Here’s a photo essay of the trip:

When we were reaching our camp area, the entrance itself was impressive, and I was excited by such clear blue water.

We had Breakfast and “kashaya.”

A short swimming session as an icebreaker, getting used to lifejacket and basic lessons for those who don’t know to swim.

We spent most of the afternoon learning how to paddle a coracle (a fibre one for safety). It was difficult at first but this quickly became my favorite.

Scrumptious lunch by Dharma.

Resting after all that exercise.

We went to another island to get a good view of the sunset.

Explored the island a bit. It felt like we were one of the first humans to trample on some of the grass there. There were no humans on any of these islands.

Driving away bisons, apparently.

Coracling back to the camp.

Campfire at night

Sleeping in dome tents on an island next to the water with a zillion stars in the sky.

On the Second Day, we learned how to paddle the Kayak and Raft.

The kayak is easy to get started with, but once a little wind blows, it throws you off completely. It takes a while to learn how to counter this.

The raft was fun too, especially to fall off into the water whenever you felt like it.

We trekked to the top of the hill and then back to Sagar to catch the bus back to Bangalore.

I had a lot of fun thanks to the gang of people I met there:

That’s Venkat, Arun, Vinayak, Mihir, Abhishek, and Saurabh (from left to right). And, of course, I’m the one clicking the photo.

Special appreciation for Sampath and the whole organization for organizing this as well as doing it for the right reasons:

We anticipate your continued active support and blessings to improve the activities further. Our aim is to expand the direct rural employment further and there by contributing to rural household economy. Our One more greatest achievement is that, we were able to convert small time timber smugglers in to force which is fighting against the tree cutters in the Sharavathi Backwaters by providing the alternate livelihood for them. We promise to work for the over all rural development and nature conservation. Also to serve the true nature lovers with renewed vigor.

To know when is the next activity weekend, join the sharavathy-valley-trekking list. Highly recommended.

Note: All the photos shown above are from:

• Me
• Vinayak Hegde
• Arun
• Abhishek Sahai

The exhibition was so comprehensive that I was amazed. I raised my eyebrows on seeing a ‘Sports’ section and went on to read stuff like this:

Untranslatable, the word ‘agon’ denotes a gathering, and more specifically games and competitions, but also struggle, combat and battle, a trial or a debate, and a critical moment even. Personified by a winged man running, the notion underlies the whole of Greek civilization which has been described as ‘agonistic’ that is founded on the spirit of competition.

Then, I remembered that Olympics Games were started in Olympia, Greece. Duh. But the important thing to note is that they started it in 7th century BC! They gave sports so much importance more than 2500 years ago, and compare it to the situation today in India, except for cricket (My theory is that cricket was made popular because it is the perfect advertiser-friendly game ever, where else will you get a 15-20 second ad break after every few minutes i.e. an over!)

Next, I learned that theater was about politics and way to live, and the audience was paid to attend including their wages for several days since they would have to take off work to attend these plays! Now, that is a truly modern society!

There was so much more that I just couldn’t digest it all in such a short time: poetry, sports, religion, philosophy – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, schooling children with 3 teachers on specific areas of life, religion linked to running of the state and city – including patron deities protecting the city such as Athena for Athens, heroes such as Heracles (Roman ‘Hercules’), Achilles, Ulysses, Paris, etc., Zeus was King of Gods, there were 12 Olympian Gods including third-generation gods and goddesses, Alexander the Great was the greatest conqueror of all time, Romans stole most of the Greek artifacts since they were obsessed with Greek history and so they made copies of Greek statues and much of what we know about Greece is actually from these Roman copies.

A very interesting section of the exhibition was the “Dress like a Greek” section. There were a couple of robes kept, just like the ones you see the Senators wear in ‘The Gladiator’. There were directions in a poster on the wall. People took interest in trying it out and taking snaps. I was amazed at how they make everything visual and interactive in Singapore. This idea was a masterstroke in my honest opinion, because it makes something like history that can be so dry to be accessible and understandable for a layman. There were more sections such as a huge wall for kids to write their own sequels to the story of Troy (basically where Odyssey by Homer took off), and there were many hilarious writings by the kids.

Then, on Day 7 (Dec 28 Fri), Chinmay and me visited the KaalaChakra - Wheel of Time : Early Indian Influence in Southeast Asia Exhibition.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get much time because I went there just before the closing time. From what I saw, I was amazed to learn how much influence early India had wielded over most of Asia! From religion to language to politics to trade to war to art to architecture to tamil inscriptions to ancient Libraries to even the Ramayana and Mahabharata (Buddhist Thailand have their own version)!

I used to be surprised about Tamil being one of the three official languages of Singapore, especially with the announcements in the subway trains. In this exhibition, I learned that there is a lot of history to it and it’s not just because of recent migration of Indians to all over the world. Sometimes, a little knowledge of history and culture can have such practical utility.

On Day 11 (Jan 01 Tue), Abishek, Ashish and me visited the On The Nalanda Trail: Buddhism in India, China and Southeast Asia exhibition.

I have to admit that I’m surprised that I visited so many museums and history exhibitions – I used to find history one of the most boring subjects in school! I guess the presentation has been so good in the museums that they make it interesting. It helps that they choose interesting topics.

This exhibition was about the influence of Nalanda University in the spread of Buddhism.

I was surprised to learn about the Nalanda University – there were more than 10,000 students from China, Tibet, Myanmar, Japan, Korea, Sumatra, Java and Sri Lanka. All this in the 5th to 12th centuries! I wonder how they came to even know about such a university when there was no newspapers, television or internet! And they would have had to walk for months or years across forests and mountains to reach this university. And how did they even know the route? In spite of all this, they came to attend this university. Mind-blowing.

The subjects of study varied from Buddhism to Sanskrit grammar, logic, medicine and philosophy. There was an oral exam for admission.

Some of the kings who were patrons included Ashoka, Kanishka, Ming Di (China), Devanampiya (Sri Lanka). There was a map that showed the various edicts erected by Ashoka. There were dots in the India section. I was shocked that one of them was listed as ‘Jayanagar’. They were referring to the Ashok Pillar! It’s a traffic circle today! I never knew there was such a history behind it. I was embarrassed because it’s right down the main street from my home, and I never knew this. And people from all over the world visiting Singapore looking at this map might be thinking that it is some important monument, an important piece of history. Eeeks.

Another interesting aspect was seeing statues from 2-10 century on loan from Indian Museum Kolkata, 8th century paintings from Patna Museum, 11th century bronze statues from National Museum Delhi, and so on. It’s ironic that I came from India to Singapore to view artifacts from Indian museums.

It’s sad that Nalanda was destroyed by Muslim invasion and abandoned as Buddhism in India lost following gradually.

I also never knew that Buddhism and Hinduism were so interlinked. For example, there was a statue of Siddhartha’s birth from his mother Mayadevi with the Shiva and Brahma gods flanking on either side.

Scholars such as Xuanzang and Yijing from China studied and went back, Tao Cheng stayed back – they all came to study monastic practices at Nalanda. The major efforts they undertook were translation of scriptures including Mahayana scriptures and Sanskrit scriptures.

It’s amazing how much advanced a university we had in the 5th-12th century. Imagine the possibilities if it still existed today!

It’s sad that the only reason Nalanda is in the news these days is because 15 male students tried to barge into the girls hostel in a drunken state on 2008 New Year’s Eve at the Nalanda Medical University hostel.

It seems like that we seem to be growing as a society backwards. We’re nowhere near the level of advancement that these ‘ancient’ societies had attained – whether it was politics, sports, society structure or culture and philosophy.

“I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.” - Steve jobs in Newsweek, Oct. 29, 2001

Things have been so hectic that I even missed foss.in this year (I have attended every year since 2003) but good to know that it went so well.

The good thing was that the vacation was right around the corner which kept me going. Even an hour before leaving from home for the flight, I was struggling to complete chores.

I am now in Singapore, staying with my friends, and exploring the place since the last 5 days.

Singapore is a really amazing city to live in. Everything is streamlined. Even the fish in the Underwater World at Sentosa Island are RFID-tagged!

IIRC, I once saw a board that said there’s a 1000 SGD (singapore dollars) fine if you are found sitting on the stairs of the underground metro. I need to get one of those T-shirts that says ‘Singapore is a fine city’. Heh.

P.S. If you’re in Singapore too and want to meet up, give me a holler.

Update: Looks like Ben Rockwood is going through a strikingly similar phase.

To reach Brahmagiri, take the bus to kuTTa (Madikeri district) but get down in Srimangala. Meet the forest officer (they come in at around 10 am) and it is better if you have called them up in advance and notified them. Enquire shops for guest house to freshen up and also for a jeep to take you to Iruppu Falls.

At Iruppu Falls, we met the forest guard who would accompany us during the trek.

The guest house that we stayed at was in the middle of a field where pepper and coffee was abundant. We plucked a pepper corn and ate it – it was deliciously spicy.

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We then started the trek from Iruppu Falls and came across many interesting flora and fauna.

The good …

… and the ugly.

Yes, that’s right, leeches! Creepy, crawling things, they were such a nuisance. I had a routine of stopping every 45 seconds to remove how many were crawling up my shoes and socks. Towards the end of the damp covered forest area, I think I had a count of 40-50 leeches that I had pulled out and thrown. Many of us had donated quite a good amount of blood. Once we were back in the open fields, it was just smooth walking.

It turned out to be one of the easiest treks we have done, but the scenery was breathtaking. This was the first time I saw so much endless greenery that I actually got to walk in, and that too we crossed from hill to hill so quickly.

We reached the guest house just in time to grab some food, and then run out to watch the sunset. It was very peaceful and serene. One of those rare moments where the whole group tends to be silent because they’re just in awe.

We came back to the guest house, took out some chairs, sat in the open in a circle, and had a long fire-side chat without the fire.

We slept in quite early and then I realized why. It got very very cold in the night, and I didn’t get much sleep in the night because of that. Next day morning, I got quite fed up, and just went out for an early morning walk, and I’m glad I went.

After I came back from my walk, we had breakfast which was mostly snacks and bread and then we started our trek downhill but on the other side, which happens to mean getting down in Kerala!

We could clearly see the two lines that distinguish Karnataka and Kerala states. I was joking that I could kill someone here and wouldn’t get caught because either state police would claim it’s not their jurisdiction.

We were slowly getting into our descent when suddenly our forest guard shouted at us to get down and hide. Why? Wild Elephants! Although they were in the adjacent hill, he said it was still dangerous because the younger of the elephants get curious easily and can charge towards us humans. He asked the people in bright colors (even white) to cover themselves with jackets so as to not attract attention.

It was amazing to see how fast these elephants moves, their sizes are quite misleading. The guard said that they can jump up to 2 metres at a time. Wow. I must mention that the forest guard was a gentleman – he always guided us, but never said a word or interfered in what we did or discussed, and made sure we are safe at all times.

We waited for quite a while, but the elephants were confused on which way to go since we were in one of the routes they frequent, so they went back and hid in the forest. Not willing to take a risk, our guard took us through a different route but we had to go through the same hill. As we were walking, it was both exciting and worrisome to know that wild elephants are just there on the other side of the hill.

After that excitement, we took some rest at a spot. Because of the elephants, we hadn’t actually climbed the Brahmagiri peak, so some of us who still had energy ran back to climb the peak and take in the sights. Then, it was the start of a long walk downhill.

When we got down, we discovered we were in Thirunelly, Kerala. We went to a lodge and relaxed for an hour. Then, we changed some 5 buses to get back to Karnataka and finally come back to Bangalore.

All in all, another good weekend

P.S. Some of the above photos were taken in my mobile phone camera and hence have low resolution and clarity.

It was nice to see that the habit of reading real books hasn’t been lost and hasn’t been overtaken by the ubiquitous internet. And it was good to see a wide range of books (from a never-ending list of book vendors) other than the usual copies of Paulo Coelho and Mein Kampf. The disappointing thing was that most of the vendors were generic – everyone catered to everyone’s needs, and in turn, there were no books for specialized audiences – whatever happened to art books, or medical books, or travel books?

Relatedly, I just finished reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, it was fun to read. Any recommendations on novels in the same genre?

Bangalore is such a happening place that there are more things coming up:

• foss.in/2006 is just around the corner on Nov 24-26! Register now.

• Bengaluru Habba is happening on December 3-10 – It’s a pity that the official site is still under construction (and the dates on this logo seems to be “outdated”). The official website is BengalooruHabba.com (Thanks to Karthik for pointing it out).

• More events listed at eventsbangalore.net:

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Incidentally, my new year celebration will be trekking 10 km in the snow, from Khajjar to Mangla.

From riding on the roof of the jeep, to walking 10 km, to diving in freezin’ cold water, to feasting our eyes to lush green hills, to loads of laughter, we did it all.

This time it was Madhugiri Hill.

Eric has a mind-blowing Panorama section that I check out from time to time.

Paris is truly the City of Lights.