N is for Night trek. N is for Never again.

This is yet another travel tale! This time from Thekkady, Idukki district - Kerala, India.

A trip to Thekkady is incomplete without visiting the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. Inspired by my husband’s induction to the wonders of the jungle, we signed up for a night trek / jungle patrol in Thekkday. I sheepishly enquired about how large our trek group was expected to be. “10 including the guards”, came the reply. Taking comfort in the numbers, I decided to give it a shot.

It was 7 pm. As luck would have it, none of the others turned up! So there we were, two of us, two from the patrol team, armed with anti-leech powder, boots, torches and rain coats; inside the Periyar wildlife sanctuary.  

It seemed like a cake walk along the fringes of the forest, since there was some kind of lighting from nearby settlements. As we went into the thicket, the rain gods decided to make things slightly more adventurous. Picture this – rain lashing down on us, pitch dark, sounds of the jungle and sudden flashes of glistening eyes of animals. There was this one particular moment, when 4-5 pairs of eyes were too close for comfort. My heart was pounding and it felt like my temples would explode. “Deer”, announced the patrol leader.

My husband helped me a great deal by narrating an incident where he got chased by mad elephants in an earlier forest trip!!! The guys in the patrol nodded in agreement and confirmed that was commonplace. Wait, this was not the part where I freaked out… Read on…  

For some reason I stopped and happened to look down at my feet. That is when pandemonium struck. Leech!!! All over my boots, crawling up. That was it. I could take it no more. I had enough adventure for a night. Slimy, bloodsuckers on my feet is not my idea of adventure. Anti leech powder came to my rescue, not for long though. Within a few minutes, my boots were back to square one. Since it was just us, I took the liberty of cutting the trek short and ran back to familiar surroundings. Phew!

This was one of those trips that I was very glad to have done, but I know will never repeat.

M is for Maranello

One of the most sensible pacts that my husband and I have made is the no gifting policy. Well, it was more for my comfort. I have always found it incredibly difficult to buy the man something he would appreciate and cherish. A typical gift buying conversation would go like this -

Me: “A wallet? A watch perhaps?”

He: ”Please don’t waste money, I already have one of each”.  

Me: “A pen?”

He: “I don’t write”

Me: “A gadget – phone, tab?”

He: “Hmmm... sounds interesting, but let’s wait for the next version to come out”

You get the drift right??

If you use the word ‘fast’ and ‘cars’ in the same sentence anywhere in the vicinity of my husband, you can be sure to see his eyes light up. It is a dream that he knows will never come true – being a race car driver.

So, during our trip to Italy, when I figured we would be crossing Maranello en route Pisa, we just had to make a pit stop (pun intended!) Maranello is best known for the Ferrari factory. Despite being a shoestring budget trip, I decided to splurge on this one occasion and gift him a 20 minute Ferrari drive! It would make up for all the lack of gifting for eternity.

The museum visit by itself had given him such an adrenalin rush, he could hardly make up his mind between a Lamborghini and a Ferrari California. After much thought and deliberation, he went with the latter. We had a person from the shop accompany us on the drive, explaining the controls et al.

Then we hit the highway. Boy! I had butterflies in my stomach, just being a silent co passenger. The revving engine, the wind in my hair, the speed, the roads… I have goosebumps even as I write this! I can imagine how exciting it must have been for him to actually get to drive it.  

Leopard encounter

My husband introduced me to the wonders of jungles and wildlife soon after we got married. We made our first “jungle trip” to Bandipur in South India.  After some basics on safari etiquette, we set out for our early morning adventure. I was in high spirits, hoping to catch a tiger sighting, which the husband explained would be possible only with a generous dose of serendipity.

After about half an hour into the jungle, my jeep slowed down as we crossed a manmade watering hole. After a couple of minutes of recon, our guide signalled to us to look at a tree by the far end of the water body. There is was! Perched on the branch of a tree, perfectly camouflaged, was a leopard! Only the twitch of its tail gave it away. We used the binoculars to get a clear view and zoomed in to catch a glimpse of the face.

What I saw through those lenses will be a memory that I will carry to my grave. I remember trying not to breathe as hard in the fear of inciting the leopard; as if it were right in front of me, looking directly into my eyes. This is the moment when I understood what William Blake intended to convey when he wrote “Tyger Tyger, burning bright”. Those blazing eyes, those chiselled features, a gaze so powerful, so piercing, menacing and beautiful all at the same time.

J is for Jungfraujoch

Marketed as the “Top of Europe” experience, the husband and I were expecting our trip to Jungfrau to be the high point of our Swiss sojourn.

We chose to use the services of the Jungfrau railway, known to be a pioneer of sorts in the mountain railway scene. We boarded a delightful cogwheel train at Kleine Scheidegg, which took us to Jungfrau in about an hour’s time. En route, we got off at two spectacular view points and gasped and marvelled at the Alps.

At this point, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that TH and I have lived near the equator practically our entire lives. You may now appreciate the effort it took us to just get to Jungfrau. We actually felt like ghosts, because we could not feel our feet and hands beyond a certain altitude.

When we finally reached, we were dazed to see a bunch of people rush to a particular spot, trampling everything in their wake. TH and I managed to find each other again after all this drama and floated along (ghosts remember?) to get out into the snow. And guess what we find? Shah Rukh Khan! (For the uninitiated, he is a big Bollywood superstar) Not in body and flesh, but his picture on a cardboard was enough to send people into a frenzy.

I occasionally loathe how loud and crass Bollywood can be. So you can imagine my dismay when I go all the way to the top of Europe, braving the cold, only to see people making a beeline to click pictures with a cut out of Shah Rukh Khan and dine in Restaurant Bollywood!

Well, that does not take away anything from the beauty of the place. It is quite astounding. Just watch your back for crazy SRK fans when you step out into the snow.

I is for Illuminate

The word "illuminate” will never mean the same to us again.

The husband and I went on a trip to Thailand in 2011. Ao Nang is a small island in the Krabi province of Thailand that is not as commercial as the rest of the beaches in Thailand. After an evening of island hopping, we ventured out into the sea for a night dive experience. Our boat anchored in a spot off Maya Bay (of The Beach fame). All the lights aboard were switched off and we plunged into the chill waters in complete darkness. To be honest, it was scary in the beginning, but we were blown away by what happened next.

As we moved our limbs to make our way through the water, our bodies lit up in the most brilliant colours of blue and green. Photophosphorescence! The bioluminescent plankton that surrounded out bodies lit up and illuminated the diving spot. Remember the scene from Life of Pi where the whale jumps out of the water? Yeah, that. I scoured the internet for pictures to give you an idea of what it would look like, but none did justice. So, I am posting a photo of bioluminescent phytoplankton that I found on news.nationalgeographic.com to give you a glimpse of the wonders of the ocean.

The night dive at Ao Nang was the highlight of our trip (pun intended J )

Holidaying in Havelock

We have all seen pictures from the Andaman Islands promotional campaigns, with turquoise waters and pristine sands haven’t we? The good news is that, these pictures are not photoshopped. I don’t think any camera or any technology can truly capture the beauty this place has to offer. It is best seen with the human eye, best experienced with an open mind and a large heart.

I am going to spare you the details of the touristy things to do here. This post is about how one can get lost in Havelock and yet find yourself!

The husband and I holidayed in this lovely island to complete a scuba diving course. An island with no newspapers, no television, very poor signal for your mobile phone and no internet can be a little disorienting to begin with. Add to it an early sunset (it gets dark by 5 PM!), and you may wonder what you are going to do for the rest of the day! As you would imagine, electricity is scarce as well, so most resorts are big on conservation. One stormy night can disrupt supply of essential commodities from the mainland – grocery, petrol, beer and even bottled water!

Stay warned, if you are the kind who likes to live tweet / Instagram every breath you take on a holiday, or if you are really bothered about your klout scores, you might as well skip holidaying here. On the other hand, if your heart yearns for a holiday where you want to disconnect with the world and connect with yourself, Havelock is the place to go.

Oh, and I stand corrected about the internet. We did see a delightful little shack, which proudly advertised “Rs. 300 per hour, 512 kbps” J

G is for Grandeur

There is only one scene that flashes in my mind when I think of grandeur. That view will remain forever etched in my memory, one that I will carry to my grave. It was breath taking, awe inspiring and even had the agnostic me believe in God for a moment. The only other time that I have felt that way was when I saw my little girl for the first time.

Source: Wikipedia

The St. Peter’s basilica. There was something about the moment that I stepped into the place. Maybe it was the light streaming through the dome or just the sheer size, the grandeur of it all. I felt light headed, like I was in heaven. I thought it was also rather symbolic to feel dwarfed in this magnificent architectural marvel. Check out the picture, look at how tiny the human beings look! We all are tiny aren’t we? Well, that's another philosophical discussion altogether, sometime later perhaps.

The Vatican skyline sports the iconic white dome, but don’t let it deceive you. For, inside the basilica it is another world altogether. I couldn’t get my head around how something could be so huge, yet so ornate. The architectural splendour, the finesse of every small detail was mind blowing. And to have done this centuries back! Phew!

If you haven’t already been to the basilica, you must. Everything else about the Vatican City is indeed grand, but this one is ethereal!

Enchanted by elephants

Those who know me know how much I love pachyderms. There’s something about these gentle giants that takes my breath away.

It is no surprise that my visit to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka will remain one of my most memorable travel experiences. The orphanage houses and cares for over 80 wild elephants that are orphaned or found abandoned. We stopped at Kegalle en route Kandy from Colombo on an overcast day.

After having spent the morning in the vast orphanage, the entire herd walks across to the Oya River to bathe. I remember having butterflies in my stomach because I could actually feel slight tremors as the herd walked along the small lane off the highway into the river. It is a sight to behold and reminds you how small and helpless human beings are in front of nature!

There are a number of restaurants that dot the lane leading upto the river. We dined at a restaurant offered panoramic views of the river and allowed guests to get up close and personal with the bathing elephants. 

A memorable day, which reinforced my belief that we humans take ourselves too seriously, while being quite minuscule in the larger scheme of things. Literally :) 

Airport Adventures

I took a two hour flight earlier this week, all alone with baby A. I was quite apprehensive about how I would manage alone, but I met a whole bunch of people who helped ease my nerves a great deal 

• The C-Suite executive who offered baby A some very expensive magazines, which I politely refused, for she knows not the difference between a Wharton journal and Bombay Times.
• The classic neighbourhood aunty who gave me 5 minutes of unsolicited advice about raising children from whom I slipped away on the pretext of checking the flight status.
• A young mother of a slightly older child, who reassured me that that phase I am in now, is way better than hers.
• A group of college kids, obviously hungover, craving for some sleep. The look of horror on their faces was priceless to the point of being funny when I walked alongside them towards the boarding gates. They sneakily tried to check which flight I was taking by throwing furtive glances at my boarding pass / hand baggage tags.
• The genuinely nice teenager who patiently kept picking up her toy every time she dropped it, so much so, it became a game of sorts!
• A chic lady at the coffee shop with a Fendi bag, doused in the finest of Issey Miyake fragrances. She looked disdainfully at my dark circles, far from perfect hair, unkempt toe nails. I felt like an old hag. She then ruined her perfect image by asking for an “Expresso” and I had the last laugh ;-)

I had such a swell time observing people’s reaction to the presence of a woman travelling alone with a baby, but there has to be a rotten egg hidden somewhere right? A pervert who would crane his neck any length to catch a glimpse of a woman breast feeding. Hmph!

A Dive Divine

I back rolled off my boat and fell into the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea at The Wall, a famous dive site off Havelock. I entered head first. I don’t think any adjective would do justice to describe the beauty I saw there! My jaw would have dropped, but the only reason I kept my mouth shut was to ensure my oxygen regulator doesn't fall off. Amidst all the marine frenzy, Kailash and I knew we had found a hobby for life. The 14 kg tank that weighed on me all this while suddenly felt weightless… Aah! The joys of being in water!

This was my first dive as a part of my PADI certification. After having gone through theory lessons, clearing an exam, clearing life skill tests in confined water, here I was – my first certification dive. I was excited….

It is a cardinal rule of scuba diving to swim against the current when you start a dive; that’s when you have most energy. And then, you can lazily let the current do all the work when you get back after the dive. I was busy scanning the water, hoping to get luck with some manta ray spotting.

Just as we started to descend, the waters became a little cloudy. No, not with sand from the seabed… But with… wait for it…. JELLYFISH! I found a few beautiful jelly fish bobbing in the water and deftly swam away from them. Then, one look ahead and the colour drained off my face. There were atleast 200 of them, swimming with the current, right towards us!

Our dive instructors took one look at the jellyfish and announced that it was not poisonous. But, as in life, everything comes with a caveat. They had tentacles that ran upto a metre in length! That much venom could kill a dinosaur, maybe! “Remain calm!” was the clarion call… You know this is like someone telling you – “Oh there is a tiger charging at you. But don’t you worry, it doesn't have sharp teeth!”

With a heavy scuba suit and in the midst of a current, it would be ages before we got to the boat and hauled ourselves up to safety. We grimly looked at the entire school of them swim towards us and started our futile swim towards the boat. It was only a matter of physics before they caught up with us. Cursing relative velocity under my breath, I realized what pathetic swimmers we humans are.

When the first sting landed on my leg, there was piercing pain and I screamed out loud… The more you struggle, the more the tentacle embeds itself in your body. It is so poignant that a creature so beautiful can be that dangerous! Evil, pure evil. Kailash got one on his face, and that is something that I don’t even want to think about! And when the rest of them came, the profanities just kept getting worse. After the ordeal, one of my co divers said, “When the lady went from saying s**t to f***, we knew it was really bad!”

At the moment that I saw them coming, suddenly, the aches and the pains vanished, the cribs seemed so trivial, the number of zeros in the salary became a non-entity, and everything else seemed so small. In the silence of the ocean, the only thing I heard was the sound of my own heart, pounding. I remember feeling a little guilty that I hadn't yet found my calling in life and prayed ever so hard before being engulfed. Talk about perspective; this incident cleared my head like nothing else ever has, it was almost divine.  

We got onto the safety of the boat after what seemed like eternity. As our co-divers rushed to help us take off tentacles hanging from our arms and legs, we both knew we were bloody lucky to walk away from this with just some scars and painful pricks. You know, they say some experiences in life change you. And more so, when such experiences happen at the hands of nature. 

We knew we had changed – forever. 

Makeover!

It has been over a year since I travelled by the Shatabdi between Singaara Chennai and Bengaluru. As I hurriedly walked along platform 2A to board the Shatabdi, its new sleek look with steel coloured body caught my eye. I remember dismissing it off as a superficial, cosmetic indulgence of no consequence and braced my self to endure a 5 hour journey of cramped leg space, crying babies and if my luck was rotten, a steady AC blast to irritate my sensitive sinuses.

I was stumped when I got into my coach. I stood at the doorway with dropped jaws. The huge glass windows reminded me of a Kajol – Shah Rukh sequence from DDLJ – only that the scene through the glass was not that scenic. As I kept thinking of one random movie song after another, I was subconsciously yanking at the door – which for some strange reason refused to open.

An exasperated gentleman tapped me on my shoulder and sadly shook his head from side to side and showed me a big bright green sign that said “Slide to open”. He was a sure shot middle management type guy – suit, laptop, blackberry… and he gave me a look that said – “These village girls…” I was too consumed by the redone interiors of the train to process his look-down-upon-you attitude. I stepped into the coach and walked slowly – absorbing the swanky interiors – jaw still dropped, so much so I caused a traffic jam of sorts.

The upholstery is now a pleasant sea green with some super soft felt kind of fabric as against the drab grey earlier, the storage space is a kickass see through plastic slab fitted with reading lights, no more musty cloth curtains – there are now some awesome pull down screens, the leg space feels like I am flying business class and the leg rests have been placed more intelligently. I kept playing with the reading lights, only to corroborate the middle mgmt guy’s impression of me! And yeah – the AC ducts are now distributed evenly through the length of the train and I did not have to do through my SOP for fighting cold.

As I settled in, I was handed out a newspaper - characteristic salmon pink with my company’s name splashed on it that made me smile with pride. And much to Mr. Middle mgmt’s surprise, I actually read the paper!

I slept like a baby, read a great book and knew that a great weekend lay ahead of me. Could it be more perfect?