This weekend, we climbed Mullainagiri and Bababudanagiri. Even though this is my third visit, it never fails to delight me on its beauty. Mullainagiri and Tadiyandamol are my favorite trekking spots in terms of scenery.

In the 3-4 days before the trek, we didn’t spend enough time on the preparation and hence we were worried. So I wrote a “Trekking Howto a.k.a. “The Checklist” which we can read before a trek so that we won’t have to rethink every time about whether we have taken care of all aspects.

It was a perfect trek in terms of weather and company. We had the most fun in looking back after every few hours and seeing how far we have come, since we could actually see the Mullainagiri temple while trekking towards Bababudanagiri.

How to do the Mullainagiri trek : Arrive at Chikmagalur. Hire a jeep to take you to the starting point of the trek, cost Rs.250. The starting point is a small iron gate that will lead you directly into the hill. Follow the path. After 1-2 hours, you’ll reach the topmost point – the temple. You can request the purohit here to stay for the night and they’ll even prepare dinner if you ask them. Wrap yourself up in your sleeping bag for the night because it is going to get really cold.

The next day morning, start early or late depending on whether you want to face the cold weather, but leave at least by 8 or 9. Make sure you donate a good amount to the purohit for being a good host. Follow the path downhill towards the right from the temple. After a few hours, you’ll reach the road. Cross the road towards the right and start trekking downwards. This is the start of a good long up-and-down route towards Bababudanagiri. Once you reach the destination, have some tea and pakodas at the stalls. Then either hire a jeep (Rs.10-20 per head) or walk down to the Bababudanagiri temple. Make sure you catch the 3.30pm bus which will take you back to Chikmagalur.

The photos are of low quality because they are taken using my mobile phone. Regardless, the rest of the photos are in my Flickr set.

Update: Photos by Vikram and photos by Varun.

This weekend, one of my long-pending wishes came true: I finally trekked Kodachadri.

Kodachadri is a mountain in the Western Ghats, in Karnataka. It is a famous trekking spot.

On Saturday morning, we reached Nittur, grabbed some breakfast and then proceeded towards Kumble, the starting point of the trek. Right there, I could see clouds playing hide-and-seek among the mountains and I knew it was going to be a good trek.

What I didn’t know was how awesome the 14 km of terrain was going to be. At one moment we would be trudging in the mountain avoiding branches and forcing through thick vegetation, the next moment we would be crossing a stream of water…

… Some time later we would be climbing up very slippery stones right next to flowing water, then suddenly in an open area and then walking along the edge of a cliff while it is raining and then walking in the clouds, literally. This was easily one of the best trekking spots I’ve ever been to, and I was so happy that I finally got to be there. We even got to drench ourselves in a freezing cold waterfall.

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I thought I would get a damn good sleep in the night because I was so tired. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Not with the snorers around. On top of that, it was so cold and I didn’t have a jacket. I kept tossing and turning all night.

At 4.30 am of Day 2 (June 01 Sunday), I was jolted by a shrill cock-a-doodle-doo sound. Soon enough, our leader Narayan woke us all up. I was surprised to see everybody get up immediately. At around 5.30 am, we all went out in search of sighting some animals. Unfortunately, we were too loud to get to see any animals. Even our footsteps, especially when crushing leaves, were loud enough to alert the sensitive-eared animals. Our guide who was in front saw some bisons but they ran away in lightning speed. I didn’t know they could do that.

We were soon enough on top of another hill and got to see another beautiful view. Heh, I’m such a landscape-voyeur.

And it was funny to see the things we do for poses in photographs.

What was amazing though was we could see islands in the Arabian Sea.

And then Narayana found viper snakes! These are poisonous snakes and one bite could have been fatal for any of us.

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For a while now, I was annoyed by the fact that it has been more than a year and a half since my last trek. So when I saw a call for people who want to join a trek in Shimoga in the Orkut Bangalore Trekkers group, I jumped at the chance.

A few days later on May 30 night (i.e. last weekend as of this writing), I was on a bus to Sagar in Shimoga district with 13 other strangers I had never met before. Thankfully, all it took was a few smiles and laughs and we got along very well. There were people from varying age groups – 18 to 55 although majority were the young IT crowd.

Then the inevitable happened. Bangalore traffic jam. It took 2-2.5 hours just to get out of the city! There are so many bottlenecks especially near the Jalahalli cross. No wonder the bus drivers are so stressed out. God save us all, I wonder how much worse it can get. Because of all this hungama, we reached Sagar more than a couple of hours late which threw our trekking plans haywire. We had to ditch the idea of trekking till the Belli Gundi waterfall and do a shorter exploration of the area.

To start the day (May 31 Saturday), we got into an open jeep to transport us to Kattinakaru. We had a fun ride through the scenic locale. We even saw the Linganmakki dam from far.

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It all started on Monday last week when Lakshman tweeted if anybody was game for a weekend trip. Ashwin tweeted back saying yes.

Later they asked me over email. My reply was “Why Ooty!?”. They replied saying “It doesn’t matter. We’re going for the drive.” Two days later, we three were driving to Ooty on bikes at night.

My descriptions below are in twitter style as an ode to how the trip happened. ( But of course, my usual writing style will resume after this post )

We started off at 8 at night. First stop was some lip-smacking food at Kamat Lokaruchi:

9.10 pm : We’re on the way! 3 twitterers on bikes.

9.25 pm : Getting out of Bangalore is the toughest thing.

9.30 pm : @scorpion032 says 2020 will also be the year of the linux desktop.

10.32 pm : @cruisemaniac and @scorpion032 are tweeting away…

1.40 am : Taking a break.

2.33 am : Admiring the mysore palace…

3.16 am : Sleep getting to me… But we’re taking breaks and having fun. In Nanjangud.

3.20 am : Another break.

3.34 am : Listening to My Sacrifice at 330 am at 70 kmph on bike with the wind in your hair is something to be experienced.

4.10 am : We find a freakin’ coffee day in the middle of nowhere. Waiting for capuccino.

6.15 am : Mudumulai forest.

6.20 am : Animals! Elephant, deer, peacock, mongoose, eagle, woodpecker, … All right there next to us… Thank heavens the elephant didn’t think we were pesky…

6.45 am : Exiting Mudumulai forest.

My favorite photo from this trip (notice the clouds and the bike):

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On Day 14 of my Singapore trip (Jan 04, 2008), it was time to head back home. It was a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I felt so liberated experiencing a vacation which seemed overdue. On the other hand, I was rearing to get back to my realities (well, not really, but I didn’t want to delude myself any further).

This trip was interesting from many perspectives. For one, I had simply no agenda. I landed in a new country with 13 days and no plan whatsoever. I started off by reading some magazine cutouts on the plane. Later, I figured out that the info was all online.

I ended up going up in a hot air balloon to take in the awesome sight of a lit-up Singapore at night, seeing more than a thousand toys at a toys museum, cycling in an island, sleeping in a library, deep in philosophical conversations by the beach, trekking alone for 20 km in a water reservoir area, watching a 12-year old kid strum ‘Hotel California’, have my roots shaken, admire ancient societies, saw an Indian National Army monument, visited the world’s largest fountain, had mouth-watering Indian food at Bombay Express Cafe, grooved to Felix Da Housecat’s mixing skills at the Zouk Club, prayed at the Krishna Temple on the first day of the new year, saw animals like mousedeer, bat-eared fox, sugar glider and east african bongos at the Night Safari, saw remote-controlled kites being flown, and so on.

There were two big things for me in this trip.

One was spending time with my friends Abishek Nair and Ashish Dantu. Thanks a ton guys for being such great hosts, for the conversations, for making me watch Russell Peters at 2 am, for all the fun we had, and for teaching me so many things without ever having to say anything.

The second thing was coming away inspired. Inspired by the pulse of the city, inspired by their belief that “it’s possible.” ‘It’ just needs a vision, a decision and a team to execute. On the other hand, I’m terrified that people are progressing so fast and working towards their dreams and I’m getting left behind.

I had a lot of time to think, inside out. Putting life into perspective. As Einstein once said “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” So, it’s good to step back once in a while and think about the big picture of your life. The challenge is to avoid getting lost again in the daily grind, which is so hard.

In fact, it’s interesting how many people actually go through these step-back-and-breathe phases, it’s just that it is completely hush-hush, and understandably so, it’s a very personal thing.

On the other hand, there’s so much happening out there from things like man-made islands to the King Abdullah Economic City, an entire city being built on the sea!

This trip made me see how the world is changing and how I should change, rather than me just being a ‘frog in the well’ and not knowing what’s really going on ‘out there’.

Travelling is a necessity for me, not a luxury. It’s my way of overcoming implosion. Our ancestors understood this. As an old Kannada saying goes: “desha noDu, kosha vodu” (roughly translates to “Travel the world, Read books”).

I have this notion that you don’t get to really know a city until you’ve run in it.

So, I ran a couple of times in my Singapore trip, and I liked the route so much that on Day 13 (Thu, Jan 03, 2008), I started taking photos.

I start right from getting out of Abishek and Ashish’s apartment and getting down the stairs.

This is a proper urban area, not outside the city. Don’t be fooled by the greenery.

Was listening to “Heartbeat – Instrumental” from ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’.

Was listening to “Far Away” by Nickelback.

I love the wide open spaces they have kept for public usage right in the middle of a square area with huge apartments on all sides.

Was listening to “Ninnindale” from Milana (Kannada movie).

It was good to see so many runners around. The best part is that people accept it as normal behavior. And cyclists are given their due respect.

The most startling thing was when I was waiting to cross the road, the vehicles will stop (irrespective of traffic) and ask you to go ahead first. It was actually irritating at first to experience this, but soon got used to it.

Was listening to “Endings” by Dusty Hughes.

Was listening to “One Thing” by Finger Eleven.

What more can a running enthusiast like me ask for?

P.S. If you’re curious on why people run, watch the trailer of the Marathon Movie.

Around the recent gastroenteritis scare in Bangalore, NDTV was running a poll:

Then, there was this whole one hour dedicated to hearing viewpoints from Veerappa Moily, Swathi Ramanathan and the general public regarding Bangalore’s infrastructure.

Okay, okay, I know most of you by now are saying “Oh, come on, don’t you have anything else to talk about? You’re so boring”. Maybe I am, but when I shift most of my “outside” chores to the middle of the day just to avoid traffic, and hate going out on Sundays because of long queues for everything, it affects me and I’d like to know if the situation can improve or not.

I liked how Swathi Ramanathan explained that the business people have come together to pitch in their part. The way they’ve analyzed the 15 critical junctions leading to the Bangalore International Airport which should have good roads otherwise traffic will bottle up here and will throw us into further crisis, err okay, I’ll stop here.

It reminded me of the Singapore 1:1 Island Exhibition I visited on Day 12 (Jan 02, 2008) of my Singapore trip.

(To be honest, I was a little hesitant to write about this topic, even though this is my space, my blog. The last time I wrote something, people wrote in to say that I’m not Indian enough because I talked negative about our current situation and asked me to go ‘home’ to Singapore or USA!)

You can see many more photos in my Day 12 photo album.

I absolutely loved their Skyline newsletters where they discuss the upcoming developments. Do check out their last Nov/Dec 2007 edition. I can almost guarantee you that you’ll come away inspired, especially the Design Wonders section.

It’s not so much about Singapore that amazed me, it’s the fact that they have such a vision about the place they want to live in, and the effort that goes into planning of such things, the importance given to design and architecture, and finally ensuring proper execution.

And it is a seemingly open process. Visiting the Urban Redevelopment Authority website shows the first sidebar on the left which says “I need info on Master Plan / Land Use Planning / etc.”

Maybe that’s what we need for cities like Bangalore?

It would help if things were more transparent, instead of the government hiding facts like a part of Lalbagh that would be razed for the metro. Or something like what Stefan Magdalinski did with TheyWorkForYou?

CitizenMatters.in seems to be a step in the right direction, but at the end of the day, it’s just competing with the hyperbolic news channels. I think a more useful idea would be a website with a categorical depth of works happening in the different parts of the cities, the government offices involved, what is being done, and so on. But the website is still useful, for example, via an article on ward works came to know about this:

Coalition Against Corruption Guru Ravindranath Tel: 65734444

If you have noticed any governmental apathy in your area, CAC and Guru Ravindranath will guide you in fixing things.

Question is: Would I call Mr. Guru if I do come across something? I have this eternal fear regarding these issues about getting into something that I’ll regret.

My favorite memories of my Singapore trip is Day 9 (Dec 30 Sun). We went to Pulau Ubin island. What is the only activity on this island? Cycling.

It was fun to see people of all ages, from families to large groups of teenagers to avid cyclists all here for the same reason. It reminded me of Cubbon Park on a Sunday evening.

The first thing you see on entering the island is shops on either side to rent out cycles. We went in, took cycles and started pedaling, all in a matter of a few minutes.

Those giant “Thailand coconuts” were simply fulfilling.

Next, we randomly cycled and ended up at Chek Jawa. We read about the sea life conservation efforts that go on here. The highlight was the bungalow, along with the view of the sea.

The above few dark sunset photos are courtesy of Abishek Nair (just to make it clear that the good photos here are not taken by me).

We had become obsessed with the view here and just enjoying the sunset. Finally, we had to push ourselves to explore some more and return back the bikes. We even did some bird-watching (seriously).

I was sad to take a bumboat to get back to the mainland, but I did get to see the planes dive to land in the airport which is right next to the beach.

I’ve been provoked and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Incident 1. It all started on Day 2 of my Singapore trip (Dec 23 Sun) when a hotel owner was too friendly. Maybe he didn’t have much work, but anyway, he got pretty chatty with us and was asking about how we like Singapore. All we wanted to do was eat noodles.

He started talking about his visit to India, and like most Singaporeans, he had been on a Buddhist pilgrimage to India. I can still remember the angst in his voice.

He said that the central government in India is good but the state governments are bad. Strike 1. I had to agree.

He said that it’s not a safe place for businessmen to invest money. He said one of his close friends made huge investment, but when the government changed, the policies changed and the friend made a huge loss. Strike 2. I don’t know much about such things, but I can imagine that it is possible.

He said that India hasn’t advanced enough, there’s still too much poverty, there’s still so much chaos. He said ‘take a look at China’. For example, if the parents invest some amount with the government, they’ll give back 10 times the amount in 10 years, or something like that, and this is guaranteed by the government to safeguard the child’s future. I don’t remember the numbers he used but I was impressed with what he said. Strike 3.

I was beaten and didn’t know how to fight back.

I’m not a patriotic guy. I don’t go around burning boards written in non-state languages, nor do I go around speaking only in Hindi and refusing to speak in English. But I believe in the concept of India as a nation and I instinctively feel that I should defend my country when someone makes says negative about my country.

But I was stumped. I was completely caught off-guard. I didn’t know what to say. I just nodded. I desperately looked for things to tell him. But I got nothing. Throughout the trip, I kept thinking of things to go back and tell that hotel guy that India is a great country, but what do we really have?

Specifically, the question is:

Post-independence, does India, as a nation, have achievements to be proud of?

I’m not talking about our ancient history or ‘culture’. I’m not talking about what some Indian did when he went to a foreign country, or even someone who went out of his way to achieve something within India (like the paeans being written about Tata Motors and their Nano car).

I’m talking specifically about the 1. post-independence era and the 2. ‘as a nation’ part.

A week after that incident, I was still trying to forget about it. But the same thing happened again on Day 9 (Dec 30 Sun) with the store owner of a bookstore that Abishek and myself randomly walked into. We had a long conversation about Buddhism and our beliefs of God and how we pray. It’s surreal that we randomly started talking our intimate spiritual beliefs with a complete stranger. But such is life. And then she mentioned the same exact things that the hotel owner did. She specifically mentioned that she was appalled at the poverty when she went to Bodh Gaya.

Yes, we are talking about poverty, not just about the beggars on the busy roads of Bangalore, but he fighting-for-food kind, the kind that we saw in ‘Swades’ movie.

Incident 2. After visiting the Kaala Chakra exhibition, I realized how influential India has really been, especially to most of South East Asia, from language to politics to trade, Indian-related stuff is everywhere in South East Asia. I used to wonder about why Tamil is such a common language here in Singapore, and only after I visited this exhibition, I realized that this goes back to the B.C. ages!

Notice the irony that I got to know more about Indian history and influence when I’m outside India.

Probably because there is such importance given to history and culture in Singapore. But people in India have no time for such things, we are still fighting and struggling for our basic needs.

This immediately reminded me of “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”:

We are still struggling in Levels 1-3, that’s why we are just touching Level 4, and we’re a long way from reaching Level 5 of Self Actualization. At least, my point of view.

Incident 3. I know there will be lots of people that say that I’m wrong, and that everything’s fine in India. (It reminds me of Rahul Bose in the “Everybody Says I’m Fine” movie.)

The problem is that everything’s fine as long as nothing bad happens to you or you witness it, only then you realize how bad the situation is. God forbid, you end up in an accident, only then you realize the problems with the police, the hospital, the insurance, and so on. The situation is the same everywhere, irrespective of the aspect of life.

I don’t know how better or worse we are compared to other countries, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be in a better situation. There is simply no reason to! We have the money, the people, the resources…

Incident 4. I came to know recently that at a premier medical institution in Bangalore, teachers are openly telling students that if they don’t “help” the teachers (i.e. pay them money), they will make sure that 30% of the students will fail! I am not kidding you, this is for real. Where’s the sanctity of education? Where’s the concern for the students’ future? Where’s the concern for encouraging future doctors (especially because the number of doctors is already dwindling)? Where’s the concern about setting precedents for future of medical profession? Even if they don’t think long term, how will students afford this? I know many medical student friends who have struggled to pay the hefty fees, what about these students who simply cannot afford to pay bribes to teachers?

Incident 5. Similarly, lecturers in PUC colleges have stopped teaching in college and they tell students that they are anyway going to tuitions. If not, they should join their own tuitions! What happens to all those students who can’t afford it?

Incident 6. Abishek’s close friend and special effects friend Osmand is a third-generation Indian. When he was about to fly from India to China to visit his relatives, he was abused that he was a Chinese person, and this for a person who’s born and brought up in India his entire life! The difference in attitudes was telling when the Indian immigration officer made him wait for 3 hours to prove that he’s an Indian compared to when he explained, that he’s a third-generation Indian originally hailing from China, to the Chinese immigration officer, he said “Welcome home.” Now, Osmand is as Indian as it gets, irrespective of how it looks. Tell me, who’s the racist here? Osmand is so fed up of this attitude that he wants to go back to China.

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