Tada, 12th April

after that coimbatore trip with a friend, i started searching for new places to go and ways to go to those places. after googling a little, this is what i came accross SA chennai trekking group. after reading about their past treks and the experiences they had, i couldnt resist into being part of their treks. next trek was on 12th april and i got an invitation to join the trek because i had registered on the website. i was really excited as it would be my first trek ever. peter the chief organizer for most of the treks called me up to confirm the evening before about the pickup points and to check if i had any transport.
next day woke up 0400 in the morning got ready and i was at my pickup point at 0505. i was picked up by peter's scorpio at exactly 0515 as he had told me. after that we picked up few more people on the way and then stopped at koyembedu bus terminus for a few minutes meeting few other members who had come to join us for the trek on bikes and a car. not wasting much time we started heading towards tada which is about 60 kms from koyembedu bus terminus. after reaching we had breakfast consisting of idli dosa vada etc. and also we packed our lunch from the same place, about 40 idlis i think. the place where we were going to trek was still about 20 kms from tada town. the waterfall is actually known as uballamudugam falls. theres a checkpost before the parking area. apart from parking cost we also had to pay for camera. which was Rs.50 for each camera . the checkpost is just a tiny hut in the middle of no where. and we couldnt really figure out why they were charging us for cameras, probably with so little crowd coming in they ran out of ways to make money.the road from the checkpost to the parking is filled with rocks and in some places with deep sands and makes it very difficult for bikes and small cars to go through. amongst the two cars one was a santro and so we parked it near the checkpost. after reaching the parking place we parked the vehicles we distributed water bottles, and lunch which we had bought in tada when we stopped for breakfast. after that we started walking towards a path up hill. on the way we had to cross beautiful streams of crystal clear water. and at another place there was a beautiful pool deep enough to swim (but not deep enough to drown) and we spent almost an hour playing in water in the pool. after that we started climbing upstream throught the stream jumping over large rocks and finally reached a bigger deeper pool and a waterfall on top. very few people climb till the top as it takes almost an hour and half to climb till the top and requires quite a lot of energy to keep jumping over rocks and looking for way to keep going up, as there is no proper path to go up. on the waterfall at the top we had lunch and spent lots of time taking snaps. at the top there were also lots of monkeys who managed to steal few of our snacks packets and coolly opened and ate it all by themselves.

after having lunch and water we started climbing down. took us another 2 hours to come down and by 1700 we had reached the bottom at the parking place. on the way back we stopped in tada to quench our thirsts with some juice and cold drinks, and kept driving back to chennai. reached chennai at around 0800 after getting stuck in traffic while entering chennai. and so here it was my first trekking experience with a trekking group. i jus wish i had googled it earlier so not to have missed earlier treks to beautiful places where they have been before. but i'm pretty sure i'm not gonna miss future treks if i'm in chennai.

do visit www.ChennaiTrekkers.org for more info and registering yourself on the site and becoming part of the coolest trekking group in chennai.


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Coimbatore Trip

Day 1





after our (saurav and me) train arrived in coimbatore station first thing we did was start looking for a hotel room to stay in. took a bus to gandhipuram bus station. mine being in first time in coimbatore, i just went where saurav took me. he had been here a few times before so he knew the main places here. i was just here for fun, just because i couldnt find another place in the state :p. after asking a few places in gandhipuram, we came back to station again and then found a cheap hotel nearby,costing just rs.252 per day, with a double bed. after we took bath, saurav (the one who did have some work here) went out, and after sleeping for an hour even i went to a place called maradhamailai which is a small temple on top of a hill. whole thing took about two or three hours and after that i was back in hotel with saurav and his friend, and we three slept and talked till evening, and then when we started feeling hungry we went out roaming in the market place chat (bhel puri, pani puri etc..) and ice-creams.

Day 2





Watched a hindi movie (Race) with saurav and his friend. after that saurav, puneet and me went to a beautiful dam near a place called pollachi. the name of the dam is Aliyar dam and is located beside tall hills with a beautiful view of the hills behind the huge water reservoir created by the dam.

Day 3





Went to another dam called malampuzha dam, near palakkadu in kerela about two and half hours from coimbatore, with saurav and puneet's friends. We went there by train to palakkadu and the train journey itself was very entertaining with tracks right through dense forests and in between hills. the dam was also quite tall with beautiful garden for people to enjoy on the dry side of the dam. theres also a small ropeway which takes you over the garden, which we didnt go in 'cause it was too short and none of us were interested to go. after that we visited a small snake park near the dam, which was also quite interesting with atleast twenty to thirty species of snakes. scariest thing was watching more than 6 huge pythons on every branch of a single tree, which thankfully for us, was caged from all sides. in the evening we three took a train back to chennai.
coimbatore really is very beautiful and surrounded by beautiful hills and greenery all around. you will only keep looking for your camera no matter which road you take to any direction. there are many waterfalls as well as many dams nearby, just few hours from the city and there are buses to take you anywhere. even the most popular hill station in the south india, Ooty, is only about 3 hours by road from coimbatore. hopefully i'll come back again to explorer this part of tamil nadu very soon again.

Chennai to Coimbatore in general compartment

Past few days i've been thinking of going to some place outside chennai, to escape, and discover whats tamil nadu actually like, outside chennai. Finally when my project review for final year project in college got over today, i just decided to get out and discover new places around chennai. Soon enough my friend said he was going to coimbatore, and so here i am lying on one feet wide side luggage rack of a general bogie in cheran exp, on the way to coimbatore with him :-D the night should be interesting.

Earthsync music festival

Went to odyssey to buy some painting things (yeah all of a sudden some wires short circuited in my grey and i wanted to paint again after almost 7 years, anyways about that may be in some post later :p ) and saw a beautiful poster about a musical somewhere in chennai so bought the tickets. asked many friends and none seemed to be interested the ones who were had other plans on that day. anyways finally, only one other friend aggreed to come so i wasnt alone :p .

the show was really good. the auditorium also beautiful and sounded amazing. oddly enough the percentage of foreigners in the audience was very high, no idea why. the music consisted of a pleasant mixture of contemporary and traditional with many instruments of both genres. loved the music. here are some pics.

turtle walks chennai - saving olive ridley turtle eggs

I went on my first turtle walks this
Saturday and Sunday mornings (Friday and Saturday late nights). in case you don't know, what people do during turtle walks is collect turtle eggs which are laid by turtles during high tides in the night and then relocate them to a safer location away from public beaches and people in an enclosed hatchery. a turtle can lay up to 200 eggs at once in a single nest. if left untouched usually not even a single one may hatch and reach the shore safeThis weekend i went for my first turtle walks only. its because the beaches around the cities usually have too bright lights and when the turtles hatch and dig themselves out of the nest, the little ones get confused with the bright lights and start walking in opposite direction from the shore and end up away from the beach even on roads. most of them would be easily discovered by dogs because of their smell and become food and so decreasing the chances of survival even more. infact on day 2 we found a nest which was discovered by dogs before we reached and we found only 38 eggs and several broken ones. the footmarks left by the dogs proved it all.

The species of turtles that lay eggs near the beach of my city are endangered, Olive Ridley turtles, who get their name from the olive coloured back which these beautiful sea creatures have. the person who co-ordinates these turtle walks (Mr. Arun) has been doing this from 30 years. although these turtles are at the top of the food chain, we are finding so many of them dead washed ashore, almost all caused by some kind off unnatural end. most of them die because of sea trawlers' nets in which they get entangled in, and then get dragged for a long time with their boats, unable to come up and breathe for too long, they ultimately end up drowning. we found 7 dead turtles in two days i went for the turtle walks which was too sad sight to watch. one was even bleeding from its tail when we found it dead and another had its head chopped off! its just too sad to watch.

On day 2 we found two olive ridley turtles nesting and laying eggs and saw the whole process happening in front of us. Arun said some people walk for years and don't get to see a turtle nesting and here i was seeing two on my second day, talk about being lucky. the turtles lay the eggs about 10 to 15 meters from the high tide line in a foot or two deep nest beneath the sand which they dig with their fins. then she starts laying the eggs for about 45 minutes. after she finishes she beautifully covers the nests and dances over it compacting it and then camouflages it completely by throwing sand on it. its just amazing to watch her beautifully cover the whole nest as if nothing happened. after she leaves the place and goes back to the sea we dig up the nest and keep the eggs in a soft bag, make measurements of the nest and distance from the high tide line and then continue walking and searching for more nests. by the time we reach the end of the walk it became 0330hrs and we had reached the hatchery. where we dug up sand and replicate the nests dug by the turtles and slowly place all the eggs from the bags into the nests we made.

more information about turtles and joining for turtle walks in Chennai visit Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network's website.or contact Arun - 2490 1019 or Akila - 9940 300200, email sstcnchennai{AT}gmail{DOT}com.

new year resolutions

Wish you a fantastic new year ahead. heres my list of new year resolutions. ok i dont think these are resolutions that way but more like things i wanna do in this year :p

• learn a new language (probably chinese)
• learn to swim, (been in chennai for 8 years, :( yeah i know)
• learn to play atleast one musical instrument ( probably guitar )
• learn some new sport and play it more often (actually, i rarely play anything for that matter)
• start reading lots of books (i just rarely read anything completely, so i want to devote more time in reading, which i've never done before)
  
• plant trees and learn a thing or two about growing plants at home.

well this isnt exhaustive and if i think of something new it can get added.

Delhi Half Marathon 28th Oct

"a half marathon is 21kms do you know that? you cant jus complete it just like that understand.. it requires training for atleast a month. so better start running" well thats what i had told my brother when he said that he'd registered both of our names in delhi half marathon. after a week of getting up early morning in chennai and running i could barely even do 4kms after which i couldnt even walk. 21 jus seemed impossible. after i came to delhi 15 days before the event we went for running only once in morning in which we did about 10kms of which i ran only about 5 and the rest only walked. and then soon they sent an envelope of the route and other race details. my brother just kept staring at the map and said "oh my god are they gonna make us run whole delhi? on top of that a U-turn after that? what the hell? nehru park, india gate, rashtrapati bhawan, and then u-turn again?" but he said he could still do it. and me? amm i wasnt quite sure about completing it. apparently we have to complte it in less than 3 hours or we dont get any certificate. two days before the race we went and collected a goddie bag and timing chip and bib number.
so how did it start? night before the race we go to a mall nearby to buy jogging pants for me :D and then there is a movie going on in theatre which we want to see too. so we get tickets for the 2315 show! we reach home at 0130 on race day and sleep at 0200. amazing arent we? and the race manual thingy said take enough rest before race day. :-p. alarm rings at 0400 i go and take bath and then we both take the car and drive from our home in gurgaon to delhi nehru stadium where we'd reserved parking.. which turned out to be complete waste of money coz the parking had space for atleast a 100 cars but was occupied by only 10. no one cared or asked for our reserved parking ticket. anyways so we reach the race start place at about 0710 after a shuttle service from nehru stadium drops us to the holding area at the start line. the race starts exactly as scheduled at 0740.
the arrangement was just really good. and it started exactly as scheduled. lots and lots of cameras every where and thousands of people running together. even an air force chopper which i guess must have been hired by some tv channel. the event was coming live on national tv and a private sports channel.
first 4 kms were quite easy.. but after that i slowly began to think if i can complete whole 21 kms. there were water stations every 2 kms which turned out to be extremely useful. people handed tiny water bottles with enough water to last another 2 kms. somehow i jus kept going. every few minutes i used to take out my cell phone and see the time. after one hour it was only 8. that way i should be able to complete it in 3hours. but then considering that soon i may get too tired to continue it looked like i was way behind. one and half hours and then it was 12kms. which means if i continued at the same speed i can still make it. it was becoming really hard now. and i had to stop after every 200m to walk for a minute before. i'd calculated that i would need to finish a km every 10 mins to finish it. which seemed not that hard now. but i was reaching my threshold level already. every km was being completed at almost exactly the same time i.e. 10 mins, and sometimes a little earlier than that. soon only 4 km were remaining and the crowd suddenly increased by hundreds as another small race (great delhi run) had started and its finish was planned about the same time as that of the main event (half marathon). after 19km mark i was searchin for 20km mark but never saw it. the place looked very familiar to the starting line and i knew the end wasnt that far. and soon there it was. board saying 500m to the finish. and then there was no looking back there were over 20 mins left and i knew i'll complete it in 3hrs no matter what now. my legs had started to pain a lot now and if i stop now it may become to excrutiating to continue so kept running slowly but steadily and reached the finish line in 2:46 phewww. i completed it wow. never thought i could do that. took the phone and called bhaiya and he said he was waiting in queue in certificate counter.
and that was the worst thing about the whole event. vodafone's arrangement after the race was just pathetic. people had run 21 kms and after that what happens? they're made to wait for 2 hrs in the sun in the queue to get their refunds which they had paid for acailing the timing for the race and collect their certificates. i could barely even stand and only after half an hour did someone even bring water to drink. we were told that we'll be given refreshments after the race.. we have no idea when and where were they given nor were we told by anyone. there aws lot of confusion and people were just too irritated after the race seeing this situation. anyways the medal given by them was quite beautiful and we were told that we can download the timing certificate online and so after collecting the medal and getting 1000rs refund for the timing chip we took an auto to nehru stadium (coz the shuttle service had stopped after 12, and we collected the certificates only at 1230) . its like for the race there was so much arrangement and so much media etc. and as soon as its over no one cares. no proper arrangement for distributing certificates and refunding deposit amount no service to drop people to the parking lot which was 4 or 5 kms from the starting point..jus nothing. we reached home after an hour long drive and we were too tired to do anything but sleep and woke up at night. leaving aside the poor treatment after the race. it really was an amazing seeing people have so much spirit, joy and determination and that too people in so large numbers participating for event like this. pictures i'll upload very soon.