppl in the back row didn't have any preferences or differences. Ultimately Harish won and played 'yarana' Harish was linking his and mush's story of friendship with the story of this movie. Harish has this great capability to come up with instant non stop humor ...Admirable!! If i write about the funny conversations between them...it may never end.
Harish's story - During the scene where the two friends are parting ways... Harish said " this is exactly how mush cried when i was going for my MBA. So I said I will not go unless you come along with me...and mush said "nooo i'm so dumb, how can I do an MBA??? you come back and i'll be right here waiting for you"...lol..if you've watched the scene/movie u'll laugh at this. So finally we thought we reached the "rafting" place, but we realized that we had to travel 12 kms more :(. Later around 3:30pm we reached the rafting place 'Upper Barapole white water rafting'



Rafting: Barapole River

The road to the rafting spot looked like a one way track, absolutely narrow road leading us through the dense green trees n bushes. finally we reached somewhere. Parked the cab. Looked deserted. The big boys went to find the river and we were left alone. a bit scary like stranded in an african jungle. Then a man appeared suddenly from behind us. We still don't know how he just appeared so suddenly. He immediately started asking questions - how many of you? where did you come from? which car? where have you parked it?...we were skeptical to answer him. Finally I managed to ask him " Are you the organizer?", he was the one. So then we answered his queries. Immediately we went to begin our really fast training session..

We got the view of the water we would go rafting. The water was green, still and the surrounding looked like a marshy area. Just like the crocodile's habitat!
Now i started feeling quiet nervous, but the rafting team was all set and they started off with their procedures. A guy dressed like a cow boy just popped up and asked told me "give me your camera and all the valuables"...I was like "Ohh, what? who are you?" but i didn't say this loud to him. We were pretty surprised and skeptical. Once confirmed he was part of the organizing team, we gave him the camera and other valuables. There was this funny style about this cow boy...both of us can't stop laughing about it even now.


Then started the crash course..it was really a very quick training session. Before we could mentally even prepare to go into the water all the instructions on how to row, commands - right forward, left backward, down, safety measures etc started off. and before we could even sink the instructions in our head the guide pulled the raft in the water...ready to gooooo.

This was the first time for all of us except for harish.. despite that all of them seemed so cool about the whole thing. Ignorance is bliss...so true. We had no idea of the experience of rafting. It didn't look so bad when we watch on TV, but here we were all set to go. The boys were all happy, jumpy, not bothered to lsiten to the instructor...considering we didn't know to swim, never plunged my head under water and never intended to plunge in green water...I was scared n skeptical now.

Ok, we started off...me went thru a mixed feeling of nervousness n scared (60%), and trying to be exited and happy(40%). Mermaid looked bit fine. Others were jumping, yelling...excited!!!!


Our instructor was a professional, bit strict and a sweet chap..with some serious humor in him.
Just as we rowed a bit and moved in the water, it was time to practice how to not drown incase we fell in water. Hmm...scared again :( . The boys were already in the water, having fun. Even if we know the fact that with a life jacket we won't drown, it is scary to go in this unclear green water. I gathered all the courage and jumped in. Like i said I never dipped my head in water...and here i went down head first. I almost experienced drowing, i was all panicky and it felt like something was pulling me, not letting me come up. I thought i was drowing, but soon my life jacket took me up. I swollowed water and that irrtation on my throat lasted till the nex day.
Our guide pulled me up finally. Coincidently he was from Nepal. So he gave me some gyan in nepali and told me not to get scared. My experience made mermaid bit nervous. Now she was skeptical about going into the water. The boys were having fun in the water...yelling, taking multiple dives. Sangye was trying all sorts of dives he could. Finally our guide Mahendra pushed her in the water. and I saw him laughing hard at her. He thought she was crying. hehe.

Then started the real rafting...we all got on the raft and moved..following our guide.
Once Harish asked Mahendra - " Are there snakes in the water?"..He replied seriously " No! the crocodiles eat them up"... what!!!!?? Witty guy scared us!
Then we crossed the first lil rapid , then the 2nd and the 3rd. Boys were having fun, I was lil scared sometimes and yelling like those silly girls do in hindi movies..couldn't help it. Our guide kept telling me 'don't be scared, nothing will happen'.. once these guys complained that he was giving the instructions in nepali n only to me..not fair! but how did that matter..since they wouldn't listen to him at all. Actually he was just telling me don't get scared and once he really got lil wild and said " U're a nepali girl, u shld be brave..what a shame"..

Before approaching the final rapid that was the most powerful one for us, we were made to get on the shore and take a view of the rapid. We all parked the rafting boat, got down and climed huge rocks to see the rapids. The water current looked pretty strong. Again the guide told me "don't worry, nothing will happen, u won't fall in it, very rarely people fall and it's my responsibility to save u". Then he said " Even if you fall , u will drown only if u r caught in the under currents. there u see ...there are those under currents" I was begining to get lil scared again. And finally he said" Even if u die, so what?? it's fine right, all of us have to die.." ...Was this the way to make someone feel safe n comfortable at such a moment?? I asked him if i could drop out , he gave a firm "No"

Anyway...we had to head to the raft and cross this last level 4 rapid, and i just told myself...be brave, there's no escape...and I felt much more better than before..Not so scared anymore.
The boys were yelling, so through out they were all excited and happy i guess. And we crossed the 4th rapid..and i know how happy I was, I was screaming...all of us were. After we got down from the raft...mermaid n I felt this greaaaat sense of achievement. We screameeeed and hugged each other as if we conqured the world. And there was mr. cowboy giving us that look with his tilted smile as if he was thinking "huh..they think they've conquered the world...silly girls"
The guys said it wasn't fun like the way it was elsewhere. All the complaints after so much of yelling and fun. We came back to place where the cab was parked. The guys again took really long time to change. As always they were slower than us. It was quite late by the time we finished...so we couldn't explore more. But this was really a great adventure for me atleast! Done one new thing in my life!!!

We came back to Madekeri by 10pm and we were tired, so we hit the bed. Next morning me, mermaid and sangye took a stroll around the town. The view reminded me of kathmandu due to the up n down landscape. There were pretty little flowers on the sides of the road. It was refreshing.

Later we got ready and headed back to Bangalore to get back to our regular life... Mush, Suneesh and Harish entertained us throughout the journey with their arguements, fights & silly jokes on each other. After returning it just felt like I need to go back again to explore more and experience more adventure, be close to nature again...it wasn't enough, it wasn't complete....

PS: This post has been pending for too long now...n I was thinking of dropping this idea of blogging about this trip. But I'm completing this for Mush and Harish now...

- Snow