My Thoughts! - by Prakash G.R.

When we were in Pondi some time back, I was telling guys, ‘how about a big trip with more people during this yearend?’ People, including me, thought that its hard to gather more people. But somehow we made it to wayanad as a 2 day trip. 23 people from people from Chennai, Salem, Palakkad, Bangalore & Hydrabad gathered at one place after two and a half years. Its simply funtastic.

Right from the Central Railway Station, the fun started. Everybody was teasing everyone else. We expected Srihari will be late as usual and miss the train. Luckily he came in to the train in the right moment - unfortunately to the wrong compartment
When we reached Calicut, we were looking for the vehicles booked. Actually we were 16 and I booked a 18 seater. Unfortunately they couldn’t get it and so they arranged for a 11 seater and a qualis for the same rate of 18 seater. We have to split up in two vehicles for from Calicut till Wayanad. No other go, so I went for it. When the driver picked up us in the station and led us to the parking lot. He said “this is the vehicle you can get it”. “What!” I said. When they said 11 seater I expected a tempo traveller. What was there was a brand new Chevy Tavera with factory fitted Ac. “Wow. Thats cool!”.

It took 2 hrs to reach the resort. From Pookad Lake, we have to take a different road to reach the Vythiri resort. Ok. It was not a road - just a path. The 4 kms was bad. Vythiri resort was cool. It was in the midst of natural surrondings, a small spring was running inside the resort spitting it into two halves. The only way to go to the other half was thru a hanging bridge. They have cleverly arranged the resort. In one half they had the reception, the rooms and the play ground. The other half had the restaurant, coffee shop, indoor games, swimming pool etc. So you have to go in the bridge quite a few times. I can see some kids staying there were exicted when they cross the bridge. Why kids? Even few of us were! They were so exicted & was very particular in taking photos in the bridge so that they can show it to their teammates!

One thing without which the blog wouldn’t get complete is Sakthi and camp fire. He talked for around 2 hrs and everybody else was listening. He was teasing everyone in a round robin fashion. No one could talk anything against/with him. That was fantastic show and no one can even imagine doing like that. The touching punch dialog to him was ‘nee ponnu parkum pothu ethum pesathada, apuram unakku kalyaname aagathu’.

The next day we went to the Pookad Lake and spent around 3 hrs up there. First we went for a walking and then we went for boating too. While walking I went to the place where I’ve scribbled my name on the moss. Last time when I went there with my team, it was rainy season and it was so greeny. Now all that got dried up and it was brown in color. I can see my name still. The surprising thing was there were lot of names written on that. Ha! I have lot followers
On the whole the entire trip was fun. The place was good. The food was neat. We all had a great time together - that the most important point. We Chennai guys ended up travelling around 15 hrs for the destination and the Bangi guys spent just 6 hrs and hence spent less. Additionally on the way back they visited Mysore too. Next time I should select a place which is near the Chennai

written by Prakash G.R.

I’ve been longing for a long drive in bike. Somehow we made it to Pondi, but it doesn’t look at a long drive at all. Now I drove to Coimbatore. At last
When I said this, the response from everyone was:’Chennai to Coimbatore? In a two wheeler? Alone? Are you crazy?’. After much scoldings/warnings/advices from everyone, I decided to go on. I started on Thrusday early morning at 6.30 from Technohut. Filled up petrol, checked air, brakes, headlights and wrrrrooooom. I decided not to cross 80 km/hr speed limit and make a compulsary stop after every 75 kms.

The road from Chennai till Dhindivanam was really good. The entire strech of 120 kms was a four lane road and separated neatly by a divider. The road was the far better than ECR. After Dhindivanam till Ulunthupettai the road was not so great. It will be good and if you think you can stay in 80km/hr speed suddenly there will be a pit. Its a good test for maneuverability of the vehicle. I was bored with it. One good idea was to catch a speeding car and tail it from a safer distance. From its sudden brakes and turns, you can predict the road and drive accordingly. That happened for around 40-50 kms. Then till home the road was fine, except for a 15 kms strech before Palani. That was horrible. You can see pits everywhere and can’t go beyond 45 kms/hr.

When I reached Trichy I took the by-pass to go to Dindugal. I was thinking whether to have lunch here/Dindugal. But then alas, I got a flat tyre. So I had a hard stop. Luckily there was a shop 10 mts away and left the bike there and went to a near by hotel for lunch. By the time I finished lunch, the bike was ready. Then the ride was smooth. Reached home by 6 PM. My trip meter showed 550 kms when I reached home.

My mom was standing before my neighbours home. When I stopped my bike near her, she thought it was someone else. She was surprised & happy to see me. She thought I came to Cbe in train and borrowed someone’s bike from there. I told ‘no its mine’ and have to show the Chennai registration for proof. She got angry. She forgot that it not inside our home, its not even inside neighbour’s home & we are standing in the road and everybody is watching us. She raised her hand to slap me. But then I’ve not yet removed my helmet yet and so she didn’t know what to do. For a moment she starred at me and went into the house without any more words. It took a long time to convince her. I know wearing a helmet protects, but not to that extend !!!!

The return journey was also good. I started on Sunday morning by 6.30 AM. I went to Coimbatore and met my friend there in Karumathampatti. Had break fast and started there. This time the journey was via Trichy. Till Salem its NH 47 and it was again another perfectly maintained road. But from Salem to Aathur the 40 kms strech was very pathetic. I couldn’t even touch 50 kms/hr. After that it was ok. When I reached home it was 6 PM again.

Unlike everyone thought its not a very wild idea. I just drove 1200 kms and that too the entire strech was national highways. If I had a CD 100 or a Splendor, I would not have thought of driving this far. Neither I preferred the trip two weeks earlier, as I would be soaked in the rain nor in the month of May where I would have half cooked in the hot-sun. The weather was simply perfect. And more important thing is I didn’t drive during night. Every 20 kms I see a Police Patrol Vehicle standing and every 30 kms an Ambulance. A ride in highway is safer now. All you need is a solid bike and good mental/physical preparation.

Overall I thought the after-effects might be little trouble-some. I expected a heavy back-pain and said my PM that with most probability Monday, I might be on leave. But surprisingly not so. I could go to work on Monday. I won’t say that I’m perfectly alright. There was a slight pain and felt tired on the whole day, but not that bad as I expected. Its worth for the experience.

Yesterday, one of my teammates was complaining to my PM, ‘Ajit, look at this idiot. He has gone home in bike’. The reaction was bit unexpected: ‘Really? hey thats good man. Some years ago, even I drove a scooter from Hydrabad to Pune. That was a good experience’. Hydrabad to Pune? That far? In a two wheeler? mmmm. Seems like a crazy idea. But then I’ve always have this sticked in my cube. Here’s to the crazy ones.

written by Prakash G.R.

Its been talked for a very long time that we all go a long drive in bikes. First it was proposed that we’ll go to Bangalore and we all go somewhere (probably to Nandhi Hills and visit the historical place where Ravi broke his back) But then Bangi guys also wanted to join the drive and so it was rejected. Then we all decided to travel either to Gowri or Prabhakar marriage, from Kuvampatti and Bangi and then from there we all go to a picnic spot. Somehow, it didn’t work out. When Guru told that Bangi guys had a plan of coming here this weekend, immediately the idea of driving to Pondy came out. Everybody seems to be interested in it. So all set. After the big chain of mails (GMail’s converstaion is really too good), the most probable place was a beach resort in Chunnambar. But the rates were a little high - we thought. We decided that we go there; see the resort; if its worth then pay and stay there; if not then we’ll move into some other place. We decided to go ahead whether or not it rains. All set and were eagerly waiting for the satuday.

Saturday came, Guru & Sakthi came, (surprisingly) the sun came, but not Maddy. His train arrived Central by 10.30 AM. We started a little late by 12.30 at Velachery. My Muthukarupan, Ravi’s bike and Sidd’s bike were selected for the drive. We went to Mahabalipuram for lunch. One guy blocked us and said that we have to pay 10 bucks to enter the city. We said then we’ll go back. ‘What!’ He said, ‘just for 10 Rs, you are not going to go back?’ I said we came here just for lunch, not for visiting the temples/shore. We are not tourists’. He got confused, but he let us without paying anything As none of us had breakfast, we had a hectic lunch. After lunch, we have to travel around 100 kms in the ECR and formed rules - not faster than 70, should always travel in a visible range, should change drivers etc, etc. But once we hit the road, everything changed. ECR was real good. There was a board saying that the speed limit is 80 kms, but our speedometer never touched it. It was always above it. We wanted to reach Pondy before it rained n so we went very fast. The weather was nice. It was cloudy, drizzing at many places, (but not road was not slippery) literally no traffic. The most annoying thing is the cows, goats and dogs passing by. You have to be careful, or else you might end up spending for repairing you and your vehicle. The worst thing is the whole village will be enjoying mutton and you have to pay for that Another not so good thing was the curves. There were lot of curves, few dangerous, will reduce your speed and increase the possibility of accidents. Drive carefully.

When we were 15 kms away from Pondy, it started raining. We waited for sometime, and looked at the sky above the Pondy side, it was dark and cloudy. We realized its not going to stop and decided to head into that heavy downpour. We can’t see whats in front of us before 100 fts. So we have to slow down to 30/40 Kms speed and move. On the way we say a board for a beach resort. I asked the guys, shall we try this? With a big Yes from everyone, we went into it. Found the rates were ok and immediately checked in. We were completely wet, so changed our clothes and came to the balcony. It was a bit big balcony and to see the rain was good. It was so dark and we couldn’t believe that it was just 4.00 pm! The rest of the day went fine. We were sitting and chatting. The food was good & the prices were OK. I’ve decided to have pause for NV & Booze till this year end. But the env. was so nice so went for both. 4 large of Whisky made the rest of the night wonderful. The weather forecast said that the next two days it will be heavy rains in Chennai and Pondy. But the weather was clear and it was a bright and sunny day. We checked out of the hotel by 10 AM. We went to beach, Ashram, and the Auro Ville. We planned to go to Chunnambar beach, but it was far from Auro Ville. So decided to see it during next trip. We started there at 1 PM. There was a restaurant in the middle of the ECR (40 kms from Mahabalipuram) called Mid-Way. It was a decent restaurant with decent food. After that we went for a movie in Mayajaal. Then we returned to Chennai & dinner was at Lotus Pond. Vens, Sels, Gow and his wife joined us. After a lot of noisy moments, the day ended up nicely. Had a good sleep and here I’m in office today. Just like yesterday, today also, as the weather forecast predicted, it rained heavily
No, not everything was perfect. After we had lunch on Sunday, we saw a board saying that there is a Fort and beach 3 kms away. We thought we’ll head in that direction. 2 more boards welcomed us stating that the fort is a protected monument. The road was really worse and it took us more than 10 mins to cross that 3 kms. Finally when we reached there, what we saw was remains of the fort’s walls. Nothing else. Sidd and Viv had a fall in the sand when they are travelling @ 10 kms speed. Apart from this that was a perfect trip.

written by Prakash G.R.

This weekend was a nice one. On Saturday we planned for a team outing in a resort in the ECR. Around 25 of our teammates were there and the whole day was full of fun. Went home at 10 PM and as usual chattings went till 12.30. The next morning I went to a place near Kancheepuram with Sels and Varda. The original plan was to drive a Santro, but as Sels dropped out from the plan, we both went in my bike. We took a short cut. Its a road after Tambaram. For a while, we were talking and didn’t notice much difference in the environment. After sometime, I could see no trace of Chennai, but only a normal rural scenes. Gals moving around in pavada-thavanis and retta jadais; bunch of people sitting in tracktor trailors, lots and lots of greeneries; etc. Within 5 kms all these changes ! The purpose of our trip was to visit a plot that we are supposed to buy. There was no water problem at all. I could see a well and in 10 feets there was water. The water tastes really good too. Overall we were satisfied with the place. While coming back I was enjoying the nice sceneries around. All till the road joins the Chengalpat highway. After that alas, the ugliness of Kuvampatti hits. Dusty roads, fast moving vehicles, crowd everywhere the humidity, , , , , . mmmm soon I want to leave the city.

OK. To end with a nice techie quote:

It is time to unmask the programming community as a Secret Society for the Creation and Preservation of Artificial Complexity.

Edsger W. Dijkstra: The next forty years (EWD 1051)

written by Prakash G.R.

I thought I’ll be blogging more with my weird American experiences. Unfortunately, I couldn’t devote much time to blog. Now I realize, only three more days left and then I’ll be flying back to Kuvampatti. Now, I’m having a break in my official work, so let me quickly blog abt my experiences. Here it goes:

All about Dallas

Dallas is a typical Mexican city. Actually its one of the twin cities - Dallas & Fort Worth. In the middle of these two cities is the DFW airport. For travelers in Texas and surrounding states, its a typical Madurai. One small difference is that in Madurai u can get a connecting bus to any city in the state & nearby states. Here u get a connecting flight. U can see a lot of flights around here. The area around the airport itself became a city and is now called as Dallas-Fortworth City!

The Skeleton …

The infrastructure is very good. No dogged-up roads, no water problem, no drainage problems, no power cuts, nothing. When all those primary needs are satisfied well, people here can relaxily worry about the flea on their cats or the prescription for their dogs for weight loss or the lawn is not so greeny as their neighbor’s or sue the coffee shop for not saying that the coffee is hot. They get everything at a lower cost. I can’t still figure the equation of how this works. Whether its a cup of coffee or a can of milk or a can of water or a gallon of petrol - all costs the same. May be I’m very bad in maths
The weather …

Unlike India, here the season changes are more visible. When I came here, it was the end of the Winter. I didn’t see much of greenery. Then the whole place changed in Spring. I open the window, I could see Tulips smiling. The same roads I travel regularly, is now surrounded with more greeny grass with lots of flowers blossomming between. The trees look good now. The weather is highly unpredictable. One day it rains heavily and the next morning, its a bright and sunny day as if nothing happened last night. The best part is u can’t find the signs of the downpour anywhere. Had it been our Kuvampatti, the muddy roads reminds u the rain at least for a week. People are so obsessed with the weather changes, that there is a separate channel for weather forecasts !

Where there is a H1B …

Compared with other states, Texas has the climates comparable with our Indian climate. Further things are cheap here. One can easily own a house here there in any other state. So you can find lot of Indians and Goltis here - don’t scare at me, I’ve blogged exactly the same words of a Golti without any change! Well, Goltis and Indians are not alone. Lot of Mexican can be found here, mostly illegal immigrants. They share the biggest part of the Non-American population. Where ever u go, u can see the usage of Spanish. Next biggest share is by Chinese people, Chinkus - as they call. Mostly of them came here and settled down 2 generations back. Next biggest share is our Goltis and then comes Indians These fellows are mostly H1B fellows and very few are Green card holders. This proves the Newton’s third law of US Immigration - “Where there is a H1B, there are at least three goltis”.

The problem with America is …

In the movie ‘Brave Heart’, the emperor would say ‘The problem with Scotland is, its full of Scotish people’. ‘What else u can expect in Scotland?’ - I thought. After coming here, I see that its completely other way around. ‘The problem with America is its full of Non-Americans!’. I take a Cab to go to office everyday. Everyday, I find a different national - Nigerian, Chinese, Sudanian, Afgan, Paki. Finally I settled down with a Palestinian. Everyday I go in his cab. If he is busy, when I call, he used to send some of his friends to give me a drop. He is always against America and Americans. (In fact the unofficial national anthem is composed by an immigrant!) He dislikes these fellows killing women and children in Afganisthan. He start with M.F. and start using all possible combinations of the F. word against America. One day when he was in good mood, I asked him how long u’ve been here in this country. He said 23 years ! Our man is very orthodox. When I asked him to take me to a strip club one weekend, he said, ‘No, my friend, that place is evil, and I won’t take u there. If I take u then I also share the evil.’ Then I’ve to use another cab, a friend of his, to go to Strip Clubs.

Strip Clubs

Strictly censored
The People …

This is a land of crazy people. Oru pana soothuku, oru sooru patham. I’ll explain one experience. One of my teammates checked in the same hotel on a noon. Evening, I came to the hotel and asked his room number in the reception. She said, ‘Sorry Sir, I can’t give u the room number’.(privacy) Then she said, but ‘u can talk to him. Pick up the phone, I’ll transfer u to his room’. I went to the phone in the corner of the same room and picked up the receiver. She said ‘now dial 0′. I did. Now she picked up the phone in her desk and looked at me and said talked to me over the phone ‘ Good evening Sir. How can I help you?’. Then I’ve to say I need to talk to my friend and then she transfered the call ! Quite a few experiences like this
Podungaiya vootu …

… namma sothu katchiya pathu. Food is something I enjoyed here as well as hated here. Breakfast is complementary in our hotel. I tasted the doughnuts and cereals for 2/3 days, but soon my habit of skipping breakfast took over. For lunch I used to go around the places visiting new restaurants everyday and tasting different food. Mostly Mexican restaurants, but I tasted Greek, Pakistan, Italian, Chinese, Indian and of course American food. I preferred Chicken, because mostly the other choices are Pepperoni and Beef. No Fanta/Miranda So I had to go for Sprite/7Up. We cooked dinner in the room, if I happen to return to room before 9 or I had it in the office itself @ company’s expense - which occurs mostly.

The coffee you get here is the original Columbian Coffee, which is pure and not adulterated with Chicory. Having tasted the coffee with chicory for more than two decades (Oh, I’m getting older), this coffee sucks. But now I used to this. U go to a coffee shop, you always get a black coffee. You need to mix Sweetener and Whitener (sugar and milk) yourself. There are lot of choices for both. Low-calorie, low-fat, normal, etc, etc,. These fellows care so much about health! During the dinner time in the office, every other day there is a big debate on the methods of carb cutting. (I’m a silent observer and after everything is over surely somebody will turn and look at me as if I’m a different animal from a whole new planet) You see a lot of alergy medicines, low-fat eatables, loose-40-pounds-in-30-days ads, etc, etc in the Tv.

TV Channels

Good. Nice movies, some times nice serials. I enjoy them. They don’t have any cultural restrictions and there are few documentaries that I really enjoy ;;-) Some time back, I saw a documentary on HBO. It started with an American lady arrested in China. They will suspect her as a terrorist. Reason? the car that she rented for her friend had few grains of TNT in the boot. Its evident to the viewer that she is really innocent. But the Chinese guy is not ready to give the benefit of doubt to her. He will torture her both verbally and physically. They officials will not answer properly to the American ambassador. I was wondering how come Americans got the guts to tease Chinese like this. It went on like this for the first 10 minutes. Then came the twist. The scene changes. An Afgan guy will be arrested in America. The scenes are repeated again. But this time with new actors. The Americans do the same thing to that poor guy, for signing in a rental car form. Then they toggle between both the scenes with same dialogs and different actors. At the end the message is displayed. Its something like: “The first scene never happened, but the other happens very often. Its because of our in-secure feeling, we are putting lot of innocent people in trouble. Doing so will only increase the potential threats against our nation. Clear international policies are the only solution.” Good HBO. You really got the guts and way of saying things. But I hope, still after viewing this 75% of Americans will want that Saddam to be executed because he is directly connected with 9/11 and a potential threat to the America’s security.

Small, the next big thing

Yes, I bought an iPod. Will blog all about it later

written by Prakash G.R.

Got settled down here. I’m living at Irving, its a county in Dallas. In fact, Dallas is 15 miles away from this place. My office is in another county, Grapevine, a historical place known for wines. My company has several offices in Dallas, around 20. And I guess this is the worst building. Its actually a warehouse converted into an office building. They primarily have this as a disaster recovery center with 200 people working around here. One advantage of being outside the city, is you don’t feel the traffic. Normally people stay away from the city and come into the city for work. I stay in the city and travel out for office. So the traffic is always in the opposite direction. Apart from that u don’t have anything special about this place. You have to travel at least 5 miles for a restaurant. The place looks more Mexican than American. There is a big mattu panni and a kuthirai laayam around. People drive big trucks to office. The food is more spicy & hot. All Mexican stuffs. The normal working hours of the office is 8-5. But in our team most of the people come in by 10 am and leave by 10 pm. So I wake up only at 8 and go to office at 9.30-10. Will be there till 10 PM and come back. Catch a cab everyday. These fellows are very strict in time. When they say, 9.23, they are @ the doors at 9.23. Discovered that no good places to visit here. I have to travel long to visit places and see the real America, if only I had enough time

written by Prakash G.R.

Here everything is big. I can’t see a monitor less than 21″. The Nissan Titan, is bigger than our Tata 407. The minimum quantity of the coffee is thrice as much as a coffee you would get in Saravana bhavan. When comparing the sizes, the word “small” is equal to the word “medium” in India. Be it be a size of the pizza or the size of the bra, its true. I forgot my belt in Kuvampatti, so thought I will buy one in Walmart. The smallest size available was 30″ and only 3 were in that size. When I asked the sales gal for a 28″, she laughed at me and said, “search in the boys section”. That was was full of kids belts. Certainly I can’t use them for office. So came back to mens section and selected one of the 30 I was wondering why. When I look at the Lays pack or the pepsi cup, I got the answer. No wonder u frequently see the “loose 15 pounds in 5 days” kind-of-ads here. Crazy people. Only in America you can see people ordering a double cheese pizza with a diet coke.

written by Prakash G.R.

I was lucky enough to get a window seat in both my flights. When the lufthansa landed in Dallas, I could immediately felt the Texas smell. People with cowboy hats driving the vehicles in the airport, the mud on the vehicles, the dry sun, etc. Checking out was smooth. All the tags that were tied to “unambiguously identify” my suitcase were not necessary. It was pretty easier to find my baggage. No hassles in security clearances. Finger prints, photographs, mmmmm, these fellows will never learn. Preemptive attacks for the non-existent weapons of mass destruction will not help preventing another 9/11. Rather its the other way. Its not that America is invulnerable. Its already proved in 9/11 that to bring down the two of the tallest buildings in the most powerful nation, all it needs is a perfect plan, few angry minded people and 2 knifes. No weapons of mass destruction is needed. Oops! Diverted from the topic. Then we came out and my teammates friend had come to pick us. Big sized cars, broader roads, a relatively clean environment, yes, I’m not at home. Finally reached the hotel. Some Latin-American lady speaking English with a different ascent was there in the reception. Somehow, I don’t like staying in the ground floor. Esp the feeling of somebody walking outside can see my room thru the window doesn’t make me comfortable. So I asked which floor is the room. She replied its in the first floor. Happily said OK. Then to my surprise the room indeed was in the ground floor. I was puzzled and asked my teammate, he replied back. Well, here first floor means our ground floor. Oh! So got bit but the cultural differences bug. Can’t help The suite was neat. Equipped with hair drier to iron box. Alarm clock, TV, radio, fridge, oven, etc, etc. Good. Went out to a near-by desi shop for shopping. Everything is different, the switches were upside down(or downside up?); no flames in the stove - electric heater; the same vegetables looks odd; the rice tastes different; everything is different. Cooked some rice & sambar and had dinner. Set the temperature in the AC/heater and went to bed. No fan. Without the feeling of the air movements, again it was odd. No sound too. It was dead silent. Then I heard a sssooooooiiiiiiiiiiiing sound of a mosquito in my ears. Ha! Felt home Pulled up my blanket and slept.

written by Prakash G.R.

After a loooong time & crossing all the passport-troubles, finally I’m in Dallas now This was my first flight experience and so anxiously waiting in the long queue for getting the boarding pass. The lady in the counter first weighed my suitcase and then she asked me to keep my hand luggage for checking the weight. I kept my bag and she didn’t respond for few seconds. She looked at me and asked ‘ that’s it?’ I was having a small bag - better to call it a pouch, and nothing else. I said, ‘yes’. She laughed into smiles and said, ‘perfect. You don’t have to weigh this’. Travel light
It was midnight when the flight took off. When the flight started moving in the land, I thought, how good it will be my Pulsar had this pickup & speed! When the flight took off, I could see Chennai, from the bird’s eye view. All of a sudden, Chennai was beautiful. Singara Chennai is no more an oxymoron. But in the night, the flight was crossing many other cities and I found that not only Chennai, but most of the other cities are also beautiful, if looked from the sky. CPM buses will have better seats than the economy class seats in Boeing. Its ok for short trips, but for going half way across the globe, its certainly uncomfortable. I certainly didn’t expect that the cute lady from German will be serving me kicked, oothampam and chutney as breakfast in Luftansa!!! They even had Tamil songs played in the Radio and TV in the flight. I landed Frankfurt next morning. It was fully covered with snow. The connecting flight was delayed by an hour. The flight from Frankfurt to Dallas, was bit better than the earlier one. When it was flying above Greenland, there was turbulence. Although I’ve heard about air turbulence earlier, I never expected that it will shook the flight that heavily! I looked out of the window. From the 35000 feet, what I could see was snow, snow and snow alone. Rarely I could see the tip of rocks. If something goes wrong, certainly u can’t survive. I’m not afraid of death, but I don’t want to die like this. The turbulence lasted for few minutes and then the rest of the journey was smooth. Reminded of nice quote:”Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that blackbox stuff?”.
By evening I landed Dallas-Fort Worth airport. At last I’m in Dallas

written by Prakash G.R.

After a long time our classmates decided to have a gettogether along with the new-year celebrations. We planned to go somewhere on the new year’s eve. But somehow the dates got preponed to x-mas weekend. After a small discussion, Karthi proposed Coorg. Looking at some tourism websites, which described it as the heaven-on-the-earth, we all decided it as the destination. 10 of us started here in chennai on x-mas eve and reached Bangalore in the morning. We scheduled to depart Bangalore @ 8 AM. But it was almost 11.30 when we crossed Honeywell. We stopped @ Srirangapatnam for lunch. Everybody was going into the small hotel there. Ganni, pointed a non-vegetarian hotel near-by for chicken briyani lovers. So six of us went there and sat. It looked like an abandoned placed and seems that we were the only customers! When we first asked for chicken briyani, the server cum cleaner cum owner cum cook said that its not available and after a momentary thought said its available. We ordered it. It was actually chicken pulav served in the name of the chicken briyani. Despite the bad taste, Karthi praised that the chicken was fresh, but I didn’t touch it as I reminded of vivek’s kaka briyani joke in the movie ‘Run’. After looooong journey, we reached there in the evening. We just had enough time to take bath and dressup for dinner - no site-seeing. The next day we went to some places and started our downwards journey in the evening. Two best places was worth mentioning. The first was Abbey falls. We have to take a 10 minutes walk from the parking lot thru the woods. Slowly you would be hearing the sound of the falls and suddendly in one turning, the falls come to eye sight. We were said that this year due to good rainfall, the water level was high. The second place was a river bed, where you have to cross the river in the boat to see an elephant camp. The place was looking very good and breeze was creating a nice atmosphere. As it was not so deep and there were lot of rocks in the surface of the river, we decided to cross the river by walk. We were walking carefully and slowly, and two little gals from that place said, “Uncle, give us way”, and were running on the rocks. Several of us fell down in the water and got completely wet. But those two were simply running and jumping on the rocks and crossing the river - experience does matters
Few noteworthy things in Coorg:
* We thought Coorg is name of the city, but hey, its a name given to the hilly area, and its the name of the district. We stayed in Madikeri, the capital of Coorg
* Most of the coffee estates are owned by Tamil Chettiars from the southern-districts of Tamil Nadu. Around 100 years back they considered investing in the real estates here would yield profit and they are right!
* As its a hill station, I thought it would be very chilling there. But Coorg’s just 1500 feet above MSL and it was the first hill-station, where I had to switch on the fan to sleep * Food was pretty decent there in Coorg. It didn’t cost much. 15 of us, had a good dinner and the bill was less than 1k.
* We thought that, as its a well-known tourist place and so we’ll have lot of ATMs and didn’t take much cash. To our surprise there was only two ATMs one is SBI, which will not accept other bank cards and luckily the other one, Corporation Bank ATM, accepts any VISA cards.
* When having breakfast in a near-by hotel, they were charging a penalty of Rs. 5, if you waste any food that you have ordered
* As the web-sites described, its not a great place. May be if we had gone for some trekking kind of activities, it would have been true, but in general, its just an another hill station.

written by Prakash G.R.